Cut to marathon Sunday. Happily, Trish and I didn’t have to wake up at 5:00am to get Al on the shuttle bus to the starting line. That’s what girlfriends are for. Instead, we agreed to meet at a more civilized 11:30am on the Queen’s side of the 59th Street Bridge (a.k.a. mile marker 15). If you’ve never attended the NYC marathon in person, you really can’t get the full emotional impact of those thousands of runners from around the world being cheered on by several thousand more spectators for the entire length of the 26.2 mile course. I, of course, joke about watching the “cripples get over the bridge.” But in actuality, it’s just my pathetically cynical way of hiding the fact that watching the handicapped runners go by actually makes me weep like a 12-year-old girl at a Jonas’ Brothers concert.
After a couple of missed “where-are-you?” calls, we finally hooked up with Bridget under the Queensborough Plaza subway station. We then waited patiently behind the throng of spectators pressed up against the barricades, looking for our chance to pounce on any unsupervised front row real estate. Finally some unwary German tourist accidentally took half a step backward and we made our move - you snooze, you loose. After insinuating ourselves in front of the stunned German, we hunkered down to wait for Al to run past. He was obviously not trying to break any world records, because he arrived well after his projected time. His modeling and smooch session with Bridget at the mile marker didn’t help him out with the clock either. But hell, we were just happy he was still standing considering he had just run the Chicago marathon three weeks ago and was complaining about how tired he was after walking three blocks to his hotel just 24 hours earlier.
Since standing still and watching athletes push themselves to their physical limits is actually quite tiring (and it was friggin’ cold out), we decided to screw Al and get some food instead of trekking to the Upper East Side for more cheering. I mean, there were thousands of other people to encourage him along the route, right? Why use up all our valuable relaxation time? - so selfish. Anyway, after warming up and grabbing some food at the Time Warner Center’s Whole Foods, we headed to the 26 mile marker for the final push to the finish. This is always my favorite marathon viewing spot because the runners either look crazy-happy being so close to the end, or look like they are going to die. Either way, it’s always a good time. It’s also a good spot to yell out runners’ names and confuse they hell out of them and probably fuck up their concentration really close to the finish line. Hilarious. And before you get all, “Fausto, you’re so mean” and shit, the runners voluntarily sprawl their names on their t-shirts. If you don’t want me (or the thousands of others screaming out names) to fuck with you, don’t wear your name across your chest in 5-inch high letters. Anyway, Al breezed by us a few minutes later than expected - probably because he was so busy texting us through the whole race.
After another frigid wait on Central Park West, we finally met Al almost an hour after he actually finished the race. Turns out getting your belongings and finding your loved ones is a pretty difficult task with over 30,000 runners. Some of which, according to Al, were dropping like flies around him after crossing the finish line. We walked (Al limped) toward his hotel and then Trish and I headed home to get ready for the after-marathon dinner at Margot’s place on Long Island. Again, let me preface this by saying that I love my cousins. But it was sort of a pain in the ass to drive an hour into Long Island to eat dinner and then just turn around and come back, especially with a tired and hobbled marathoner in the back seat. But family is family and I’m sure we’ll eventually have to ask them for some horrible favor that they’ll now be forced to return. We did score on the food front with lots of tasty Filipino leftovers to take home with us, so the evening wasn’t a complete wash-out. We also had the pleasure of skirting around some dirty family laundry so as not to scare the bejesus out of innocent family-dinner-first-timer, Bridget. She’ll be entangled in the Pimentel-Pineda web of intrigue, lies and uncomfortable family secrets soon enough. Girl, get out while you still can. We finally got home well after midnight after dropping Al and Bridget off in the city. Even we’re (make that “I’m”) not mean enough to make someone wait for an N train at midnight on a Sunday.
Continued under “Crazy-ass Week Part Trois”
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