Pam’s Pictorama Post: Today we here at Deitch Studio are recovering from our endeavors in Brooklyn yesterday. (If you missed that post it can be found here.) It is a bright sunny but chilly day, and it is in fact Marathon Sunday here in Manhattan.

The first Sunday in November is the designated day for the marathon and today’s 45 or so degree, bright sunny day is on the fall cool side of what one might expect on this day. It is, for the rest of the United States, also the day our clocks change to Daylight Savings Time, falling back an hour at 2AM. And for those of us live along the marathon route it is notable as a rather significant inconvenience – we here on York and 86th Street are more or less corralled on the East side of First Avenue as the route for the runners enters onto First Avenue in the Fifties and runs well above us before turning west again.

When I first moved to Yorkville in about 1987 I was deeply and personally offended by this as perhaps only a twenty four year old can be. How could anyone or anything dictate my ability to cross First Avenue at will and do what I wanted on a Sunday afternoon? That was crazy and I raged a bit, but it was indeed true. The marathon is quite simply an immovable reality of New York life.

Yorkville – 86th between First and Second Avenues.

Over time it became a marker in each and every year. There were years when I crossed First Avenue early and returned late, thereby avoiding the issue of crossing during the thick of the run which lasts a few hours. When I worked for Central Park we hosted a brunch at the north end of the park – Central Park always plays a key role in the marathon as the finishing point and I always like to see it showcased, often at its best with leaves blazing with fall color.

Fall flowers on Park Avenue recently.

If you are wondering, no it has never occurred to me to watch the marathon from our perch. Standing on First Avenue and cheering does not much interest me. We can usually hear the cheer go up for the front runners and then an ongoing later as the pack swells and travels up the Eastside.

One year I unthinkingly made a date with Carol Lay for lunch downtown in the East Village and had to perform the maneuver I like least which is sort of running along with the participants up a few blocks while you cross – trying not to distract or impede them in any way. I successfully managed it that day, however shortly following me there was a nasty incident where an older man who was blind insisted on being escorted across and it ended badly with a crash with a runner causing some injury to both. This incident scarred me for attempting that crossing in future years.

Meanwhile, the date with Carol stands out in my mind because she had given my phone number to an inquiring Kim Deitch at a Halloween wedding. The result was a date with him on the long Veteran’s Day weekend the following week, 25 years ago this year and the rest is our marital history. Nonetheless, other years have dictated a need to cross, although it is generally manageable if you at least time it so you are not in the thick of it.

In recent years I have accepted the limitations of the day for the most part. The largest irritant has been trying to time a trip to and from the gym at an optimum time. I recently joined a gym in our building so this year even that doesn’t concern me much. I generally devote this day of urban captivity to turning over my closets to fall and winter clothes (another fine tradition of New York life in a small apartment, the seasonal shift of clothing from our basement storage unit), but this year we are too tightly packed and distressed by our kitchen operation for me to manage it right now. At this rate you will see me layering my summer wardrobe way into winter and throwing a wool coat over it. (With an upcoming trip to Madison, Wisconsin in about ten days this could get interesting. I think they have already had snow this season.)

Although I am very fond of working out I am not a runner. Persistent and systemic arthritis have prevented from me exploring it – the constant pounding hastening an eventual need for fusions and replacement joints which lurk in my future. My cardio takes place on a more forgiving elliptical machines or a bike. I don’t think I have marathoning in my nature though either. I have always thought training for a triathlon would be more my style – breaking running up with swimming and biking. It is unlikely to happen with this body in this lifetime however.

Nonetheless, I have made my peace with my role as temporary prisoner to the marathon and accept it as a rite of autumn. Today’s grocery delivery, trip to the drugstore and to buy sample paint will wait until the day is longer in the tooth and a fewer, slower runners remain, making their way up First Avenue, as the now earlier than yesterday sunset overtakes New York City.