Yonkers!

Francine A.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of my first marathon. While I’m no Marathon Maniac, I’ve run my share, both here and abroad. But I had never run the out-of-town marathon which is closest to home: the Yonkers Marathon, established 1907. This year, just for fun, I did it.

What a hidden jewel! It reminded me of the races I ran in the early years, when running was still a local affair. The baggage and registration signs were hand-painted. You could register up to a half-hour before the start. Someone played the Theme from Rocky on a boombox at the start. There was no National Anthem and no starting gun or horn. A guy told us to go, and off we went. The Half was one loop, and the Full was two.

There were hills, sure, but nothing we hadn’t seen before. Boy Scouts handed out water and Gatorade. Smiling traffic cops stopped the cars for each runner. The roads were not closed, but they weren’t busy, and the shoulder was generous. There were no medical tents. However, the townspeople were so encouraging that I’m sure any one of them would have fetched me anything I needed, whether a band-aid or an ambulance. The mile markers were tacked up to the light poles. There was no course nutrition, so runners shared their extra gels with one another. One guy was offering cups of flat Coke. I hadn’t seen flat Coke on a marathon course since the first Bush administration.

After the run, finishers lounged at an outdoor bar by the Hudson. I greeted runners that I’d seen around races for years. Nearly a dozen Flyers turned out for either the Half or the Full. A total of 140 men and 37 women finished the Marathon, and a few hundred more did the Half. Many were using Yonkers as a long training run for New York.

The Yonkers Marathon wasn’t always so casual. For much of the 20th century, Yonkers and Boston served as the de facto U.S. Olympic Trials. John J. Kelley ("The Younger"), the legendary Boston Marathon champion who died last month, holds the Yonkers course record of 2:20:13 among his eight consecutive victories at Yonkers. Gary Muhrcke won Yonkers before he won the inaugural NYC Marathon.

In the early years, the last miles were run on the former Empire City Track (now Yonkers Raceway). In 1908, the race drew 20,000 spectators. In 1909, the race was cancelled when police, patrolling the Empire City Track on horseback, refused to make way for the runners.

Today, Yonkers is known as the Marathoner’s Marathon. I can’t believe it took me 20 years to discover it.

- Francine A.