New York City Marathon 1997

So it was another Sunday morning in the big city. There I was, reading the New York Times and sipping my coffee with the TV in the background tuned to the marathon coverage. When the race started, I looked out my window towards the Verrazano Bridge. For one moment, I thought I was back in San Francisco. I took this photograph from Midtown looking southward at start time (~1030am). On a clear day, the Bridge would be visible slightly right of the middle (Wall Street is to the far right and the standalone tall building is Confucius Plaza, Chinatown).

The weather got worse from there: fog, drizzle, wind, rain, heavier rain, extremely heavy rain, thunder, lightning (Wait! Doesn't George always say to stop running immediately and seek shelter if there is lightning!?) ... Everyone got drenched:- runners, officials, volunteers, spectators, reporters, photographers, etc. Most people felt miserable, with the exception of ducks and Englishmen (to name one, Alan Ruben).

Since we did not have any deep-sea diving photographic equipment, we were not able to take many usable photos under the adverse conditions. As a matter of fact, our camera uses floppy disks for storage and that was a major problem once the heavy rains came. Here are the usable photographs (annotated with our impressions), taken somewhere between Cleopatra's Needle and Cat Hill in Central Park, just past the 24 mile mark:

• Peter Allen (his experience showed, as he was clearly running under control)
• Ricardo Granados (looking slightly disappointed perhaps, as his teammate Luis Peña, whom he beat at Grete's Great Gallop, is now long gone)
• Charlie Stark (running really well, but why is he looking at the ground?)
• Casey Yamazaki (he looks like he is riding on a divine wind; he still had that efficient form and gave no hint of any hamstring problem)
• Michael Garland (he was taking short strides at this point, maybe thinking about the soccer ball again?)
• Alan Turner (he did not look happy, but then he always looks serious when he races. But our coach would make a distinction between different states of unhappiness: when Alan is mad, he runs strong; when Alan is disgusted, he loses concentration. At least this time he would not have Rick Shaver trying to sneak past him at the end.)
• Thomas Pennell (the weather did not seem to bother him; after all, he is a triathelete. He did inform people beforehand to look out for that light green bandana)
• Julie Denney (we will say that Julie looks the strongest of all our runners --- male as well as female --- at this point of the race, being still able to use her arms; but compared to winning SOS this year, a marathon must look like a blip)

Even as we write these words, we can already hear the howling about unequal representation coming from our women. Well, first of all, the rain really turned heavy after the above people went by. Second, you people should really do something about those undistinguished dark colors --- maybe wear neon orange ribbons, or something.

Elsewhere on the course, Fasil Yilma managed to take of a picture of Audrey Kingsley. We would have gladly published the photo here. But when Audrey saw the printed photo, she promptly confiscated it and ordered the negative to be destroyed.

Television Coverage

As is our practice, we videotape all TV broadcast events and check for the presence of our members. We are handicapped by having only a 15-year-old VCR and a 4-year-old video capture board, so our pictures are not professional material. At any rate, here is what we have found.

• Photo 1: A short time after the women merged with the men in Brooklyn, we found the leading women running in a single file (right to left): Franziska Rochat-Moser, Franca Fiaccone, Colleen de Reuck, and Tegla Loroupe who has our Alan Ruben on her right.
  Our coach George Wisniewski is not visible here, but his wife Wendy said that she heard George's voice screaming, "Go! Go! Go!" on television.
• Photo 2: Yet another picture of Alan Ruben, who got plenty of television coverage as this shot sequence went on for multiple seconds.
  Our teamate Michael Sheren, who is currently a resident of London, sent in this e-message to Stacy Creamer: "I had a weird marathon experience: I was in a small cafe outside of Florence (Italy), I looked up at the TV that was on, and there was Alan Ruben!!! He was running with the lead women and a group of other male runners. I thought I saw Tim Robinson with Alan as well but could not be sure. What a small world! When you see Alan next, please relay the story." For the record, Tim was not in the race.
• Photo 3: Some minutes later, Alan Ruben (to the farthest left, behind Tegla Loroupe) is still with the lead pack of women.
• Photo 4: We did find a couple of other Central Park Track Club runners on the broadcast, but it was not easy. This photo shows Casey Yamazaki in a big crowd of runners on First Avenue. It was easier to locate him in motion, as he was running in his characteristic efficient form while reaching for a drink.
• Photo 5: In this photo, Michael Garland is at the bottom lefthandmost corner. The only reason we can tell is that ORANGE UNIFORM! So, is our Uniform Committee listening?