The New York City Marathon will celebrate its 40th running this Sunday, November 1st when tens of thousands of runners from across the globe will enjoy the sights, sounds, and outrageous crowds of the city’s five boroughs.
What many of these athletes won’t know is that this unparalleled look at New York is thanks in large part to Fred Lebow, the avid runner and Romanian immigrant that founded the New York City marathon in 1970. In honor of the U.S. bicentennial, Lebow had the guts to take the 1976 marathon from Central Park to the streets of New York City. The inaugural street-course ran through all five boroughs at a time when many of these neighborhoods were unimaginably dangerous. When the starting gun went off that fall morning, skeptics swore that some might not come back alive.
Yet, 26.2 miles later, Lebow and his fellow runners had united a city and ignited the distance running craze.
Filmmaker Judd Ehrlich captured Fred Lebow’s incredible life, which is in large part the history of the New York City Marathon in Run for Your Life. The movie, which premiered last year, depicts the determination of a slow but dedicated runner who fell in love with the sport and decided to share that passion with the world.
Good luck to all of those runners who will become a part of Fred Lebow’s legacy this Sunday. May each of you find his inspiration and love of both the city and the sport on the streets of New York.
40 years, 100,000 applicants, 25,000 runners, 2 million spectators, and 26.2 miles of incredible city. The New York City Marathon is boss. In honor of the race this coming weekend here are the top 25 ways you know you train in NYC.
Photo courtesy of ajagendor25 on Flickr
You Know You’re a NYC Runner If…
1. You dodge tourists, hot dog carts, movie sets, and pigeons on every run
2. You calculate distance in terms of Central Park loops and city blocks
3. The number one reason you don’t like to run in the rain is that all the umbrella carts come out
4. You know that on any given run you might be hit by a cab driver, hipster messenger, or crazy restaurant delivery bike dude.
5. You’ve had your regular running route interrupted by The [Insert Affinity Group} Day Parade
6. You buy running shorts that have pockets big enough for your blackberry
7. You recognize more people on your running route than in your building
8. Each week you run more miles than you drive in a year
9. You’ve been so tempted by the smell of honey-roasted nuts that it’s taken all your willpower to not stop
10. You’ve been so nauseated by the smell of honey-roasted nuts that you’ve almost hurled Read More »
Last week we published an article about the pros and cons of various running surfaces, which included helpful hints about where to find and how to navigate each type of terrain.
One of our readers promptly noted that the article reminded him of the opening scene of Casino Royale, in which Sebastien Foucan displays Parkour stylings that are simply beyond compare.
For those who have yet to learn of this growing craze, Parkour and Free Running are the art and sport of moving from point A to point B in the most efficient and stylistically impressive manner possible. In this literally mad dash across urban landscapes, Parkour runners use walls, buildings, lampposts, ladders, and garbage cans to propel themselves to…well, we’re not exactly sure where they go.
After watching many a Parkour video, we realized that although we did include trail running and aqua jogging in the article, we apparently left some key running surfaces off the list. For this, we offer our sincerest apologies.
As to not short our community on their education about running surfaces, for this week’s motivational video, we have included the video that inspired it all. Watch carefully for a brief tutorial into chain link fence hopping, sand dumping passage, crane training, and concrete table vaulting techniques.
The ING New York City Marathon is less than 2 weeks away and we at Moji want to help set the mood for the thousands of NYC runners and ten thousand local volunteers who are preparing for the 40th running of this incredible event. So, we have racked our brains and scoured the internet for the greatest NYC songs of all time. Though there are undoubtedly more Big Apple tunes than we’ve compiled, these represent 50 of the very best.
Photo couretsy of alanator on Flickr
The blend of slower beats and blood-pumping rhythms should provide you with ample tunes to carry you all the way from taper to the finish line. The playlist starts below but click through to see all 50 songs and enjoy what the city that doesn’t sleep has inspired. If after all that, you can get enough, check out more race day music on Moji’s Ultimate Marathon Playlist.
For those of us still getting back to full gait after the Chicago Marathon two weekends ago, it is hard to imagine running another Windy City 26.2…let alone 31 more. Yet, there is a group of men who did just that. In this inspiring article about the Chicago Alumni Runners, Anne Stein captures how these dedicated athletes manage to consistently cross the finish line despite life, injury, and the occasional stray goose getting in the way.
Read this amazing tale and what keeps this group striving for 33 next year.
