What You Do Not Know Because You Are Not Me by Michael Ring I’m Sorry

What You Do Not Know Because You Are Not Me by Michael Ring

I’m Sorry

A few years ago our “NYC Marathon Program” was fading.  We were filling only a single bus to the start, the crowd at the last 10 mile run was thin and the “reunion school” was not so full.  The PPTC board was considering dropping the program.  It was a lot of work and if nobody wanted it, then why do it?  For purely selfish reasons, I took over the project.  I wanted to run the last 10 miles with my friends.  I wanted to take a bus from Park Slope to the start of the Marathon and I wanted my family to wait for me in a pleasant place.  I did not want this program to go away.  But to keep it from being cancelled, I had to make it bigger,

So I opened it up to the public.  This year about 150 – 200 people ran the last 10 miles with us.  We also sold out four buses with 55 seats each.  I am told our reunion school had a party atmosphere, but I honestly don’t remember that because, after running 26.2 miles, I was too numb to notice.  Also about 40 people joined the Prospect Park Track Club in November.  So, I am happy.  Our NYC Marathon Program will continue.

Why am I apologizing?  Because three weeks after the marathon, a man walked up to me and said, “My wife wants to kill you.”  This is not what I expect to hear at 9am after I drop my kids at school.   He told me that I took his wife’s bag off the bus at Fort Wadsworth.  Oh, crap!

The last thing I did as an organizer of our marathon activates was get off the bus at the start.  As I got off I wanted to take any trash off the bus that might have been left.  In one of the front rows there was a plastic bag filled with the stuff one would want at the start of a marathon.  It had a few protean bars, hand warmers and Vaseline.  I asked the few people left on the bus if it they had left it and they said they had not.  I assumed that someone who had just gotten off the bus had left if behind.  I got off the bus quickly and called out, “Did anyone leave this on the bus!”?  Nothing.  I repeated this as I quickly walked away from the bus. But it was apparent that I was not going to find the person who had left this bag in the masses of humanity exiting the buses in the toll plaza.  Later I shared the snacks and hand warmers with the people I was sitting with on the cold grass under the Verrazano Bridge.

It turns out the owner of the bag was in the bathroom on the bus. 

I am sorry; I thought I was doing the right thing.

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