We have a proper love affair with the NYC Marathon. So much so that it has been a regular feature on the journal. Back in 2018 we called escorting the marathon’s wheelchair athletes a “bucket list experience.” And in 2019 we declared our second year of escort duties “NYC’s Best Holiday.” However for this year’s race, with some of our teammates taking over escort duties and no teammates in the footrace, several of us set very early alarms to ride the course as it was closing to traffic.

Which is how Daghan, Mitchell, friend of the squad Ceren, and I wound up churning through pitch black Manhattan at 5:15AM on Sunday morning. We met Megan and Lisa at a Bay Ridge Dunkin’ Donuts where the sun was only beginning to rise as a couple hundred cyclists gathered in the parking lot. With unseasonably warm temperatures the crowd continued to swell until it overflowed onto Fourth Avenue.

While waiting to hit the course we wandered over to the base of the Verrazzano-Narrows bridge - pedaling partway up the closed roadway until we were turned away by race officials, alongside an unfortunate marathoner who thought he could run across the span to the start of the race (he planned to call an Uber to try to make it Staten Island).

Starting around 6:30AM groups began peeling off from this massive pack, beginning the four borough journey that ended in Central Park about one mile shy of the official marathon finish line. There were riders and bikes of all sorts and sizes, and a massive pack of rollerbladers for good measure. From our perspective it was all smiles as we criss-crossed city thoroughfares as they were beginning to close to traffic.

If there was any damper on the beautiful morning, it was probably that a surprising number of cyclists, including a bunch of the local racing teams, convinced themselves that this was a cycling race — that it was fine to weave and close pass slower moving cyclists, and that pedestrians were secondary considerations on sections of the course that were still open to traffic. At one point I had a front row seat as a local team did a TTT straight into the path of an oncoming race vehicle that could only lay on their horn in protest. And toward the finish, we watched a cyclist barrel full speed through the Central Park joggers lane, cursing at runners who were exactly where they were supposed to be on the Park Drive.

Thankfully that sort of aggressive riding was the exception to the rule on a morning that was full of laughs and a unique perspective of NYC streets. After finishing our leisurely jaunt at the base of Central Park we headed off to refuel with coffee and pastries before spending the day along the course cheering on runners — further cementing our love affair with the NYC Marathon.

Photographs by Daghan

A few random snaps by Matt