The New York City Marathon is mess of people like you will find nowhere else. The starting line is a crowd of 37,000 overly hydrated runners, many of which will, at any given moment without warning squat down to pee or lube themselves up (to prevent chaffing, of course). Then you’ve got the smokers, the woman text messaging frantically as she crosses the 59th Street bridge at mile fifteen, and the man who runs the entire race wrapped in an Italian flag or wearing large bunny ears. The only ones who are perhaps crazier, are the fans who line the streets for the full 26.2 miles, cheering for hours for complete strangers. It goes kind of like this:
Ancient man, at the top of his lungs: Slow down!! Slow down! I’ve seen this hundreds of times, you can’t keep up this pace. Slow down!
-Mile 1.5, Ramp off the Verranzano Bridge, Brooklyn
Annoyed marathoner on cellphone: Darling, I’ll be there as soon as I can. [pause] I’m going as fast I can!!
-Mile 9, Bed-Stuy
Woman, cheering: Welcome to Queens! The worst borough of New York, but you’re only here for two miles. Run fast, get out of here!!
-Mile 13, LIC
Guy handing out orange slices: I know this be the Bronx, but I cut these oranges mahself and I sweah they be nothin in them but orange. I sweah!
-Mile 20, The Bronx
Big Black Woman: Yeah! Almost there!
Skinny White European Runner: See you run 23 miles and say that.
Big Black Woman: Foo, you still in New York, you watch yourself.
-Mile 23, Central Park
Meanwhile, back at the ranch…
Girl: But then how did he make us all pick the country Denmark with the letter D? Is Denmark the only country that starts with D?
Blond Friend: No, there’s Dartmouth, silly!
– Professor Ceci’s Guest Lecture in HD 115
Guy to girl next to him: Dude where’s the internet?
-Uris Library Dean’s Room