Road to Rockland
With support from our friends and partners at Bandit Run Club, an independent, premium running apparel company based in Brooklyn, NY.
How do you describe what “normal” feels like right now? We each have our own distinctive, and somehow nebulous, definition - in life and certainly in running. For me, this past weekend felt “normal” because I had the opportunity to witness exceptional people doing exceptional things.
Here we followed three runners as they ran the McKirdy Micro Marathon in Rockland State Park, just 30 miles north of New York City. Dennis, Parker, and Tina are all members of Brooklyn Track Club and were eager to finally get back to racing the marathon distance in a formal setting.
Our hotel accommodations were nothing I’d recommend, but served as a place to rest our heads.
We arrived at 5:45AM. The race started at 6:30AM on the dot.
Long-lasting friendships subdued any pre-race jitters.
McKirdy had a very organized check-in, with COVID-safe measures in place and clear direction, allowing runners to focus on their warmup and the race to come.
There was a collective serenity as the runners lined up. On some faces the nerves were palpable, but the sunrise over the mountains appeared to throw a comforting blanket over any anxieties. It almost didn’t seem as though gruelingly painful, yet impressive, performances were about to happen over 26.2 miles.
Dennis is a runner who I mine for mindset tips every chance I get. He stood calm, collected, focused.
The 2.94 mile loop began with all smiles as Parker and Tina found a rhythm in a pack of four.
Kim, pictured on the right, would go on to PR her marathon at a 3:25:21. For Bela, back left, this was his marathon debut. He was ecstatic with his time of 3:29:04.
Dennis remained mostly solo for the 9 loop course, at times syncing up with other fellow sub-3 marathoners. For most runners, this would be a race death sentence, but for Dennis, this is business as usual. From the beginning of his running career, he has mostly trained solo and revels in the opportunity to use running as a means to meditate.
Chip Bearden, Tina’s father, at our BKTC HQ. He’s a Boston and Philadelphia Marathon finisher.
Top male Alex Burks (2:16:51) and top female Kim Lowry (2:50:55) finishers. To say they were inspiring would be a dramatic understatement: their tenacity in pace and power was felt with every lap.
Dennis was the first to finish of our trio. He achieved his goal of sub-2:45 with perfect precision, coming in at 2:44:52. Across all the laps I saw him, he looked stunningly comfortable. For most runners, “making it look easy” is an envious quality. For Dennis, it encapsulates all of his charm.
I had the privilege of pacing Parker and Tina for 12 of the miles, up until their last two laps. We knew this was a BQT for both of them, the only question was by how much. On the last two laps, it was clear the name of the game was to persevere through pain and finish with power.
At the finish, we weren’t surprised to see Tina surging. Pushing her final two miles sub 7-min pace, she charged forward to a 3:22:32. For Tina, her ability to push pain aside in the face of running performance is her superpower. Here it was on full display.
Parker was close behind. It was clear that her signature determined grit was keeping her going the last two solo miles. There are many superlatives to describe a debut marathon: “crushed it,” “amazing,” “incredible.” All fall short of what we experienced with Parker’s intro into the marathon distance at 3:24:02.
When all goes to plan, finishing a marathon is a delightful chaos of emotion.
What felt like an incredible release of hard work also felt like a beginning. A trio of incredible marathon performances that seem to now set the bar for a trio of incredible athletes. There’s always time to talk about future plans, but for now we’ll all bask in what was an idyllic morning to book-end an incredible weekend.
- Dave Hashim
Fin.