Wall Street Run

Yes. These guys above had That Look. The same look that many of them had earlier in the day working the stock exchanges and selling stock tips and moving the markets and making the big machine of capitalism run.

You don't want to run in a race with these guys. They mean business.

I speak from experience. On Tuesday, I was among over 14,000 registrants for the American Heart Association START! Wall Street Run -- a race through Manhattan's Financial District after the big boards closed. It was a living nightmare. I was glad to survive. My time was 27:51 with a 9:17 pace over just under a 3-mile course that wound past Ground Zero and through Wall Street and Battery Park, and those times were meaningless because someone decided to just let runners and walkers have at it in a death battle on the tight historic streets. No separation in the starting field at all, just everyone mixed together.

You should have seen what it was like for runners to twist and turn and bob and weave to get through wide packs of walkers. You would dart over onto the sidewalk and pray someone didn't take your legs out from under you, and then dart back, sometimes on cobblestone and big sewer grates, side to side of the street, often bumping walkers, who sometimes got angry and said things like, "Block him!" This was happening everywhere I looked. Walkers didn't like being bumped, and runners just wanted to run fast. At one point before the only fluid station, there was a switchback turn and it was a complete stop. That was another 30 or so seconds. It was just really strange, and REALLY dangerous.

The scenery was incomparable, though. Toward the end, you are looking at the Statue of Liberty out in the harbor to the left. It finished near the Merrill Lynch offices where so many of their employees were wearing black company tees that said, "Running of the Bulls." That was a perfect analogy for this event. It was just like I imagine Pamplona to be. I would love to say that I got all misty-eyed when I ran past the World Trade Center site and looked up at the wide-open sky where towers used to be and thinking of how they were just people like all these runners and walkers around me. But that would be BS, because during this race all I could think about was trying to swerve around the next walkers in front of me.

I guess I can say that I did it, and I really shouldn't ever complain about running. I wrote a bitch-post right after the event and deleted it. But then I saw that a younger guy in New York City who shares my name ran the event in 18 minutes (6:04 pace) and finished 89th overall (I was 3,630th overall). So it just means you need to be way up there at the front of the pack and not mixed in with the walkers for this event. Hey, Subway provided the sandwiches (not even close to enough!), and my entry fee went to the AHA so it's a good cause. Bottom line.

If I only would have asked some people around me for investment tips and some good inside info, it would have all been worthwhile. These people mean business. I mean that in the most literal sense.