Chariots of Wuss
Last night I was one of 45,000 extremely sweaty partici-panters in the {Name of Big Gigantic Bank} Corporate Challenge, a 3.5 mile race in Central Park. There's nothing like waiting in a massive crowd of your fellow perspiring yupsters for the chance to run in weather that forces the sane into powerfully air-conditioned saloons and movie theaters.
The first mile was an exercise in broken-field running. We started at the very front of the supposed "non-competitive" start, about 300 yards short of the starting gun. The idea was that ahead of us should be the "elite" and "competitive" runners, who expected to run times under 8 minutes a mile. The reality was that the titanic mob between us and the real starting line was composed at least 3/4 of people who were planning on strolling through Central Park with a buddy, collecting a hideous t-shirt, and retiring to one of the aforementioned saloons. To have any room to run, one first had to navigate a slow, soggy horde.
Which isn't to say that I'm fast – but I wasn't planning on a brisk trot. The first mile was an exercise in broken-field running, not unlike the experience of dashing for a seat on an Amtrak train leaving Penn Station at rush hour. Elbows flying, sometimes, stumbling and squeezing between stock traders with amazingly corny corporate t-shirts ("Who Let the Bulls Out") and Upper West Siders wearing their headphones (as if they had simply been joined on their evening run by forty thousand strangers –and maybe they had), I managed to move up to where there was some oxygen and a steady pace. The sky darkened and the wind came up, and for a while it seemed like we'd be dramatically downpour'd, but it didn't happen.
Even with the cooling wind, by mile 3 I was feeling the strain. I have been running about 4 miles twice a week for a while, but the effort of accelerating through the crowd, and the equatorial atmosphere were humbling my early confidence. But when I looked at all of the investment banking yutzes pushing past me on their tree-like legs, the potential humiliation of crossing the finish at a slow jog carried me (and my Blogger t-shirt) through the final quarter mile. 34:45 official time – although I think I had been shuffling along for 4 or 5 minutes by the time I actually reached the start line, that'd be guessing.
Posted by B T at June 21, 2001 10:50 AM