New York, NY – New York City Marathon Sunday, November 4.

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    Travel Alert!
    New York, NY – There will be extensive street and bridge closings along the route of the Marathon. Spectators are urged to use public transportation.

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    Motorists please note: any vehicles parked on the Marathon route are subject to towing and relocation by NYPD. If your vehicle is towed, please contact the local police precinct for information on its relocation.

    Visit the Marathon web site for additional information about the event and the MTA web site for information about mass transit.

    To see the route of the marathon of street closures click here and here.


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    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    16 years ago

    Lots of posters around williamsburg calling to keep childern off bedford ave during the marathon run.

    your brother
    your brother
    16 years ago

    Nearly 38,000 runners will surge across the Verrazano Narrows Bridge this morning at the start of the New York City Marathon, moving together like a swarm of wasps set loose from a giant hive. Even as the pack loosens over what will be 26.2 grueling miles, it can be hard to spot any one runner in the mass of bobbing heads and pumping arms.
    Which is why Martin Bodek of Passaic always wears his Superman T-shirt. Bodek, 32, is one of about 48 runners from Passaic County participating in this year’s race.
    “It’s very cool — people scream for you, ‘Go, Superman!'” said Bodek, who will be running the course, which travels through all five boroughs of New York City, for the 10th time.
    Beyond the cheering, Bodek needs to stand out from the crowd for another reason — to ensure he connects with family members who wait for him along the course with kosher food and beverages. A modern Orthodox Jew, Bodek does not drink the Gatorade offered at hydration stations along the race because it is not certified with a kosher seal. Instead, he relies on relatives to hand him bagels, oranges and bottles of Powerade, a sports drink that does carry the kosher seal. Bodek says he eats about every 45 minutes during the four and a half hours it takes him to finish the course.
    “You do sort of feel hunger,” he said, “but your legs are hurting so much you don’t even care. The actual feeling of fatigue overpowers the feeling of hunger, so that’s why you want to take in more food.”
    Bodek, who moved to Passaic from Brooklyn three years ago, said the run is “a day for me to reconnect” with the city and people he grew up with. He joins a “marathon minion,” or Jewish prayer service, with 60 to 80 other runners before the race.
    Bodek has his marathon routine down pat: His wife and two children will be waiting at Mile 23, and when the race is over, Bodek will head to fast-food restaurant Kosher Delight for two hamburgers, he said. Then it’s “junk food for at least an entire week.”
    Laura Melnick, 29, of Hawthorne, said today’s marathon is her first one, and “most likely my last one.”
    “It’s pretty grueling, training- and time-wise,” she said. “It was more a check-off-the-life-goal-list thing.”
    She began training 26 weeks ago with Fred’s Team, a charity group named for Fred Lebow, the NYC marathon founder who died of cancer in 1994. She raised $3,600 for Sloan-Kettering’s Pediatric Cancer Center.
    Long practice runs have given her a feel for what to expect today.
    “I cracked a tooth once. That hurt. But this hurts more,” she said. “I have a pretty high threshold for pain, but this isn’t pleasant. I set my mind to it, and I need to finish it — that’s it.”
    Still, Melnick is also prepared to be uplifted.
    “It really is inspirational,” she said. “It’s every race, age, weight — just every person you could ever imagine completing the same goal.”
    Jeanine Nicosia, 27, of Wayne, will be running her first marathon with her father and stepmother. She started running two years ago to get more exercise.
    Men and women start in separate packs, but the Nicosias will “cheat a little bit,” and try to figure a way to all run side by side, she said. “That was the idea, that we could all run together.”
    Robert Thompson, 37, of Wayne, decided to tackle the marathon to stay in shape for his three children. In the last 20 weeks, he’s run 658 training miles, burned 98,000 calories, and lost 18 pounds.
    On Friday, anxiety about the race was starting to hit him.
    “We chose to do it, and we paid good money to do it — we chose to torture ourselves,” he said.
    Fees to enter the race average about $100.
    Thompson said he would listen to music on his iPod, despite an official ban on iPods.
    “Every third song I repeat the Superman music,” he said, a theme song that pushed him through uphill stretches in other races. “I’ll tell you, it does help.”
    Like all the other runners, Thompson will wear a computer chip from the New York Road Runners club that sends an e-mail or text message to five friends or family notifying them of a runner’s location.
    “At 3 p.m., hopefully I’ll have accomplished something I set out to accomplish,” he said.
    Passaic County’s oldest marathoner is Shahrohk Ahkami, 68, of Clifton. Today’s race will be his 31st New York City Marathon. He missed it only in 2005 when his grandson was born in San Diego on marathon Sunday. “That was more important,” he said.
    What keeps him coming back, he said, is the show of respect and care among runners and the crowd on race day.
    “It’s a proud day for New Yorkers, and for every American, by the encouragement they’re showing,” he said.
    He once completed the race in 3:36, but said his goal now is simply to finish.
    “Whether you are the front runner or you are the one in the end, after 18 miles, really, there is no energy left in you except your mind. Your mind takes you to the end,” he said.