Editor’s Note: Our intention was to publish this story in an earlier print edition, but election coverage took precedence. Part I of this story ran in our last print edition and can be read online here.

 

Among the 51,402 finishers in the 2023 TCS New York City Marathon on Sunday, Nov. 5, were two local runners and members of Norwood-based running group, Bronx Nomads. We spoke to both women ahead of, and on, race day as they joined what New York Road Runners said was the world’s largest marathon of 2023, and the third-largest edition of the race in the event’s history.

 

Karina Jorge, 41, mom to a 6-year-old daughter and an 11-year-old son, is also a marathoner a few times over. We asked Jorge how she first got into running and what drove her to want to run a marathon initially. “So, I work in athletics,” she said, adding that she’s an assistant athletic director at the City College of New York, where she works on compliance and eligibility for student athletes.

 

“Some of my colleagues had always tried to get me to run with them or run a 5k, and I’d always said no, but one day, I woke up and I laced up,” she said. “I put on some sneakers and I ran-walked in my neighborhood. It was a very stressful week, so I just decided to go for a run before heading to the office. I said, you know what? Let me try this. Everybody says it’s good for mental health. So, I did it. and I haven’t stopped and that was in 2018!”

 

Asked when she runs, Jorge said she prefers mornings to try to fit it into her daily itinerary. “Sometimes, it’s in the evenings due to work, but for the most part, I run in the mornings. I’m a single mom; I have to drop them off at school, and then I go run,” she said. Asked about her training schedule leading up to the marathon, she said, “So, I follow usually a 16 to 18-week training plan. I began sometime in July.”

 

Jorge said she completed her shorter runs (3 and 5 miles) during the week, along with some track workouts midweek at the park, and her long morning runs were on the weekends. “So, a typical week for me, it’s 25 to 35 miles during marathon training,” she said. “Sometimes, it goes up a little higher.”

 

We asked what it was like crossing the finish line during her first marathon. “Oh, my God, that feeling!” she said. “I can’t put it into words, crossing that finish line, having the support of my children at mile 20, knowing that I had to get to mile 20, and then seeing them, I was like, I have to make it to the end!”

 

She added, “It was an amazing feeling of accomplishment, of putting myself through something that I had never thought I would do, and actually seeing it come to fruition, and completing it was just an amazing feeling.”

 

Jorge said it was also the best way she saw New York. “I was not born here, but my siblings, my parents, brothers, and sisters would always come in and I was the designated tour guide, so I felt like I was on my own tour of New York City that first year, and I was just seeing it from a different perspective,” she said. “The support that you get from strangers was amazing, the tears and everything. So, it was an amazing feeling crossing that finish line. I can barely describe it. I just feel it.”

 

On how she overcomes the mental challenge of having to run 26 miles even if, physically, she has trained for it, Jorge said this year was the first time she trained for some of her longer runs with others. “Last year, I ran all of them by myself and that actually helped me a lot because I was able to find different tools, some things that I can do right in that moment where I’m in mile 20/21,” she said. These included reminding herself why she was running.

 

“I also find other things to do,” Jorge said. “I’ll listen to a book and listen to music. Sometimes, I just listen to my surroundings if I go running the Putnam Trail or in Van Cortlandt.” She said she draws on different things like focusing on the sounds of nature. “I can’t just listen to music the entire time; it gets a little boring,” Jorge said. “It’s more finding my reason for running.” One of these reasons, she said, is to run in the streets to show girls who look like her that they can also run. “I usually run with my hair curly, out,” she said. “I tie it up so that they know that they can also participate in something like this and everyone can do it.”

 

We talked to Jorge about the support she receives from Bronx Nomads. She said she initially started running on my own, not knowing running was a thing in The Bronx, nor how accessible it was to sign up for races. “I had seen other groups in other boroughs, and I had seen races,” she said. “I found Bronx Nomads and unfortunately, the pandemic came about and I couldn’t join them because they had shut down their meet ups.”

 

She said later when she was visiting her parents in the Dominican Republic, she got a phone call from the group telling her they had gotten an entry for her for the marathon. Laughing, she said she hadn’t planned to run it in 2021 as she had deferred to 2022. “I just started training immediately in the Dominican Republic and then I came here, and I continued my training,” she said.

Jorge said the group has also helped her maintain her motivation and stopped her from getting bored, especially other runners who have advanced along their running journeys. “If they’re competitive, in that way, it has been very helpful because you learn from all the different levels,” she said, adding that it was a great community.

 

“We have walkers, run-walkers,” she said. “We have our kids that go on and participate in our meet ups. So, I’ve really enjoyed my time with Bronx Nomads. They’ve been the most supportive to me. Not only am I running, but as a single mom, I’ve had to rely on them for holding my children sometimes. Certain individuals have helped me as I’m racing.” She added, “We’ve created that community where we support each other not only in the running. It’s been great. I recently became one of the pacers for them so I’ve also evolved in my running, and I’ve been able to help others.”

 

We asked if it also helped her sleep. “Yeah, I feel like it relieves a lot of my everyday…” she said. “I don’t have a typical nine to five. I can work any hour of the day, 11 to 7, weekends, holidays, so that tends to be a lot when it overlaps with the home or personal. I do think it helps a lot with your physical and your mental, and how well you can clear your mind and just have better rest, because rest is part of the journey, and the running / training as well.”

 

Jorge said, overall, her health has been better since she started running. “I’ve kept off 60 pounds; that’s also a major plus!” she said. Asked if she had advice for anyone who might be contemplating starting to run. “One thing I hear all the time is, ‘I’m not a runner, obviously,’ We all have it in us to get there. You could start by walking. You could start by just moving, so, I would say movement is very important. Just move, because once we stay still, we become stagnant and our health, our fitness definitely suffers,” she said.

 

“I would say to someone that wants to run a marathon; I think it’s for everyone. We all have the same opportunity, and I think we all should just give it a shot, and we’re here to support and help in any way. I had a friend that just reached out to me today, and she wants to get back into running. She ran one marathon over 10 years ago, and she said, ‘Karina, how can we do this?’ I was like, ‘Meet me on Mondays.’

 

Jorge said aside from being great for both mental and physical health, the best part for her has been community. “Meeting new people and getting to connect with people at that level where you get support from people you don’t know, and you create that connection,” she said. “I know more people in other boroughs than I’ve ever known in my 30 years of living in New York City just through the sport of running, so you become part of this great supportive community, and everyone’s welcome to join.”

According to the New York Road Runners association, there were 51,933 starters in this year’s TCS marathon and 51,402 finishers, of which 28,501 were men, 22,807 were women and 94 were non-binary. 16,748 finishers were international runners, with 148 countries represented. Fifty U.S. states, plus Washington D.C., Puerto Rico and Guam were represented.

 

In the men’s open division, the winner was Tamirat Tola of Ethiopia with a time of 2:04:58 and the women’s open division winner was Hellen Obiri of Kenya with a time of 2:27:23.