A friend from JRunners, Martin Bodek, was turning 40. He, in the past, has staged midnight runs before. Apparently tho, this time it was different. He was turning 40 and his dream was to run 40 miles all over his childhood 'hood'. After a discussion with the big boss, she OKed it with the following provision: He MUST(!) have at least 2 other people with him at all times. Later he told me that he changed it to "MUST have at least 1 ultraman with him at all times". Point is: He needed a babysitter.
He immediatly put out feelers out there ala Facebook and Email, reaching out to the 4 corners of the earth. Turns out he had a lot of people show interest in running parts of his journey. All of them were for either the beginning "X" miles or the last "X" miles. No one said anything about the whole damn thing. Until me... Which of course generated some excitement. My concerns were the pace, safety and the pace. Funny that the pace meant more than safety but safety was important too.
I was worried that I would not be able to keep up the pace. This wasn't a 5K where you give it all you got. This was 40 miles. He told me that he's planning on a 10 minute pace or rather that's what he is telling everyone to attract the faster runners. Hm...
I didn't answer right away. I had to think about it. That night coincided with a Marathon I was planning. My first thought, of course, was can I do both? Run with him for 40 and then do the Marathon. Timing would be difficult as the Marathon was somewhere between an hour and 2 away from the house. I don't remember exactly. OK - Can I find another Marathon? Yup - Found the Garden Spot Marathon. OK... Can I justify doing this or will I get into trouble with my own Big Boss. Well, since this isn't exactly a race AND the house will be sleeping anyway, I think it would be ok. The Alley Pond 5 Miler is the following week so no conflict there. Thinking...
He messaged me asking for status/thoughts. Anything he can do to "sweeten the deal". Not really. He mentioned free breakfast for anyone running any segments. Nice tho not a dealmaker/dealbreaker. Finally I decided to do it. I didn't see why it would negativly affect anything. Was going to tell him after the weekend but instead decided to "make" his shabbat and sent him a short text: "I'm in!". I get a reply shortly after "You're my new best friend!". I doubt it but that sounded good. Agreed to talk later to finalize details.
In the week, I think, before this he released a FAQ. He's still shopping for runners you see.
I sent him a text again that if I am still wanted, I'm in. Response came almost immediatly: "Not wanted, Needed!". I get it but personally I would rather have gotten "wanted AND needed" but I get it.
I still needed an address for the GPS as I don't really know Brooklyn. Asked and received.
Saturday morning, I woke up late and ran an easy 1 mile to satisfy the streak. Jessie rode her bike and I ran. Cool. During dinner that night, I told the family about my plans. Elizabeth wasn't too happy about the sleep deprivation but that's her usual hot button. I mentioned that I slept something like 10.5 hours which is almost 3 days for me but that didn't quite satisfy it.
I wasn't sure if I would take a nap before I go or NOT but ultimatly I ended up with no nap.
Mapquest said 30 minutes to get to him so I decided to leave the house at 11pm. Still last minute nerves made me aim for 10:45. As is I left around 10:50-10:55. Left the house kinda nervous and immediatly got a call from Jeremy. What about the house alarm? I told him to leave it off. The phone ringing tho was a little scary. Something happened already?!?
The drive was uneventful except that some of the neighborhoods seemed a little sketchy.
Got there and walked into his father's house for last minute bathroom break. Martin saw me and said "now it's getting real and now I need to use the bathroom too". Love having that effect on people. I got to use the bathroom near the dining room with the paper thin walls right near the whole family. Wonderful. Luckily, there was a switch for a fan as well which made noise. Still, it was just nerves and I only needed to pee. Hopefully that was it.
So except for his twin sisters kids, there were a lot of people there and I feel like the odd duck. They're religious while I am not. I don't know anyone. There was another runner there, Scott I think and he was quiet which didn't help me.
One "funny" thing that happened was Martin saw my Ultimate Direction bag and said to his wife something about that now he doesn't feel that crazy which of course immediatly illicited a that doesn't qualify you not being crazy comment.
Almost 12 and we go to the starting line. A corner. No marks. Nothing. We wait. Maybe another runner will show up. Seems like it's only going to be us 3. We hear his family yelling for us to go. It's go time. We start.
What I am wearing:
Here is where things get a little hectic. I am terrible with names and people came and went. Again, I also don't know Brooklyn (or the course we are taking) so I can't really reference where and when people came and for how long. This will get sketchy but I will do my best. Once Bodie writes his own RR, I will post it here. He's pretty good about these things. Also, I have so many race reports that details are a little thin at this point.
