The focus of the first half of Y.'s stay: the marathon, an event I'd only been marginally aware of before this year. Still a young affair (27 years old), comparatively modest in size (less than 13,000 runners this time around) compared with big, honking buggers like the marathons in Berlin, New York, Boston. A bit hard to figure how I remained oblivious, considering the starting point is a ten minute walk to the east from here, the 20 kilometer mark three blocks to the west. I am sometimes exceptionally adept at the oblivious thing, however, so there it is.
The fact that thousands of suffering runners would be passing just three blocks from here -- thousands upon thousands of 'em -- was intriguing enough. But the idea that I could be a shining point of support for one of those straining, suffering souls -- a friendly face in an unfamiliar city, waiting patiently along a long, hard route, holding out the comfort of a soft, fuzzy towel and a container of cool water when they finally slogged painfully by, shouting good-humored, profanity-laced encouragement -- this had the potential for big faux-noble fun.
In our wanderings around Madrid, I showed Y. the stretch of road where the runners would gather and the event begin. He returned on his own two different times during Friday/Saturday to get the lay of the land, taking a map, getting a sense of the look and feel of the overall course. Didn't do much running on those days, feeling that his body was ready, that all he needed now was some serious carb-loading. Which took us out to a park on Madrid's west side on Saturday afternoon for the pre-race mountain-o'-pasta lunch, the official carb-packing shindig.
There was no mistaking where the meal was to take place -- the fat, towering inflated rubber bottles of Coke and Mahou beer gave it away. That and the line of carb-packers-to-be stretching out away from the big tent. Way the hell away from the big tent, through a long dirt parking lot, around a corner and down another road. Resulting in an hour-long wait to get inside, most of the last 30 minutes spent inching across the parking lot, then under the big rubber arch by the monstrous rubber bottles, finally to the
Neighbors provided entertainment, however. In particular, the five-or-so-year-old son of a 30-something Spanish couple directly in front of us. A little guy with energy to burn, wandering constantly about, investigating whatever caught his attention. Which, after some time trying to pull down city-planted saplings (to periodic pleas of "Leave the tree alone, dear" from the 'rents), became the numerous sticks laying about in scrubby grass or dusty expanses of hard-packed dirt. Sticks he would evaluate, nudge with a foot, pick up, then give to his parents to hold on to. Beginning with small, thin bits of wood, escalating to thicker, ever-longer sticks and other potential weapons (rocks, chunks of broken brick) that his parents felt less and less inclined to accept. Until, taking advantage of a moment when the little guy had wandered some distance away, they dumped everything in the long grass around a tree.
The five-year-old returned with a couple more sticks, handed them over, noticed the others had disappeared, immediately began hunting them down, foisting them on unwilling parents all over again. (With decreasing success.) Then on to even bigger sticks, finally dragging back a weathered three-foot length of 2x6 -- old, dusty, literally as big as the kid. Resulting in immediate parental demands to put it back where he'd found it. After which they worked at keeping him distracted: cold liquids, helium balloons (the first quickly took to the skies, its replacement got tied to five-year-old forearm), etc.
By that time we'd reached the rubber arch, a mere 100 feet from the tent entrance. Smells of food, constant loud babble from the in-tent PA system. Security guards asking for entry passes. And then we were inside where people thrust trays and carb-packing implements at us. Other folks tossed fruit, yogurt, containers of cold liquids onto the trays. Still others covered our plates with mounds of ziti in tomato sauce. We stumbled on, other people directed us toward the far end of the long, long tent where we fell into folding chairs at a table, the guy with the microphone blathering loudly from the PA system about this and that. Y. dug into his food, I went to grab us each a plastic cup of beer. When I returned, half of Y.'s meal had disappeared. A few short minutes later, the rest had vanished, he began unpeeling fruit and stuffing it down, followed by yogurt. An awesome display of fueling up.
The ziti turned out to be pretty tasty, really, considering it had been prepared in mountainous quantities.
Next morning: Y. got up and out early. I made it to the starting line about ten minutes shy of commencement. The race's first length of road was a major north-south artery that runs along the eastern edge of the most central expanse of city center -- six or eight lanes flanked by long islands of trees and pedestrian ways, flanked in turn by two more lanes of traffic on either side. Big. Shut off to traffic, overswarmed by runners streaming in from all directions, packing themselves as close as they could get to the starting line (another inflated rubber arch -- two of them, in fact -- emblazoned with product names).
Made my way along the avenue, the greenery of the island off to the side dotted with male runners taking a pre-race whiz. A strange, almost Fellini-esque sight that I now wish I'd thought to point my camera at. Thousands and thousands of people swirling about -- younger folks, older folks, families out together, the whole thing -- no one blinking an eye at the scantily-clad males watering the vegetation.
I headed out well beyond the arches, moving several hundred feet along the boulevard where I found a spot along the side of the road Y. said he'd be running along. The sun bore down, strong and warm, already substantially warmer than desirable for this kind of event. A line of official vehicles were positioned ahead of the runners, spread out across the avenue.
Just before 9:30, several emergency medical personnel mounted specially-equipped motorcycles and got going, the first wave of motion along the course, followed more slowly by the other official vehicles. A cloud of white doves were released at the starting line, an explosion off to one side produced a complementary expanding cloud of white streamers, arching up then drifting back down to the road. And the runners took off, quickly passing my observation point, the wide boulevard thick with people of all body types, spanning a startlingly wide age span. Y. passed, we lightly slapped hands as he went by. Ten seconds later, a German guy from my Spanish class passed, we called out holas. A minute later, the last of the runners had jogged by, spectators fanned out across the road, still waving, still shouting encouragement, then slowly dispersing. A couple of cars slowly nosed their way out onto the avenue, horns making polite noises when people didn't give way quickly enough. And then normalcy re-established itself, the morning moving on.
Madrid, te quiero.
rws 4:34 PM [+]