At 4:30 AM on November 2nd, my alarm went off in a hotel room in Midtown Manhattan. I got dressed in the dark, ate a banana, and walked to Times Square to meet a group of strangers wearing the same Fred’s Team jersey I was wearing. We took photos. We boarded buses to the start line in Staten Island. We sat in traffic for an hour and a half despite having a police escort.
By the time I actually started running at 9:45 AM, I’d already walked over two miles and stood in a security line for an hour. I’d eaten a bagel while standing up and changed clothes in a tent. The absurdity of marathon logistics is part of the experience, I guess. You don’t question it. You just do it along with 54,999 other people who are doing the same absurd thing.
Frank Sinatra was singing “New York, New York” as we ran up the Verrazzano Bridge. Boats shot water cannons into the harbor below. Helicopters circled overhead. It was completely over the top, which felt right for New York.
Running up that bridge, I looked at the people around me. Different ages, different countries, different reasons for being there. Some had charity names on their jerseys: Fred’s Team, Team Fox, American Cancer Society. Others wore costumes. One guy was dressed as Spider-Man. I kept seeing him for the next twenty miles.
I had names on my jersey too. Names of people who’d battled cancer. I was running with Fred’s Team, Memorial Sloan Kettering’s official marathon program, and every dollar raised goes directly to cancer research. One hundred percent. No overhead. Just money going to labs where people are trying to find cures.
The bridge descent into Brooklyn is steep. Your legs are fresh, and you want to fly down the hill, but you know better. Twenty-six miles is a long way. You save your energy.
Brooklyn
The crowds started around mile 3. Miles and miles of people lining the streets, holding signs, ringing cowbells, cheering for runners they’d never met.
What struck me was how personal it felt. They read the names on my jersey, mine and the names of the people I was running for. They chanted them. Strangers screaming “Go Paolo! For Deonna! For Elizabeth!” Names they didn’t know, people they’d never met.
Little kids stood at the edge of the course with their hands out for high-fives. I made it my goal to hit every single one. Some of them couldn’t have been more than five or six years old, but they took it seriously. These were not casual high-fives. One girl gave me a fist bump so enthusiastic she nearly knocked herself over.
Around mile 7, a kid handed me tissues. My nose was running. It’s November in New York after all. This kid, maybe eight years old, was standing there with a box of Kleenex, handing them out to runners. He gave me a handful and said, “You’re my hero!” He meant it.
For miles in Brooklyn, people made me feel like I was something special. But I was just a runner. Just a Filipino-American guy from Charleston, SC trying to finish a race. There were 54,999 other people doing the same thing, and they were cheering for all of us like we were heroes.
I thought about why they do this. Why wake up early on a Sunday to stand on a street corner for hours, cheering for strangers? There’s no good reason except that people show up for each other sometimes. That’s enough, I guess.
The Japanese Runner
Around mile 11, I fell into pace with a Japanese runner. We ran together in silence for a while. That’s how it usually goes. You match someone’s rhythm, run side by side, and eventually one of you says something.
“Fred’s Team?” he said, pointing at my jersey.
“Yeah. Memorial Sloan Kettering. Cancer research.”
He nodded, reading the text on the back of my jersey. “Imagine a World Free from Cancer.”
“That’s the goal,” I said.
We ran quietly for another half mile or so. Then he said, “My father died. Cancer. Last year.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Thank you.” He paused. “I’m Jerry. From Osaka.”
“Paolo. Charleston.”
We settled back into running. A few minutes passed. Then I asked, “How’s it feeling?”
“Hard,” he said, laughing a little. “I never ran more than twenty-one kilometers before today.”
“You’re almost past that now. You’re good.”
“Maybe.” He didn’t sound convinced.
We hit a water station and both grabbed cups. Drank while running, threw the cups aside. Found our rhythm again.
“You like baseball?” he asked.
“Dodgers fan. You?”
“Swallows. But also Yankees.”
“Yankees?” I shook my head. “We’re going to have to disagree on that.”
He laughed. “Everyone in Japan watches Ohtani now though.”
