NY Marathon canceled, but runners stride on — on their own
In Central Park or along the Hudson River, runners will complete the storied New York City Marathon — just not along the same course.
The annual race, originally set for Sunday, was one of many events canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic, but diehard runners are not missing their shot in what would have been the marathon’s 50th year. “The day they announced that it wasn’t going to happen, that’s the day I said I’m going to run it anyway,” said Paul Casino, 55, who has competed every year since 2004. “If I stop, I’m going to regret it.”
Casino, who is originally from the
Philippines, even joined hundreds of people who ran the marathon in 2012, despite its cancelation following the direct hit from Superstorm Sandy.
Organizers canceled the marathon on June 24 but, like many other major road races, offered runners the option of completing the 26.2 miles between Oct. 17 and Nov. 1 — anywhere in the world. A smartphone app measures the distance covered, allowing the competitor to log an official time and — if they finish — obtain the coveted finisher’s medal.
For many runners, months of lockdown and no other races on the horizon cramped their preparations. For some, like Matt Coneybeare, the coronavirus took a direct toll.
After suffering through two days of acute symptoms in early April, the computer engineer needed a month — but only a month — to get back to where he was pre-Covid. Coneybeare has already completed his marathon, running through four of New York’s five boroughs in a little more than three hours.
He had to skip Staten Island because the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge linking it to Brooklyn — closed for the tens of thousands of runners during a normal marathon — has no pedestrian path.
Casino is keeping his Manhattan marathon itinerary a carefully guarded secret — but says if seen from the sky, the route design will spell out a clear tribute to the world’s biggest marathon.
The banker said he couldn’t just do “four laps” around Central Park. “That’s just mentally draining. I don’t want to run it just for the sake of doing 26.2 miles. That’s just not fun,” he told AFP.
“And so I thought about it and then I looked at Google Maps...” Casino admits he stopped running for two months out of fear of being infected at the start of the health crisis, and sank into a depression because of the lack of exercise and the lockdown.
Usually, he would run 60-80 miles a week while training for a marathon.