Butt Hurts Disease: REID #214

and RIP Johnny

Nov 05, 2024

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SHORT:

Ran the NY Marathon yesterday. Somehow Kyrsten Sinema and Chelsea Clinton both finished faster than I did, which—as they say—really pisses my piss off. But here we are.

MEDIUM:

On a more positive note, I loved how many grown adults broke out the Sharpies and poster boards and let their freak flags fly!!! We saw approximately 900 signs that said “I don’t know about u but I’m1 feeling 26.2!” — hell ya! Put that lil twist on that Tayla Swift song, girls!!! Ur the Picassos of Park Slope! Art is alive and she’s wearing Madewell!

LONG:

Jess and I kicked off marathon day at 7 a.m.

I attempted to “make magic happen” (poop). No luck. God hates f*gs. So, as we shuffled off to the starting line, I kept muttering, “I hope I can shit on Staten Island2”… like a panicked Pete Davidson on Oxy3.

Since we live along the race course, Jess, ever the optimist, saw a cop on our way to the subway and chirped, “See you in a few hours!” He did not respond.

On the subway to the ferry terminal, every time someone with a marathon bag got on, I’d lean over and whisper, “That’s brethren,” especially if they had the haunted, bleary-eyed look of someone already regretting every life decision that led to this moment4.

Jess kept talking about how they wanted to check out the “Zen Zone” once we got to the marathon village, which is crazy because I was already curating the perfect Zen Zone by loudly complaining about how cold it was, and how if I didn’t take a dump on Dump Island before the race, I was gonna dump myself in the river.

I ended up sh*tting on the Staten Island ferry alongside some very animated womxn from the Netherlands.

After docking at the Staten Island Outlet Mall (a place you don’t realize exists until it’s too late), we waited eons for a school bus to the starting line. Somewhere along the route, we passed an “In Memory of Johnny” sign poking out from the side of a building. We’d signed up to run for Best Buddies, but today? We were also running for Johnny—whoever he was, watching over us from the side of a Staten Island tire shop.

When we finally made it to the marathon village, we found the infamous “Zen Zone,” which, of course, was an empty tent with a sad folding table. “Maybe this is a good omen!” I told Jess, lying through my teeth. Even the tent knew it.

After downing my anti-nausea meds5, I stripped down to my running gear, donated my sweatshirt, and entered full corral mode, aggressively telling Jess to hurry up so we wouldn’t end up in the back (peak zen again).

At long last, the National Guard led us to the Verrazzano. A gay man sang the anthem for the fifth time that day, the cannon went off, and Sinatra’s New York, New York ushered us into the unknown.

We spotted a contender for Best Sign early: an angry guy in Bay Ridge with tiny scrawled poster that said, “I moved my car for this.”

Electric guitars and live singers powered us up into South Brooklyn (our neighborhood), where my parents were waiting. Apparently my mother went into our local coffee shop before we arrived and told everyone, “Reid [was] running!”, to which they said, “Who?” — she then pulled up a photo on her phone, and they were like, “Oh, that person, yeah, they’re here a lot.”

Things heated up near Barclays. Our friends Dave, Lily, and Al came out with signs, and Zach Schiffman caught us live on Instagram while doing guerrilla marketing for his podcast. In Fort Greene, I even high-fived Olympic gymnast Laurie Hernandez without realizing it was her, then yelled, “Oh my god, hi!” like we were best friends6.

Reid & Jess’s Spirit of the Marathon Award goes to two frat bros who yelled “LET’S GO PAM!” at a random middle-aged woman with “PAM” on her shirt. They didn’t know her. They didn’t need to.

Williamsburg was a dream, with Hasidic men darting across the route mid-race and drunken twenty-somethings screaming in our faces. Another excellent sign: “Your mom went harder last night.” At the halfway mark, one lone lady on the bridge to Queens shouted “Halfway!” into a microphone. Soon after, some guy yelled “Go runners!” then turned to me and said “Go jogger!7”.

The Queensboro Bridge was difficult: silent, uphill, and soul-crushing. But as my will was disintegrating, we passed a guy named Dave8, pushing himself up the hill in a wheelchair—backwards. Everyone started chanting “Go, Dave!” and the vibes improved drastically.

The “Wall of Sound” at Mile 16 was more like “Wall of Mild Applause,” but I saw Jess’s aunt and my family again, with signs they were very proud of9. Thank you to this dancer we saw, who gave us a much-needed energy boost!

And then it was time for the Bronx… I wish I had something funny to say about this point onward, but it wasn’t funny, it hurt so bad. I thought I was going to have to walk or stop because my BUTT hurt so much. I don’t think I can do another marathon unless they find the cure for MyButtHurts disease10.

Shoutout to Kelsey, a loyal newsletter reader, for cheering us on as we crawled through Harlem and down Fifth Avenue toward Central Park.

Speaking of Central Park… it was endless… with rolling hills that hit my already fragile spirit. Jess kept saying, “I can’t believe I’m still running!” while I imagined my own “In Memory of Reid” sign going up on one of the trees.

But we made it. 66th and 67th in the non-binary category (lol). And then, a 10-block zombie march out of the park in our bright orange hoods, looking like a gang of cultists making a mass exodus.

Our final journey was a pedi-cab ride to my parents’ hotel, since Ubers weren’t working. The pedi-cab turned out to cost more than the down payment on a house, but I was just happy to be off my feet.

New York can be rough, but yesterday it showed up to cheer on every runner, as vulnerable as we were.

This morning at 9am, I had truffle fried rice and five pieces of rugelach (Snack of the Week, my Zen Zone) and then went back to bed.

C U Next Tuesday