We talked about Shohei for the next mile or so. What it meant to watch him play. Yamamoto pitching in the World Series. I told him I grew up in the Philippines, so baseball wasn’t really my sport growing up, but I got into it living in the States.
“Your father watched Ohtani?” I asked.
“Yes. He loved watching him. We would watch together.”
We ran in silence after that. Not an uncomfortable silence, just the kind where you don’t need to fill the space with words.
Around mile 15, he started to pull ahead slightly. His pace was steadier than mine. I gave him a thumbs up. He returned it and kept going.
I lost him in the crowd after that. I looked for his jersey a few times but never saw him again.
The Bridge
Mile 16. The Queensboro Bridge. No spectators allowed, just runners and the sound of breathing and footsteps. After the noise of Brooklyn and Queens, the silence was jarring.
This is where the marathon gets hard. Your legs start to hurt. Your knees ache. Parts of you that you didn’t know could hurt start hurting.
I thought about stopping. I thought about 2007, when I walked off this course at mile 19. I thought about all the reasons I could quit.
Then I thought about the names on my jersey. The people who didn’t get to choose whether to keep going. The researchers at MSK working to find treatments. Jerry’s father. The nurses and doctors and families in waiting rooms.
I kept repeating my mantra: “Cancer sucks worse.”
It does. When you’re running and everything hurts, you can still put one foot in front of the other. You can still choose to keep going.
I kept going.
First Avenue
Coming off the Queensboro Bridge onto First Avenue, the noise hit me before I saw the crowds. After the silence of the bridge, it felt like stepping into a stadium at full volume. The sound was physical. It made my chest vibrate.
They were cheering for everyone. The fast runners and the slow runners. The guy dressed as Spider-Man who I’d been seeing since Brooklyn. The woman limping next to me. Me.
New York has a reputation for being tough, indifferent. But on marathon day, the city shows up. Hundreds of thousands of people lining the streets, cheering for strangers. Volunteers handing out water, bananas, pretzels. Bands playing on street corners. People holding signs that said “You’re running better than our government!” and “Worst parade ever!” and “Run like Cuomo is behind you!”
A woman held a sign that said, “Your almost there”, next to a man with a sign saying “She’s bad at math”. I laughed despite my legs screaming at me.
The Final Miles
Miles 20 through 26 are a blur. The Bronx, briefly. Then back to Manhattan. Harlem. Central Park. My body stopped negotiating and started threatening to shut down entirely. But the crowds never stopped. The energy never dropped.
At mile 23, a volunteer handed me a cup of water and said, “You’re doing great, Paolo.” She looked me in the eye when she said it. Like she actually knew me and actually meant it. Like what I was doing mattered.
At mile 25, I passed a woman wearing a shirt that said “In memory of Mom.” We exchanged nods. No words. Just the acknowledgment that we understood each other.
The final stretch into Central Park. The finish line ahead. People screaming. My legs barely working. But moving forward.
I crossed at 5:07:52. Eighteen years and 5:07:52, if you’re counting from 2007. Not fast. But finished.
A volunteer caught me when my legs decided to stop working. Someone put a medal around my neck. Someone else gave me a snack pack with water and gatorade. Someone put a NYC Marathon finishers poncho on me like she was putting a cape around a king. I don’t remember much else except the noise.
What I’ll Remember
Today my legs hurt. Tomorrow they’ll probably hurt worse. But that’s not what I’m thinking about. Fifty-five thousand people ran yesterday. The marathon raised over $50 million for charity. Fred’s Team sent 1000 runners, every dollar going to cancer research. These are the official numbers.
But what I remember are the unofficial ones. The kid who called me his hero. Jerry talking about his father. The volunteer at mile 23 who seemed to know me although we’ve never met. I remember 55,000 people showing up to do something difficult for 55,000 different reasons. Some of us love running. Some of us hate it. We come from different countries, speak different languages, believe different things. But for one day, we ran the same race. We cheered for each other. We helped each other.
For 26.2 miles, we were just people who showed up.
And that, I think, is enough.