Emotional Air Courses Through New York Marathon

There usually aren’t too many spectators in Spanish Harlem near the 19-mile marker.

The crowd watching the New York City Marathon usually thins out after 96th Street and First Avenue. And then for several miles, the runners--many grim-faced and hallucinating at this point--are cheered on by a dedicated group of eccentrics. Like the two guys jamming Pink Floyd on electric guitars and the old man in a Yankees batting helmet, wildly ringing a bell.

But this year, the marathon was altogether different--and in many ways exactly the same. Which in itself was an accomplishment.

As usual, the guitarists and the Yankees fanatic were singing and ringing on First Avenue. And thousands who registered for this endurance test ignored all the reasons to drop out and pounded the streets of five city boroughs for 26.2 miles.

But for this first international event in New York since it was attacked by terrorists Sept. 11, there were thousands more spectators in Spanish Harlem. And hundreds of them were waving American flags. And a dozen Girl Scouts from Long Island were even belting out “Go USA” at the corner of 98th Street and First Avenue every time a runner representing the New York City Fire Department passed by.

“Gooooo USA!” 13-year-old Katanya Herald screamed. “Go New York firefighters! Go Engine 33! . . . Go, girl, go!”

Oops.

Katanya and her troop from Ronkonkoma got a little carried away and ended up doing what spectators usually do: They hollered for hours at the top of their lungs for every stranger wearing a name tag.

Katanya explained that while she had been “scared to death” to come into Manhattan because “some terrorist might dump a load of anthrax from an airplane on top of us,” she’d forgotten about all that and was “having a blast.”

All this getting back to normal was just what New York needed, said Bryant McBride, 34, who was running for the seventh time in the New York marathon.

But as he took a break at mile 19, he also said that he’d never felt such a sense of purpose as he did running the race this year.

“I’ve always run for a friend of mine who died, but this time there are so many more people to think about,” McBride said as his wife, Tina, spread Ben Gay on his sore knees and his 3-year-old son fed him a banana. “There’s just more emotion in the air.”

Many runners reported that the prevailing emotion before the race--which started on Staten Island and continued across the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge to Brooklyn--was cold fear.

“I kept wondering how many pounds of plastique it would take for someone to wear to blow up that bridge with 30,000 people on it,” said Alison Nadech, a 31-year-old attorney running her third marathon here. “But I forced myself to think about something else.”

Race organizers said concerns about safety did keep some people away: Instead of the 32,000 expected to run, about 25,000 showed up from 100 countries.

David Walsh, a 33-year-old New York investment banker, said he had trepidations, but forgot them after the start of the race and just enjoyed the sights of neighborhoods he had never visited in all his years living in New York.

By the time he had crossed the finish line in 3 hours and 43 minutes, Walsh said, he felt a sense of exhilaration like never before.

“The race itself really symbolizes a lot of things not just New York, but the whole country, needs right now,” he said. “Like perseverance, determination and discipline. You can’t wake up one morning and decide to run a marathon. And you can’t get on with things overnight without determination. This race, coming off so well, is part of that.”

But the marathon course really reflected a mix of the pre- and post-Sept. 11 New York. There were all the same crazy runners: the ones in weird hats, the Elvis look-alike and the guy wearing a winter jacket, gold stockings and carrying a pizza box with a bottle of water on top.

There also were at least a dozen running for relatives or friends who were supposed to have been in the marathon but who died at the World Trade Center. Fathers substituted for sons and friends filled in for training partners. One runner wore a T-shirt that read: “For Billy who died 9-11-01” on the front and had a picture of a handsome firefighter on the back.

Also, sharpshooters appeared on rooftops along the course, and New York Harbor was closed to traffic.

The tiny nasal strips that runners wear across the bridge of their noses to help keep their sinuses clear were red, white and blue instead of just plain white.

Ulf Dittmar, a software executive from Boston who came to cheer his sister, Urte, said that he sensed New Yorkers had been slowed down, if not humbled by, the terrorist attack.

“People seem less rude, less hurried,” said Dittmar, who often comes here on business. “It’s hard to pinpoint, but I just feel it’s a kinder place.”

He was amused to see New York’s ubiquitous Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani--bug-eyed from having flown back to New York overnight from Arizona, where his Yankees were battling in the World Series. Giuliani, riding in a convertible limousine, led the runners through the course.

“He’s not going to miss a chance to be in the center, is he?” Dittmar said smiling.

Ultimately, what might have made this marathon dedicated to the Sept. 11 dead such a success was the perfect weather.

And it was perfect--sunny and clear for the spectators and just cool enough for the runners.

McBride wondered if that too was part of some grander scheme “from above” to get New York back to normal.

“You never know in November,” he said. “Sometimes it can be cold and rainy, and no one shows up to cheer the runners. But today was perfect. And maybe that was about those people who died Sept. 11--smiling down on us, cheering us on, saying: ‘Go, New York, go.’ ”