“I’m lookin’ at you, Alaska!”
Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2025 6:36 am
We jogged off the bridge ramp and into Brooklyn. The din was people, lining the streets four deep behind a strip of blue plastic tape that resembled a thick finish line. They were cheering. Not for the two Kenyans who had passed a few hours earlier on their ways to winning the men’s and women’s races. But us, a multicolored mass oozing in slow motion compared to the elites.
Friends who had run the race told me to wear my name on my shirt, so people in the crowd can call it out. I instead chose a University of Alaska Fairbanks t-shirt where the ALASKA stood out in blue and gold.
And there, as I decelerated for the next few hours, I heard that word, which hit like a shot of electricity each time.
“Go Alaska!”
“You got this, Alaska!”
I ran on the far right of 4th Avenue in Brooklyn (the shady side), slapping my sweaty hand into the palms of kids and adults of all sizes and races. Each thwack gave me a few free steps, floating on air. One guy almost popped my rotator cuff.
At one point, I turned to a woman next to me whose face was cherry red like mine. She was smiling at the din of cheers, and signs held up, each with a New York flair: I LOVE YOU, RANDOM STRANGER.
“I may pass out from heat stroke, but I’ll country wise email marketing list die happy,” I said to my new friend.
My aunt Fran — Nanny’s daughter — once pointed out to me that for all the billions of people in the world, no two faces are exactly alike. I saw hundreds of faces that day, making eye contact with kids whose hands I smacked and people who shouted Alaska. But my brain’s facial recognition software pinged with a positive match only once.
There was my sister Mary, standing on the steps of an ornate Baptist church one block from her house in Brooklyn. I stopped and picked her up for a hug. Joy.
On I went, bopping past rock bands playing at gas stations, recorded music blaring at eardrum-damaging volume on every corner, and pods of uniformed police who stood in the middle of cross streets.
I could tell from the increasing weight of my cotton Alaska shirt that the relative humidity was high. Every few kilometers, volunteers held out cups of sports drink and water. The streets around those stations were coated with crushed paper cups, trod to a watery pulp.
The course featured 400 port-a-potties for each mile, none of which was there the day before, nor the day after.
I sucked down both sports drink and water at every stop, happy for the chance to walk, which helped cool the engine.
Friends who had run the race told me to wear my name on my shirt, so people in the crowd can call it out. I instead chose a University of Alaska Fairbanks t-shirt where the ALASKA stood out in blue and gold.
And there, as I decelerated for the next few hours, I heard that word, which hit like a shot of electricity each time.
“Go Alaska!”
“You got this, Alaska!”
I ran on the far right of 4th Avenue in Brooklyn (the shady side), slapping my sweaty hand into the palms of kids and adults of all sizes and races. Each thwack gave me a few free steps, floating on air. One guy almost popped my rotator cuff.
At one point, I turned to a woman next to me whose face was cherry red like mine. She was smiling at the din of cheers, and signs held up, each with a New York flair: I LOVE YOU, RANDOM STRANGER.
“I may pass out from heat stroke, but I’ll country wise email marketing list die happy,” I said to my new friend.
My aunt Fran — Nanny’s daughter — once pointed out to me that for all the billions of people in the world, no two faces are exactly alike. I saw hundreds of faces that day, making eye contact with kids whose hands I smacked and people who shouted Alaska. But my brain’s facial recognition software pinged with a positive match only once.
There was my sister Mary, standing on the steps of an ornate Baptist church one block from her house in Brooklyn. I stopped and picked her up for a hug. Joy.
On I went, bopping past rock bands playing at gas stations, recorded music blaring at eardrum-damaging volume on every corner, and pods of uniformed police who stood in the middle of cross streets.
I could tell from the increasing weight of my cotton Alaska shirt that the relative humidity was high. Every few kilometers, volunteers held out cups of sports drink and water. The streets around those stations were coated with crushed paper cups, trod to a watery pulp.
The course featured 400 port-a-potties for each mile, none of which was there the day before, nor the day after.
I sucked down both sports drink and water at every stop, happy for the chance to walk, which helped cool the engine.