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Fall In New York Starts With the Marathon
If you’re going to be in the city for one day next year, make it that one.
The first weekend of November is several weeks after the calendar-dictated beginning of fall. By then, neglected, carved Halloween pumpkins are either freezing or rotting or freezing and rotting on stoops around the city, people have done their agricultural cosplay picking apples somewhere in upstate New York or on Long Island before returning to the city with 8 pounds of apples they won’t know how to use up, and conversation starters have switched over from “What are you dressing up as for Halloween?” to “What are you doing for the holidays?” However, for me, that first Sunday in New York is the correct gauge of the beginning of fall. It’s also the day of the New York City marathon.
I should preface this with the obvious — though I have “gotten into running” at various points in my life, I am not a marathon runner. My most recent attempt at “being a runner” came in February 2020 and involved looping up and down Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn: I’d walk from my apartment down to the intersection of Franklin and Eastern Parkway, run east until I got to Utica, and then loop back around until I got to Grand Army Plaza and then returned to my apartment in Crown Heights. I did this for a couple weeks, and then the pandemic happened…
