George Hirsch (89) tells me:
–In those seventies, the only one who predicted a world like this, full of marathon runners, was Fred Lebow. That marathon visionary told me: 'You'll see, George, this is just the beginning of what's to come. The world of running will have its boom.
–And he was right?
–Look where we are today!
(Year after year, two million New Yorkers take to the streets of New York to cheer on its 50,000 marathoners; the Barcelona Marathon will have 20,000 this Sunday).
(...)
George Hirsch settles into his armchair in the lobby of the Intercontinental hotel, winks at Angelie, the 16-year-old granddaughter who accompanies him on this visit to Barcelona, and goes back to the seventies: he goes back to the origins of the marathon. New York, the test that they, Hirsch and Lebow, had founded.
“It all started in 1970,” Hirsch tells me. I was a journalist (he was founding editor of New York, New Times and The Runner magazines), and also a marathon enthusiast. I was inspired by the Boston Marathon, the longest running marathon in history (born in 1897). It was 1970 when three friends, two of whom are still alive, organized a marathon around the perimeter of Central Park: we decided to circle the park four times.
That was the first New York marathon, he tells me: 155 runners signed up.
–After a year we repeated, and repeated and repeated, and things grew. In the end, it couldn't continue like this (more than 500 runners were jogging in disorder, with open traffic). And then Frank Shorter showed up.
Frank Shorter broke it all.
He did it by taking the Olympic gold in Munich'72.
–Driven by the success of Frank Shorter, we developed our own strategy.
-What did you do?
–In 1976 the Bicentennial of the United States was commemorated, a celebration that came at a bad time for the city. New York was a disaster. It suffered from disproportionate crime rates and was bankrupt. A few of us got together (Lebow, among them) and we went to see Mayor Abe Beame.
They were scoundrels.
Before the mayor, Hirsch, Lebow and company composed a story. They told him that no city had been able to organize an urban marathon.
“In Boston, marathoners ran 30 km from the center,” Hirsch tells me. We talked to him about uniting the five neighborhoods. We told the mayor that this race could be a cherry on top of the Bicentennial festivities. We committed to looking for sponsors.
–Did they find them?
–We collected $50,000. They were few, but enough to convince the city. A bank came in, one of the magazines I edited came in... I recruited Shorter, who was already a legend, I took him to sleep in my apartment. His presence put a face and eyes on the race. We cut off traffic at 300 intersections, we stopped New York. Bill Rodgers also came, who won that edition (with Shorter as second). We had 2,000 runners. One hundred of them were women. I ran too, I did it three times, until '78.
George Hirsch tells me that Shorter and Rodgers, both in their late 80s, still jog daily. And that he often talks with them.
Emails are written, audios are sent. What the marathon united, nothing separates.
(Lebow, a Holocaust survivor, died in 1994.)
As they say goodbye, Hirsch puts on his raincoat and takes Angelie by the hand. Finally it rains with gusto in Barcelona. Let's see what happens this Sunday in the marathon.
(At the exit in Passeig de Gràcia, Hirsch will give the exit pistol).
