A nice day in New York. A meteorological thing more than verifiable in the streets that the ABC network commentators repeated, from the periphery of the Verrazano Bridge to the green heart of Central Park. That is, the course of the New York Marathon, perhaps the most famous long-distance race in the world.
More than 52,000 participants, coming from half the world or more, took the start and jogged through the five districts of the Big Apple. The marathon mecca, they call it. London, the second most, is viewed with envy. Even an English runner, who had run 22 marathons in his capital, stated this Sunday, at the end of his first appointment in New York, that there was nothing like it. “It's the best,” he proclaimed.
More than two million people lined the sidewalks to cheer. Many in Manhattan and few in the Bronx, where few of the hundreds of thousands of tourists who come with this excuse come, and some locals with more worrying issues than shouting at the stomping of so much humanity.
Given that number of participants, it must also be the athletic practice most photographed from within. Any purist of the sacrosanct event of the marathon, the most important thing in athletics, must consider it an aberration to observe so many participants with their mobile phones in their hands, taking pictures of themselves. This is not what it was. Blame the networks. Because, no matter how much they give you the medal when you cross the finish line in Central Park, and you appear on the list, along with the time achieved in the 42.195 kilometers (26.2 miles), you are nobody if your photo is not on your account. Instagram, for example.
Faced with this growing trend of running through life, The New York Times posed a profound question the day before: “Why run the marathon if you can drive?”
No matter how hard you try, it was answered, you will never reach the elite athletes, among other reasons, because they come out earlier. But he acknowledged that, with the traffic eliminated, “the landscape is fantastic.”
The question can have as many answers as there are participants. This chronicler liked the one given to him by chefs Romain Fornell and Óscar Manresa, who once again traveled from Barcelona.
Between the two they have several restaurants, separately and shared, and 20 participations in the New York Marathon, including this Sunday's: twelve Fornell and eight Manresa. This practice forces them to take care of themselves. “On Monday we can have dinner,” jokes Óscar. But, above all, it allows them to enjoy the friendship that unites them. Who said running leads nowhere?
