#166 - Still Counts!
or: marathons are so funny humans are so cool
Every year throughout high school I woke up once a year at the crack of dawn to go volunteer at the Vermont City Marathon. My friends mom worked for The Red Cross and we'd always have a great time losing our voices at the top of Battery Hill screaming "waterwaterwater" as all the ruunners went by.
The one drawback was that the Red Cross and Medic tents have mmmm similar flags and after that giant hill a lot of the runners would be seeking medical attention and while most of the people there were nurses by the fourth year it did feel a little like the city had uh, mismanaged the placement.
Marathons are so fun.
I had to import this to iMovie, export, and then trim it down. was it worth it? no!
They're such a silly slice of life but also really impressive and moving and meaningful.
So now, for the second year in a row, I woke up and headed to Williamsburg to stand on Bedford Avenue and cheer on a bunch of strangers who have far more commitment to Doing A Feat Of Human Strength than I do!
And while we get there early because that's when it's the best time to grab a spot (and don't worry, you can't spoil that tip because some people just refuse to wake up early and then get mad when there are "no good spots" and try and shove the people that have been patiently standing there for like two hours) it's the people who make up the caboose that I have the softest spot for.
Because like, still counts.
Still finished a marathon. Still did something most people will never do. Still traveled 26.2 miles on foot in a single day.
And while it's very impressive and cool to see the people in the lead, it's so much more fun to see the dude dressed as a banana pull something out of his banana-shaped pouch.
I love the people who hype the crowd up, I love all the people who make fun signs to support their friends, and I especially loved the people who brought a little table down from their apartment to set their drinks/food on. 100/10 totally stealing that in the future they're just straight up bringing ledges with them, love this idea!
The vibes are good, and the streets are lined with supporters, because most humans are pretty fucking chill actually.
And the NYC marathon has a ton of people who run it for a cause, and seeing someone run by in a Bowery Mission Volunteer t-shirt like this guy has enough time to make change in his community and train for the marathon?
The guides and the pacers and all of the volunteers just make the whole day an incredible feat of human cooperation and that's not even counting the runners who year after year do this awesome thing with little injury and no malice on the course. Like sure, it's a race against themselves, but that peleton gets intense and accidents happen!
Plus << William Shatner in Miss Congeniality voice >> you might even spot a few celebritiiiies. We saw Matt James from The Bachelor (I only know for sure because he was out in front in a little duo and I commented on the tail he was wearing), did not realize it was him, and spent five minutes talking about the fact that we don't really watch Bachelor anymore.
A few new york state politicians ran too! My favorite Socialist Mayoral Candidate, Zohran Kwame Mamdani ran it wearing a shirt that says Eric Adams Raised My Rent on the front and he promises to freeze rent on the back when elected!And like whooo policies I agree with but also he's hot. His campaign has 1 million things to highlight before that so let me just say it now! (&& we should have more hot politicians in office in general.)
If you're a New York City resident you can donate to his campaign here and get your funds matched by the city!
(You know who CAN'T get his funds matched by the city? Eric Adams. Because he committed campaign finance fraud. So while I'm still not sure why he can even run again, I will take immense pleasure in reminding everyone every chance I get that Eric Adams is a fucking loser.)
Anyway, I love this city and the people in it and the fact that I get around via the train and the coffee and the churro croissant I ate and getting ready to go out in my little sporty look and oh BABY what a day!
A lot of things have felt really bad lately. Understatement of the century. But humans are so fucking cool and capable of anything they want to do. And I think a lot of us really do want to make the world a better place!
And that makes me feel like we'll get there.
One well-paced step at a time.