NBR at the 2023 TCS NYC Marathon
If it’s the first Sunday in November, you know NBR will be hitting the streets.
And this year was no different — more than 200 members of the North Brooklyn Runners ran the 2023 TCS New York City Marathon - dozens more volunteered at the mile 12 water station… and countless more cheered their teammates on from Staten Island to Central Park.
The weather was perfect for PRs - 45 in fact! And the energy on Bedford Avenue certainly gave our more than 100 NYC marathon first timers the pop they needed to make it over the Queensboro Bridge a few miles later (OK, maybe not.)
It’s been a little over a week since race day - and while you are no doubt already filling up your 2024 race calendars - we wanted to take a final look back at the the world’s biggest block party with some of your pics and race reports.
Susan Burns: A tale of two halves
2022 was my first marathon ever. After a great Brooklyn Half, I had high hopes for the marathon. But the weather was so hot, everything after mile 18 was pure torture, I had intense leg cramps that would not go away with stretching, salt, etc. By the time I got to the park I wanted to rip my name off my shirt because I just did not believe anyone who yelled, "looking good!" at me. I ended up finishing half an hour worse than I had imagined with the thought, "I don't know why anyone would ever run a marathon." But, I had done the 9 plus one and qualified for this year...
This year was so amazing! I was trying to keep my dreams realistic and my start conservative and I ran with a pacer until the Queensboro bridge when I lost him. I saw a lot of friends in Brooklyn and Queens and I was on a high. Miles 18-20 were hard but I had my goal in mind and was striving to catch up to that pacer on First Avenue. Miles 20-26.2 were difficult but nowhere near as painful as last year. I never got the intense cramps, I absolutely loved the crowd yelling my name and slapped as many hands as I could. I had a cheesy smile on my face the whole time and broke down in tears at the finish when I saw I PR'd by 30 minutes. I am feeling like a beast now and full of gratitude. I am hooked!
Kostas Tsigaridis
My second marathon is in the books (both NYC), with a 25 minute PR! Yes, it sounds huge, but I was neither better prepared nor faster. I was only experienced, and experience counts loads for the marathon distance, so walked far less than last year, probably not even a half mile. Oh, and the weather was like a million times better. Looking back to November 5, 2023, what I will remember is the amazing race I had for the first 20 miles, and then the huge difference a bad decision made for the remaining 6. I will certainly remember the suffering for most of Central Park, but above all I will remember all those amazing people from NBR I saw along the course: from starting the race together, to volunteering in mile 12, to cheering and calling my name along the course, to meeting by chance right at the finish line, you guys rock. There is nothing like being recognized as an individual while running, and all of you that either looked at me in the eye shouting during the race, or told me later “I saw you!”, or even said “Oh, I missed you!”, know that you make the difference. Even wiser next year, off to NYC 2024!
Sean Laude
My NYC Marathon experience was bittersweet for many reasons. Back in 2019, both my now-wife, then-girlfriend Lisa and I were awarded team spots for the Marathon, but I did not end up running that year. I managed to injure myself the first week of the training cycle - luckily I was spared the embarrassment of having to write a team spot check-in that would have amounted to "lol ". I had DNF'd at Chicago the year before, so the chip on my shoulder just got bigger. Then 2020 steamrolled any semblance of normal life, let alone seeking redemption for some absurd pursuit of meaning over 26.2 miles.
Every week for nearly six years, I had the immense privilege of leading Tuesday Night Tempo with some of the finest run leaders in the club. In true Tempo form, we ran hill repeats two days before the suspension of group runs. Three weeks later, Lisa got accepted to grad school in Copenhagen, and by the end of August we had eagerly started a new life abroad. I traded East River bridges for North Sea wind; the busy, concrete grid of streets for the vast solitude of birch groves and crushed gravel outside my door; community for the kind of inner reliance it takes to exist - let alone run - in the depths of Nordic winter. Fast-forward to last summer: we moved back stateside last summer: we moved back stateside to Ithaca, bought a house that needs updating, celebrated our marriage, adopted a golden retriever: the trappings of life you can afford outside the Big City. Throughout all the life changes and adjustments was this one race I had deferred as long as possible, to feel as prepared and ready as possible.
I opted for the bus from Midtown to Ft. Wadsworth. This commenced an unexpected journey of nostalgia, whose first act was set to an appropriately dramatic sunrise over Brooklyn. It dawned on me the fact that my core memories of New York are mostly through the lens of running: across the river, the waterfront Avenues I strode on nearly ever run, transformed from forgotten industrial corridors to glassy condo driveways; high up above, the landing on the bridge where we waited for everyone to regroup after the last effort, high-five, and stretch before trundling off the bar; near the last exit in Brooklyn, the spot on the Gowanus Expressway where the magnets flew off our team's van on a 100+ mile relay to Philly.
The biggest post-NYC change in my training (behind consistency and structure) was switching to kilometers to set a new standard for my running ability. And yet, "4:15" was still just an indecipherable string of numbers, one my Garmin informed me was too hot for the first half of the race. It is impossible not to feed on the energy of the crowds and give that energy back to the race. I gave an unfamiliar NBRior a fist bump passing them up Lafayette. I cajoled every run club I could recognize to make some noise with as much frenzied arm raising I could muster - and they happily, wildly obliged. And then I hit the Northside on Bedford. All I could do was point and wave at the overwhelming noise and frenzy on my home turf. I barely spotted a cluster of friends: Jen, Skiz and Masha among them - and was greeted with a confetti cannon (thank you, Drew Reynolds ). After a push from the team squad in Greenpoint, I was spirited along by the teammates who scattered themselves along the course in Queens - I credit you all with getting me to the Queensboro with a smile on my face.
Living in a place where the hills are exclusively 10% inclines has the singular benefit of teaching you how to get uphill: by finesse, not brute force. My other innovation: watching heart rate instead of pace. GPS is all kinds of screwed up on the bridge and First Avenue, and you will not make it to Central Park at 4th Ave pace. I slowed down. I moderated my effort. I never hit a wall, but between a surprise cheer from my longtime co-run-leader Stermer in the Bronx and seeing Lisa at mile 23, I entered a deep well of hurt. The last time I entered the park during the marathon, I had slowed to a crawl, un-PRing by 11 minutes (and ended up in the med tent after the finish). But that day I was positively flying. My mind rewound to the times I had set PRs at various distances on this hallowed drive, their memory re-circulating through my legs. The hurt deepened past Cat Hill but my training prevailed. I changed gears at 800m to go, at 400, at 200. At last, my characteristic finish: a grimace, but my hands in a heart over my chest.
I found Gregg Baldinger in the shuffle towards the exit, and managed to sputter out, "I just want to be as fast as you when I'm your age". He assured me that I can do it, but cautioned: "don't forget, I took a 10 year break". The ebb and flow of my experience with running is now measured in decades - I do myself no favors comparing the person I am today with the runner who DNF'd five years ago or who even set a personal best seven years ago. What made this season different was giving every kilometer of effort and training the respect it demands. I am grateful to the NBR of yesteryear for giving me this opportunity - I will never forget the people I've met and the times we've shared. It's heartening to see the NBR of today continue to bring the community together (and run hills every month at Tempo!). Thank you to my friends and family, far and near, and especially to my wife, for bringing me home to the finish.
