The most wonderful time of the year

Some people say it's Christmas, but if you know me, you know that to my mind, the most wonderful time of the year is the first Sunday in November, or as I call it: Marathon Sunday.  Even writing about it gives me chills.

The New York City Marathon is an amazing event, the largest marathon in the United States, possibly in the world. This year, more than 45,000 met in New York City to run, wheel or walk 26.2 miles in a single day and, incredibly, thousands of New Yorkers in all five boroughs turned out to cheer them on.

My love affair with the Marathon began 10 years ago, when a friend invited me to a boozy marathon brunch at her home on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. We ate bagels and lox and then ventured out to 1st Avenue to see the competitors in action. I was in tears within 10 minutes, no joke. Young people, old people, slim people, fat people, able bodied and disabled people. It was such an amazing sight, thousands and thousands of these people from all over the world doggedly working their way to that finish line.

So affected was I that the next year, my cousin Paula and I entered and ran the New York City Marathon together, which was even more fun than I'd imagined.  There's this tradition with the Marathon of putting your name on your shirt so that supporters can shout personal encouragements to you and damn if it wasn't unbelievably exciting to hear "Go Rebecca!  Looking good!" while we were running.  I could not stop waving and smiling, and it took my mind off of the long slog that lay ahead of us. 

Two years later, I moved in to an apartment that was right on the Marathon route, between miles 8 and 9. Right on, as in step out of my door and hit a runner on. I started hosting a brunch people who wanted to come to Brooklyn and watch the race.  It started small, but last year, at least 50 people passed through my door to enjoy Mimosas, coffee cake, strata and cheer for the racers. 

 
 

 
The true race enthusiasts would come early (8:30 a.m.) to cheer for the wheeled athletes, who are among the most inspirational.  They're followed in start times by other disabled athletes, the elite women, the elite men and then the masses. By 1 pm almost all of the atheletes have passed, but it's still hard to leave.  How can you turn your back on these people??? Especially when you know you;re leaving them to go stuff your face and have another drink.  Eventually the street cleaners would come by signaling the end of the race, but the eating and drinking would continue until the evening (last year's last guests left at 9 pm).  It was always a fun and exhausting day.

Since I moved two weeks ago, I no longer live right on the Marathon route and so, no big party.  I was a little sad about this for a bit, but I had something even better to get excited about: my friend, neighbor and sometimes running buddy, Dawn, was running the race for the first time. It's an amazing feat, but made even more so by the fact that she's a 40 year old mother who also has MS.  No getting her down.

You can see I wasn't her only fan.  Due to a wardrobe malfunction, we almost missed Dawn and Julie, but they were eagle eyed and spotted me bent down in the street trying to pick up a hat.  Squeals and jumps and cheers and waves, and then they were off to finish, and finish they did. Woot woot!

While they wound their way up to Queens, across the East River into Manhattan, up north to the Bronx and back to Manhattan towards the finish line, we kept on cheering and enjoyed some pumpkin doughnut muffins, inspired by my friend Little Bird, Big City.

No doubt about it

 

this certainly is the most wonderful time of the year.

Marathon Sunday

For close to 10 years now, I've been carrying on a love affair with New York City Marathon. It started when I was invited to a marathon party on the Upper East Side. Promised bagels and Bloody Marys, I showed up that Sunday morning a bit skeptical and unsure of what to expect. How exciting could it be to watch strangers run past me?

Very exciting, as it turns out. It was the fit and the fat, the old and the young, families and friends and firefighters and folks in costumes. Then I saw the man with one leg. Cue the waterworks. What I learned that day is that the New York City Marathon is not about watching people run past me; rather, it is about watching what a single person can do when he puts his mind to it. And it's not just what a person can do, it's what ANY of us can do, if we commit ourselves. Not "athletes", not professionals, not the genetically gifted. Any of us

A year after watching my first marathon, I ran one. It wouldn't have occurred to me to sign up on my own, but my cousin Paula, who's always been more athletic than I suggested it. I promised to think it over, and then, during Christmas dinner that year, she announced our intention to run the marathon to our entire family. So, over the next six months, separated by more than 1,000 miles, we trained and trained. And then, in June, we got the good word: both of us had made it into the marathon by way of the lottery. Five months later, we crossed the finish line, in front of Tavern on the Green, together. It was an amazing day.

A couple of years later, I moved to an apartment in Brooklyn that happens to be on the marathon route

and started hosting an annual marathon party, for friends to come and eat, drink and cheer for the racers. Around 50 people come to the open house; some early to watch the wheel chair and hand cycle athletes.

And some come a bit later, nursing hangovers with coffee and mimosas.

It's a very family friendly event.

We line up on the sidewalk waiting, WAITING for the police cars and official time truck to come by and signal the arrival of the day's first racers.

And when they arrive, we clap and jump and scream and cheer.

It's always a bit slow at first.

But in no time, there are throngs of racers.

One of the most exciting things about hosting the party is having guests who are cheering for a particuler runner. This year, Laura and Don were cheering for Don's husband, also named Don, who came down from Toronto to run.

They saw him! People ALWAYS spot their runners from my place. It's got good juju.

Because guests start arriving around 8:30 in the morning, I've got to get my ass organized, so I spend Friday night and all day Saturday cooking and baking. I usually wake up in a panic, worried that there won't be enough food, and so bake one more loaf of this, or another pan of that.

This year's menu included Green Chili and Chorizo Breakfast Strata, vegetarian Chili and Cheese Strata, homemade Oreos , Cook's Illustrated's Dreamy Cream Scones (recipes compliments of Smitten Kitchen), Brooke's Grandma Smith's Banana Bread, pumpkin muffins, pecan muffins, lemon bundt cake, oatmeal blueberry breakfast bars and a spinach chickpea curry. It's important to have a mix of sweet and savory at a morning event, don't you agree?

Of everything I made this year, the scones were my favorite. They were ridiculously good, creamy almost. I baked some of them as written and served jam* on the side but with the rest, I did my thing, by which I mean I baked jam into the scones. Holy Mary, is that delicious. Trust me and try it sometime. Your loved ones will freak out.

Although the racers are pretty much gone by 1:00, the party doesn't usually end until 7:30 or 8, which makes it a mini-marathon of our own, I suppose.

Good times.

*Jam made by Brooke and Marisa.