The New York City marathon route went right past our apartment, and Matt and I (and a couple of our friends) spent a lot of the day watching runners go by. I was sick all weekend, on and off, but still managed to drag myself, sore throat and all, out of bed and down to the sidewalk in time to see the first waves of competitive runners. (I saw Paula Radcliffe! I remember watching her (on television, of course) in the 2004 Olympics, and nearly crying along with her during that disastrous collapse. And this week she ran right past my house!)
We were somewhere between the ten and eleven mile marks, and a few blocks past a runner’s station where they were handing out bananas. By noon, when the heaviest race traffic was going by, the street was littered with banana peels. Despite the perfect pratfall setup, I don’t think anyone slipped and fell, but really. Banana peels on a marathon course?
By two o’clock, the runners were long gone, but we saw a steady trickle of walkers. Watching out the apartment window, we saw two marathon walkers, race numbers and all, stroll right past a garbage can and then fling their banana peels to the side of the road. “They’re just walking,” Matt said. “Why can’t they just use the garbage can? It’s not like they’re worried about their pace.”
“They’re entitled, right?” suggested one of our guests. “They paid their entrance fees just like everyone else, so they figure they’ve bought the right to toss their trash wherever they want.”
Posted Sunday, November 2nd, 2008 at 4:38 pm. Filed under: personal.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
Recent Comments