Learning about winning from finishing last
Posted: Thursday, October 30, 2008 10:19 PM
In every race, somebody has to finish last. For the last 20 years in the New York Marathon, that distinction has gone to Zoe Koplowitz.
It’s never been a contest. No matter how slow the slowest runner has been, Zoe has always slower – a lot slower. In 2000, she even set an unofficial world’s record for the slowest marathon ever run by a woman – 36:09. That’s nine minutes more than 1½ days.
Zoe doesn’t set out to finish last. She sets out to finish. She trains hard for her marathons and runs as hard as she can. But she has multiple sclerosis and navigates with the aid of forearm crutches. In recent years, she’s also battled diabetes.
She is spastic and suffers from neuropathy. Every step is painful, and the last miles are brutal agony. But no matter how much pain she’s been in, no matter how many times her hands, arms, shoulders calves and thighs have knotted up in agonizing cramps, she always finishes.
But not this year.
This Sunday, when 40,000 runners line up to start the 2008 New York City Marathon, Zoe will not be among them. Somebody else is going to have to finish last.
Zoe is a dear friend of mine. She called a couple of days ago to tell me she had an outbreak of shingles and had been ordered by her doctor not to run. She described the viral infection as the most painful thing she’s ever had to endure, and she knows from pain.
The race will not be the same without her. Zoe not running is like Cal Ripken finally sitting out a game, or more appropriately, like a movie without the closing credits.
I met Zoe probably 18 years ago, while doing a story about disabled athletes running for the Achilles Track Club. I’ve been part of her support crew for several New York marathons, and went the distance with her when she ran the London and Boston marathons. I also helped her write her book, “The Winning Spirit: Life Lessons Learned in Last Place,” although to be honest, Zoe doesn’t need help putting words together.
She’s a legend in New York and has touched countless lives with her courage and determination and guts. Fred Lebow, the late founder f the New York City Marathon, loved Zoe. Grete Waitz, once the fastest female marathoner, greatly admires Zoe. Waitz knows how much it hurts to run as hard as she could for two hours and change. She couldn’t imagine how Zoe could run as hard as she could for 25-30 hours or more.
Her races are a community affair that begins with her friend and guide Hester Sutherland, who has walked every step of every marathon with Zoe. A squad of Guardian Angels joins her at night to escort her safely through the night. All along her route, the same old admirers come out to cheer her on. It’s like a day-long party that she writes about on her own website.
Zoe was the first non-celebrity to do one of those milk mustache ads. Annie Leibovitz shot her portrait for it. Years ago, when Bryant Gumbel and Katie Couric occupied the anchor chairs, the TODAY Show chronicled one of her marathons.
She’s a terrific public speaker, a brassy and emotional New Yorker who lives near Alphabet City in the lower East Side. She’s especially good speaking to kids groups. She didn’t have the best of all possible childhoods herself and knows what they’re going through. And they look at her and realize that maybe life isn’t as bad as they thought.
As she puts it: “Kids see it and begin believing that, 'Hey, that old broad can put in 26 miles, maybe I can make something of myself and my life.' ”
Not everybody appreciates her and the effort it takes to keep going for 30 hours just to finish a race. Some running elitists think she takes attention away from the “real” runners. One New York morning radio show found it uproariously amusing to make fun of the old woman with the crutches who in their world had no business even entering the race.
None of them understand that only one man and one woman win the race. By the standards of the critics, the other 39,000-plus runners are all losers. Only a few enter the race with a chance of winning, all the rest are there for the same reason Zoe is – to conquer pain and fatigue and test their limits, to be a part of one of the world’s great sporting events.
The marathon truly is one of those rare times when everybody who finishes is a winner. It’s not like kindergarten, where kids get trophies just for taking in oxygen. If you finish 26.2 miles, believe me, you have earned that medal. You are a winner.
There’s no shame in finishing last, not if that’s the best you can possibly do. For 20 years, Zoe has done that, and she’ll be back next year for number 21. But she’s sitting out this one. Its finally somebody else’s turn to bring up the rear of the pack.
