Staten Island Prologue

NYC Marathon Course Section: Staten Island, Start Line

The New York City Marathon winds through all 5 boroughs of New York, NY: Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, the Bronx, and Manhattan again, in that order. The race begins at Fort Wadsworth in Staten Island. Runners are staggered into waves depending on how fast they expect to run it. The “elites,” or professional runners, start first with a whole spectrum humanity following them from speedy amateurs to easy paced fun runners. In addition, the runners are assigned three different bib colors: blue, green, and orange. The bib colors determine which route they will take and where their corrals will be located in the Marathon Village. When it’s their time to start, New York Road Runners–the race organizers–say a few words, play the national anthem and send them off on their long way to Central Park.

Marathoners Rocking New York Song:

Track #1: The Staten Island Prologue

Time: 2:08

Tempo: 180 bpm

Treadmill Elevation: 1.0

NYC Marathon Course Section: The Start Line

“The Staten Island Prologue” is the introduction to Marathoners Rocking New York. It is a spoken word track with a 180 bpm beat set in the starting coral of the New York City Marathon. Sheena is one in a massive crowd of thousands of nervous runners. The excitement and adrenaline is palpable from every direction. Sheena is about to run a marathon for the first time. The longest she’s ever run was 20 miles and that was tough, so the idea of running for another approximate hour on top of that is terrifying. Still, she’s a performer and the crowd of marathon spectators will be the biggest she’s ever faced. Sure, they may not notice her specifically but the idea of experiencing a high that comes from performing and running at the same time gets her excited. Her mind swirls with fear, visions of glory, and the thrill of being part this extraordinary event.

Download Marathoners Rocking New York Tracks on iTunes

>>NEXT SONG/SECTION: VERRAZZANO! (MILES 0-2)

Staten Island Prologue Lyrics:

Got to keep that beat, put it in my feet. Huddled in the masses in Staten Island wondering, where’s this going to lead?

New York, NY: My city, my love … a city that has taken in so many wandering souls. What will 5 boroughs look like all strung together on foot?

Will I finish?

Will I die?

Will I crap my pants and lose my toenails?

Or, will I conquer?

Will I succeed?

Can I reach my goals?

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“Some people create with words, with music or the brush and paints, I like to make something beautiful when I run.” Steve Prefontaine said that and it makes a lot of sense to me, the concept of running as a work of art.

To me art is everything. The Greeks would go to the theatre to experience catharsis, to release their emotional tension. It had a real important function in their lives.

Nowadays a great rock concert can raise us up, you can lose yourself in that beat.

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Running is the best because you can just take that beat and move it as far as you want to go. Push it until those chaotic emotions drain out of you so your body and mind are free.

This is bigger than just one day. It was a year ago that I was on the sidelines getting inspired to run, months of training, conditioning, preparing, thinking about this moment, right now.

I’m ready. I want it. I can do this.

Marathoners Rocking New York Album Summary:

Marathoners Rocking New York is the rock’n’roll-fueled journey of a 70’s punk loving young woman named Sheena. She’s on the cusp of turning 30 with nothing to show for it. Her rock star dreams are not coming true. She succeeded at the downtown party lifestyle but not at keeping a band together. After stumbling on the New York City Marathon with friends, Sheena accepts a drunken dare to run it the following year. To her surprise, and everyone else’s she actually does the training (with a little help) and makes it to the start line on time.

Sheena runs the marathon without music, so Marathoners Rocking New York is the guitar-driven soundtrack going on in her mind as she navigates the course. The songs are influenced by the early punk movement in 1970’s New York with bands like the Ramones, Blondie, The Patti Smith Group, and Television. The album is in an excellent tempo for running playlists and a useful tool for marathon training that can be downloaded through iTunes.