Marathon 2007

The Fourth of November in the early morn

From our warm little beds we will be torn

We’ll gather predawn on the library steps

Beginning to stretch our quadriceps

We’ll arrive at Ft. Wadsworth on the Road Runner busses

It’ll still be early and we’ll hear runners’ cusses.

The lines for the potty will be long we all know

So we have an idea – we know what it’s like when you got to go

We’ll place our old Mylars on the ground and we’ll pee

We are Merms after all “why use a tree?”

We’ll line up by colors – orange, green, and blue

And doff our old duds and ask ourselves “Is this really true?”

The gun will go off and through Brooklyn we’ll run a good deal of the way

The crowds will be awesome – “Go Merms!” They’ll all say

In Queens we will run for a mile or two

Then at the Queensboro Bridge we’ll be 16 miles through!

The crowd will be roaring as we head up First

By then we’ll find sponges to help quench the thirst.

Through the Bronx we’ll go for just a few miles

Then back into Manhattan and our forced little smiles

Down Fifth Avenue quite an incline we’ll mount

The number of blocks? Let’s not bother to count.

At 90^th Street, we will enter the Park and run down Cat Hill

But we’ll soon see … there’s over a mile still!

At Columbus Circle, the end is in sight

The crowd is all with us screaming with delight

That last little hill by the Tavern we know

Pretty soon, they say, we’ll be aglow!

After 26.2 miles, smile we must

Because a crappy photo now would be oh so unjust!

© Ilene Kent 2007 Back