Firstly, let me say how very grateful I was that it was not as bitter cold this year as it was at last year’s Manhattan Half. Last years experience led me to the conclusion that the runner to NYRR relationship was little more than a masochist/sadist thing. It was about zero with the wind chill and nearly all the hot water in Brooklyn was required to thaw the intrepid Dukesicles that ran. So it was with some trepidation that I rose from a blissfully warm slumber, at the ungodly Sunday hour of 6am, and crept to the window for a peek at the outdoor thermometer. Lo and behold, it was a balmy 32* and nary a breeze in sight - SWEET. Hopped in the DukeMobile and scooped up the two other fellers foolish enough to sign-on and scooted up to Central Park.

Unfortunately there were still unforeseen hurdles between our hearty team and racing success. Namely, queues for the porta-johns that stretched a hundred people long…per unit! To understand the absurdity of the situation you really have to put yourself there. Imagine standing out in the crisp cold at 8:00am, just you and 6,000 other idiots. Seemingly half of them lined up waiting to gain admittance to what must surely be 10 of the most revolting thunder-shacks this side of Lalapalooza on a 100* day. I kid you not, there were plooms of rancid steam pouring out the eves of these things.

And then, as the camera pans back, you grasp the location; just outside of the glass walls of the Temple of Dendur exhibit at the Metropolitan. Any of you who’ve been there have experienced the quiet majesty of the place, the eerie whisper of history. No small irony to have that on one side of the glass and this cacophonous, cold, hopping, grimacing, insistent throng of “modern” humans on the other. Not so much has changed perhaps? Thousands of years of beautiful history, from Isis’s Nile to Central Park, only to witness this view from the front porch? I’m guessing the Temple’s view was rather more civilized back in Egypt.

Anyhow, needless to say, did not brave the bathroom lines and opted to try my luck on the course. Like my esteemed colleague, I too spent the first mile or so thinking of little more than the dire need of a pre-run constitutional. Yeah, I know, not classy talk, but once you’ve been running long enough, you become inured to such stuff. Just the way it is, and I’ll do extreme deeds to avoid pulling a Gretta Weiss.

So when I rounded the turn at mile one (Also the finish line at Mile 13 as this course was a double loop) and saw the shimmering gleam of two pristine Banos set back in the woods behind a tent, there was no stopping me. I hopped two fences, one a white picket plastic jobby that should have been an indicator that this john was like no other, and found both of the units occupied. I positioned myself behind a large oak and hoped none of the race minders mulling around would notice me pining for what had to be the coordinator’s private bathrooms. Finally one of the occupants started to make the rustling sounds of impending exit and, at that exact moment, an angry looking woman with a bullhorn grasped my intention and started goose-stepping in my direction. It was only by sheer luck that I managed to duck inside, just as the current tenant evacuated, and fling the lock as she reached to bar my destiny.

Not the most relaxing, having a big angry woman banging on the plastic door of the shack and hollering about “VIP Only”, but I managed to git’er’done, escape the honey-closet, and, um, thank the kind lady for her hospitality.

I rejoined the race a newly invigorated runner with only a light wind and her loud opinions at my back. The rest of the race was without incident; it’s was a brisk morning lope around Central Park and the city, racers and weather all seemed in good spirits.

Race time was a 1:42, pretty respectable for being woefully out of shape. Especially in light of the couple minute sideshow.