Right away we were joined by Yossi Pancer. Then Moishe Gammes (spelling?). Fast runner. He already ran his Saturday run a few hours before but came here to do this too. Cool. Then we were joined by Matt Katz. These people seemed to know my name. The conversation went something like:
Them: Hey, I'm so and so.
Me: I'm Elik. Elik Hirsch.
Them: You're that guy...
Weird. Very weird. It's like being Norm from Cheers. As he came into the bar, everyone would scream out "Norm!". I don't know if he knew everyone there either. Still it was a very strange experience.
We ran. At one point, we ran right near a group of some young black guys. I heard a comment something like "Look at these white boys...". I'm sure we raised an eyebrow whereever we went.
We ran and picked up a group of people. Two kids from the van got out and ran with us for a while as well. Cool.
The Friedman family chased us a little with a van. Their kids were the young guns with us. It was there everywhere in the beginning cheering us on. Cool.
One of the people from the big group was Yisroel Pupko. I met him and confirmed this on the course during the Run for the Red Marathon in the Poconos. Cool.
Meandering all over. I don't know where we are nor do I care as long as they don't leave me. A group picture was taken at some point. Lots of my friends "liked" it on Facebook.
The kids eventually left us. Right back into the van. As soon as that happened, Pupko seemed to wake up. He raised his voice and said "now that the kids are gone, I can give you my birthday present". I knew something was coming. Couldn't imagine what tho...He sped up to the front and dropped his pants. Yes...He ran with his shorts down for a while mooning us all. A comment was said about whether he waxed his butt as it was glistening. Oh boy.
Onwards... We had a few "recalculating moments" as an entrance to the coney island boardwalk was closed. We found another. One of the runners disappeared and Pupko kept trying to reach him as he was worried. Eventually he found out that the runner had to go to the bathroom so he left without saying anything. OK - at least he's safe.
I don't remember exactly where this goes but these 2 things are worth mentioning. We were running and we got to a point where all the drunk russians were congregating. Same scene again from TGNY. Only difference is in TGNY we came out of the swampy area parallel to the Belt Parkway. That part was probably the SCARIEST part of TGNY. Apparently Bodie decided against it. I was very vocal in thanking him for that decision. After that we were near Sheapshead Bay and some woman decided to run with us. Pupko immediatly said that you need to be drunk to run with us. Her response was that she was therefore ready. Funny stuff.
By the way, I think earlier we also went through Marine Park or something like that where we saw some jewish kids smoking somthing. Sucks.
Anyway, the boardwalk was surreal. I was just there in July in the middle of the night during TGNY. Eventually we got off the boardwalk and a big group left us.
On the boardwalk a comment was made about us being the KKK. Pupko who was telling jokes a mile a minute here immediatly made a remark about us being the Jewish KKK. Still, I think I know why they said it. Bodie was wearing a birthday hat (cone). It was white with polkadots. At night, you could only see that it's white. Effectivly he's wearing a white cone reminiscent of the Clan.
At some point also, Adam Orlow joined us. He stuck with us the whole way and due to his running to meet us, he was only a few miles behind. The whole night he would go up ahead and back to make up the miles. Cool. That was the standing joke the whole night how he was always a "0.17" or some such number behind us. Eventually, he finally listened to us about GPS error and decided to that it was close enough and to go by the master GPS watch.
Anyway, Matt Katz left us and we (Bodie and I) with people ahead of us stopped at someone's house. He left 2 water bottles on top of his car. We re-filled our stores.
Onwards. It's now just the four of us: Bodie, Orlow (Adam), Scott and me. We run towards Yoni's house. Yoni is a 16 almost 17 year old. He likes to do squats and leg presses and his biggest complaint is finding a pair of jeans that fit his waist AND that fit his humongous quads. He originally offered to run a section in Brooklyn with me during TGNY but his mom said no. We got in and used the rest room. It was something like 2 or 3 in the morning. He had 2 slices warming up. I'm not sure if they were both for Bodie but I decided I wouldn't mind. I felt bad tho and offered to share with Orlow, who said no since he brought Challah as carbs and Scott. Scott agreed. Oh well. We split the slice into 2 and it was awesome. Drank a little diet 7-up too.
Off we go. Yoni came with us. The plan was for him to run 2 hours with us and be back home by the time his school bus came. His school has Friday's off and half day Sundays.
