I indulged my own small version of the urge to suffer and went to the gym from there, never making it to the 20km mark with fuzzy towel, etc. So much for faux nobility. Instead, I showed up at the course's end point to yell unintelligible supportive comments as Y. staggered the final few hundred feet to the finish line.
The marathon's finish was just down the road from the where the starting point had been. Man, what a scene. Humans, humans everywhere, either in summer duds or running gear, most of the avenue enclosed in tall cyclone fencing to keep out the non-running rabble, leaving us non-participants to pick our way along the sides, past the lines of within-enclosure trucks and tents doling out food, drink and physical care to exhausted-looking marathoners, many of whom carried big plastic bags of food, with what looked like thinsulate shawls pulled around their shoulders to ward off post-exertion chill. On that exceptionally warm day, that would not have been my concern. I likely would have been too busy throwing up after 26.2 miles of sheer joy -- like several individuals I spied within the long runners' enclosure -- to worry about the air temperature.
Y. had been aiming at a time of 3 hours and 15 minutes, extremely good numbers. I made it to the finish line at the three-hour mark, just in case Y. did better than he'd expected. Bleachers had been set up there, packed and overflowing with people, police standing about to dissaude undesirables like me who might want to squeeze themselves into an already at-capacity situation, leaving me no option but to move down the avenue away from the end point to where a spectating spot might present itself.
Found a teeny gap between a 40ish Central American guy and a group of young women with cameras waiting for runners they knew. I have a slow, patient way of inserting a foot, elbow or forearm into a space like that, insinuating myself further in as my neighbors make the mistake of giving way centimeter by centimeter, until I have an authentic vantage point. (I'm good.) Not that I push people aside. No, really -- I just wait, taking advantage of slight adjustments that happen with the passing minutes.
Mr. Central America didn't want to give way, occupying as much body space as he could manage, even when a mother with two young children showed up behind us, the two little ones giving him the classically sad big-eyed-children-on-black-velvet look, meeting his glance any time he made the mistake of looking around. He didn't care. I turned my body sideways, giving them space to eel into. They did so until they couldn't take being crammed up against our neighbor any more and disappeared to find a different space. Which gave me enough space to angle into, getting camera ready for action.
Through all of that runners passed, moving toward the finish line at whatever speed they could manage, the crowd yelling encouragement, chanting, at times singing, pounding in unison on big advertising panels lashed to the cyclone fencing that kept us off the racecourse. Lots of energy, big emotion. And more and more, I saw runners accompanied by children -- kids who'd been waiting for their parent to pass, leaping over the fencing to meet them, finishing the course by their side, hand in hand. A sight that pulled a lot of emotion from the crowd, loud, emphatic shouts of support rippling along the street as the runners passed by.
Y. almost snuck by when he passed, nearly an hour later. I picked him out among a stream of passing shorts-and-sneakered males, called out, jerked the camera up to my face. He looked over, kept going. The single photo I managed to get: a colorful, unusable blur. Bugger.
After another five minutes -- watching for the runner from my Spanish class, without result -- I headed back through the mob near the finish line, along the long perimeter of the runner's enclosure, trying to spot Y. No luck. Went all the way to the enclosure's end, where a steady line of exhausted marathoners walked gingerly out into the waiting horde of non-runners, trying to find friends/family. Nearly ten minutes later, Y. emerged, walking very gingerly. Limping a bit, in fact, same as many other runners. This, his 10th marathon, turned out to be a hard one, his second most difficult, he reported. Chalk it up to the heat or to the long, gradual slopes along the race course, or to a body not enjoying the punishment of several hours of running the way it had in the past -- whatever the cause, he experienced physical difficulties that ultimately led to walking stretches of the course. His final time: around 3:55, a number that doesn't appear in any way shameful to my non-marathoner's eyes.
At times, during his three remaining days in Madrid, Y. talked about the possibility of running only half-marathons from here on out, thinking he may have reached a point where his body simply didn't enjoy the punishment of the full-length gig. Time will tell.
Everything changes, and the days tumble us along through the ongoing spectacle brought by the passing days.
Madrid, te quiero.
rws 10:15 AM [+]