Near the end of her terrific new book about the New York City Marathon, author Liz Robbins describes with biting understatement a finish-line scene that captures the best of humanity and ridicules the worst of celebrity.
Actor Tom Cruise is waiting for his wife, actress Katie Holmes, who will finish her first marathon in 5 hours, 28 minutes, 58 seconds. Holmes crosses the finish line clad in a spaghetti-strapped tank top and sweatpants, and the crowd cheers.
But the cheers aren't for Holmes or her flaky husband, who is about to make his wife the only runner in the field of 39,265 to have a loved one bestow the finisher's medal. The cheers are for 55-year-old Bill Reilly, a victim of severe cerebral palsy who has just pushed his wheelchair backwards for 26.2 miles — for the 12th year in a row.
Robbins' book, "A Race Like No Other," (HarperCollins, $24.95) is filled with similarly poignant scenes and stories that beautifully capture the power of the marathon in general and the New York City Marathon in particular.
"People start for a reason," Robbins writes. "They finish with a revelation."
Full disclosure: Liz is a friend and sportswriting colleague who has written for The New York Times the past eight years, New York is my favorite marathon, and the race covers the marathon of 2007, in which I ran. I was predisposed to like her book.
But "A Race Like No Other," like the marathon it depicts, offers inspiration at every turn. If you're a runner, it will make you want to run a marathon. If you're a marathoner, it will make you want to run New York. If you love the New York City Marathon, you will treasure this book.
But you don't have to take my word for it. My training partner liked it so much she bought copies for two friends.
Organizing the story into 26 chapters, Robbins weaves vivid mile-by-mile descriptions of the route with memorable stories about people who are running it. Robbins went to South Africa to tell the fascinating story of Hendrick Ramaala, who finished third. She went to Latvia to profile Jelena Prokopcuka, who was third in the elite women's race.
But Robbins also tells the story of a cancer-survivor running his first marathon. We follow the saga of a recovering alcoholic and mother who began training for New York after serving 90 days in jail for her third DUI.
"Completing a marathon, training for a marathon, represents hope," Robbins said on a recent visit to Denver. "And that's why people can be inspired by this book. That's why I was inspired by it. It's the dedication, the perseverance, the craziness, the belief, the doubt and then the belief again. It's a story of reinvention and revitalization."
We also meet some great people along the marathon route, such as Frank Haye, the pastor of music and arts at Emmanuel Baptist church in Brooklyn. Dressed in black robes and colorful scarves on the church's front steps, the choir sings urban spirituals while the mass of marathoners flows by.
"As far as we see it," Haye says, "the whole Christian life is a marathon."
Robbins came up with the idea to do the book after a trip to Boulder just before the 2006 New York City Marathon, which produced a fairly controversial New York Times piece about the elites who train there. It got her thinking about those who have a passion for running, elite and ordinary. She'd long ago fallen in love with the New York City Marathon, so she took a leave of absence from the Times.
"I was looking for a book topic," Robbins said. "I didn't want to write about the NBA, having covered it for 10 years. I didn't want to write about tennis. I wanted to write something that was bigger, that really captured the whole scope of humanity. Nothing does that like the marathon."
She's right. Those of us who run marathons and get to write about marathoners are constantly humbled by the power of the marathon to inspire.
"Everyone keeps asking me, 'What's your next book?' " Robbins said. "How am I going to find something that is this meaningful to people, and so challenging, and so fun?"
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