We picked up Schmuli and continueed on. I got real cold at one point and stopped to get my long sleeve shirt and gloves. So glad I brought it along. Meandered on until we saw a lot of lights. Lots and lots of police lights. Police cars screaming past us. Oh boy...
Bad scene. A police cruiser partly on the curb, banged up pretty bad where it hit a big van. Police officer being escorted to one of three ambulances by her fellow officers. More and more screaming cruisers come flying. There's a bad smell in the air. Smoke kind of smell. And then there was smoke. It's very strange to me that I don't see a single firetruck. We do see 1 single fire chief racing over but that's it? Donald later explained to me that in these instances, the NYPD closes ranks and don't really want more people involved for example the FDNY.
And then a helicopter joins. I joke that as long as the search light doesn't go on, we're ok. It's actually a true statement if you think about it. We continue on but we still hear more and more sirens and the helicopter is still there. I wonder if we got his attention for a few minutes. Five guys running away from the scene...Hm...
Anyway, we are right near the Verrazanno Bridge and Scott says his goodbyes. I think he did something around 40K (24.6 Miles). Nice...
We start going the wrong way but correct ourselves. We are on Shore Parkway with the water on our right heading East toward Queens. It's TGNY but backwards. I never liked that stretch. Still don't.
Schmuli leads us out of there and to a porta potty. Bodie is happy until we see the lock on it. He decides his mother's house will be a longer stop. Orlow meanwwhile talked to Mike Appel who is due to join us. We see him and he's got a Coke for me. Love him. I share but it goes down so nice. We continue but Bodie decided a major pitstop is neccessary at Rite Aid. They apparently let him use the facilities. We know this because of the time we lost as well as the smile on his face when he exits. We say our goodbyes to Schmulli. He has a 10K soon with his sister. Cool. On the same road that we ran but in the opposite direction. Funny.
We stop by Bodie's mother's house. Restroom, water and ice and we are out. House is still sleeping.
We pick up another runner. It's light out. We see a pair of crutches and I suggest a picture of Bodie near them. We continue on. We circled around with Bodie showing us where he grew up and his first library and where he went to the Hospital first time for a serious burn as he was a kid. Big circle but we pass Mom's house again. Who is there outside? Mom Bodek and wife holding plates of french toast. I take one. Heavenly. That's all I will say. I control myself to 1 slice. Only 3 miles to go to Spoons, the breakfast place. He was hoping to finish by 6am with the reservation at 8. I knew that 8am was tight. It was. There's 3 miles to Spoons but we knew we were short due to recalculations and would have to run past Spoons for a little. We were a mile or less short. OK. Home stretch.
Adam is hurting and keeps telling me he has a new respect for distance runners. I think for him the walking/running hurt most but it's a neccessary beast and unless you are trying to win, a reasonable and perhaps required thing. He doesn't understand how someone can keep going on and on.
By the way... Crazy practices and hardcore... I was talking to Orlow about GI issues and stuff and I told him that I have taken a preemptive Immodium. He told me that if his stomach "feels" bad, then he will just give himself an enema. Yuck... Respect but yuck...
One of the Bressler twins meets us on the bike and calls ahead. We see Spoons and the people there and we say hello but that we need to go a little more. We do. Yoni and I leading. Bodie following with Appel. Adam bring the rear in painfully. The look on his face wasn't pretty.
We turn around and run back. A block away, I break away and go. I don't want to be in the way of the pictures. That's not me. I finish. Yoni does too. Bodie and Appel come in and eventually Adam. Yoni and I stop at the bakery near Spoons where Yoni buys 2 chocolate bells. One for him and one for Bodie. It was Bodie's 40th wish. Unfortunatly there's only 1 left so I take that and a chocolate pretzel (big pretzel baked with chocolate) for the family.
We go to eat but I check in with Adam first. He's considering vomitting. He's not doing well. Eventually he comes in but looks exhausted. He's not himself.
We eat and Yoni and I leave. I told him I would drive him home but then the cake is about to come so we sit back down. Bodie goes to the restroom and the cake comes with a huge sparkling sparkler and singing. Kinda funny as the birthday boy isn't even there. We send them away. Bodie joins us and we signal the waitress and the sparkler is relit. Awesome.
Got home late but it was all good as I brought home some goodies. I took a small nap during tennis. Later Krav Maga and I was a little out of it. Appel formed a caravan with Orlow and made sure he got home ok. Nice to see people taking care of each other...