Students Reflect On Marathon Pain and Joy of Reaching the Finish Line

When you arrive [at the finish line] it’s kind of cool. It’s such a relief. I was so tired ... from the moment we went back in Manhattan after the Bronx—so it’s like four or five miles until your arrival—it’s kind of difficult because first you’re bored, physically, it’s boring, your body is suffering and you have to go on Fifth Avenue from 138th, where it’s the beginning of Manhattan, until 59th Street, so it’s kind of a long run. Even if people are cheering, applauding, it’s long. And also it’s going uphill between the beginning of the park until the Guggenheim and at that stage every time it’s going uphill, even if it’s 1 percent, you feel everything in your body. But when you arrive you try to enjoy because you know that you made it, you know that it’s, for anyone, for anyone—the guy who’s doing it in two hours and ten minutes for the champion, and the guys doing it in seven hours—I think for everyone it’s an achievement. So you try to enjoy it but you’re suffering so much, not suffering but it’s a bit painful, so it’s not super enjoyable. To come back to your question, I think the beginning is great because it’s exciting, all the people, it’s easy to run, you know you train. When you’re out in Brooklyn it’s great, because it’s when there are a lot of people. One of my favorite parts is just after the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Lafayette Street because there the street is a bit narrower. It’s narrower, you have trees, it’s Indian summer, the colors are beautiful, the people are really around you, there are no barriers. When you’re running the New York Marathon you know you live in the city. It’s a very, very strong relationship between the runners and the city. It’s really amazing, that’s one of my favorite parts.
—Jobic de Calan, second-year student at Columbia Business School

I pretty much enjoyed the race for the first 20 miles or so, I was feeling great and I also tried to reserve the energy because I ran last year so I knew that if I pushed too hard I would be suffering for the second half or for the last few miles. So I tried to relax a little bit in the first half and in the first 16 miles ... but after mile 20, 21 I started feeling like my muscles were getting tight, the calves and hamstrings and also quads. After mile 21 my left calf started cramping, literally cramping. Not that bad, it was cramping but I decided I couldn’t stop, if I stopped I would screw my whole run so I stick to it. It cramped for about a few minutes, at least a couple of minutes, my left calf. So I slowed down a little bit and tried to concentrate on my running and tried to not let it get more serious. Luckily after a few minutes the cramp kind of faded away, but still the muscles all over both of my legs were very tight, all the muscle
groups. At that point I was still trying to make the three hour—my time goal. I don’t know. I felt pretty good actually at that point even after I was cramping. I slowed down a little bit, just trying to control myself and not let it cramp again. I was still feeling good in terms of my breathing. I wasn’t feeling tired, I wasn’t feeling that exhausted. And I was still passing runners. [Only] a few people were passing me, so I was feeling pretty good. I was just worried. “Okay don’t cramp again, don’t cramp again.” Otherwise, you were just screwed. I just stick to it. All the way to mile 26, I was still thinking I had a nice shot at three hours—my time goal—but by the time I reached the finish line I saw it was three hours and one minute, so I was one minute shy of my time goal. I was a little bit sad but it was okay. I was thinking that maybe next time... Running is a process, you never give up even if you don’t make it this time.
—Junhua Shen, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Department of Electrical Engineering

I just got so nervous before, and I’m used to running a lot and you have to taper before for two weeks and so I went in feeling like I had forgotten how to run distance and my legs were just not going to be able to do it. I actually felt really, really great for the first 20 miles at least, I guess the first 18. After 18, I started really working it and then when I got to Central Park I thought I would just feel like “home free, this is my turf, this is where I run every day,” but that was just torture. It was like every step felt like the longest thing ever, and everyone was telling me that I was almost there, and I was like, “You don’t know what this feels like.” And then there was the half mile sign, the four hundred meter sign, the two hundred meter sign, and each one felt like....Basically, as long as the past 23 miles was what the last 3 miles felt like. That last stretch, I just had to pull everything from as deep down as I had, and just make myself keep going. That was really rough.
—Kari Putterman, BC ’11