The Log

I was pent up. I was full of angst. I needed something to beat the winter doldrums out of me. Life had become a routine of going to work, going to the gym and then going to whatever social event reared its head. I was even having the same breakfast everyday, a three egg cheese omelette. I needed something new.

I needed to chase through Brooklyn and Manhattan with a shopping cart.

It all started when I was sitting at work one afternoon, rifling through assorted blogs. I saw a link for something called the Idiotarod. Not the Iditarod, the famed dog sled race in Alaska, but the Idiotarod. One letter makes a big difference. The Idiotarod in New York City is a five-mile race from Brooklyn to Manhattan in which teams of five push a shopping cart. Everyone must be attached to the cart and you can’t hop the subway to the finish line.

It sounded like my kind of party. However, assembling a team proved to be initially difficult. After e-mailing over 30 people I knew I got responses that ranged from, “Sorry, I have a bridal shower that day,” to “Are you crazy? It’s January!” Eventually I rustled up two unsuspecting friends, Kerry and Hillary, but we were still two people short. I decided to e-mail Jeff, the organizer, and plead my case. Maybe he would let us compete as a team of three? The next thing I knew I got an e-mail from a woman named Amber who told me she and her friend Rosine were looking for a team and heard about me from Jeff. I told them welcome aboard.

Since I was captain of the sinking ship that was Team Red Menace, all anyone had to do was show up in Union Square the day of the race and I would take care of everything else. Everything else was getting an actual shopping cart. You see, the Idiotarod is a Bring Your Own Shopping Cart kind of affair. I had to do some sleuthing.

The Friday night before the race I hunted around Gramercy for a cart. I figured it wouldn’t be too hard to find one what with all the grocery stores and delivery men roaming about. My first few tries were busts. I started by doing the honorable thing and asked the stores directly if I could “borrow” a cart for an “art project.” They all looked at me as if I were insane. One guy said if I came back the next day and spoke with Jose, the store manager, they would lend me one for $60 and my driver’s license. I told them all I had to offer was five dollars and my word. I was shooshed out of the store and told to speak to Jose.

I couldn’t wait to speak with Jose so I kept nosing around. Around 11:30 PM I came upon the Associated Market on 23rd and Third Avenue. Outside, a couple of guys were unloading a truck. Next to the truck was a big, red shopping cart. Jackpot!

“Hey!” I said. “Is this yours?”

The two men looked at me quizzically. They didn’t speak English. Excellent.

“Hey,” I said in my most polite voice as I inched closer to the cart, “I’m just going to take this cart. Okay? I’m just going to borrow it for a minute.” With that I took the cart, raced across the street and back to my house a few blocks away.

I got the cart back into my apartment. I was tempted to leave it out in the hall, since it was still covered in snow, but I was actually afraid someone might steal it. In the light of my house I realized I had snagged a premium shopping cart. All the wheels were intact and it seemed like it would hold up under race-day pressure. I had a brief moment of pride. Then I went to sleep. I had a big day ahead of me.

I met up with Team Red Menace in front of the Virgin Mega Store in Union Square. From there we took the F train to the Fulton Ferry landing under the Brooklyn Bridge. Along the way we adorned the cart in red tissue paper and Mardi Grad beads. Around us at the starting gate were teams dressed a pirates, sea creatures, skeletons, football players and boy scouts. Team Red Menace stuck to red and black in an effort to look nefarious.

We hung out and sipped from a thermos of grapefruit juice and vodka, to keep warm. Then a gun went off and everyone started dashing towards toward the Brooklyn Bridge. When I say dash, it was a full on sprint, with everyone screaming like crazy people. Crazy people pushing shopping carts Along the sides of the street onlookers cheered and photographers lined up to take pictures. I was the musher while the rest of the team ran alongside the cart.

At the Brooklyn Bridge we hit some congestion. Seems there is only one stairwell to get up to bridge and about 100 people, all carry shopping carts at that, were trying to get through it at the same time. It was a bizarre gauntlet with all the shouting and shoving and dead fish throwing (yes, someone was throwing dead fish). Eventually Amber and Rosine muscled their way past a group of pirates. Team Red Menace hopped up the old staircase with the cart over our heads while Idiotarod volunteers threw snow on us from above.

Once on bridge it was smooth sailing. It was a gorgeous day, the sun was bright and plenty of other fools in costumes were running with us. This was also the point in the program where Hillary started to have an asthma attack. The rest of team was keeping up like Olympic runners while Hillary was wheezing and panting. We had no choice but to leave her at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge in Manhattan and told her to meet up with us at the second checkpoint on the Lower East Side. True, the Idiotarod turned out to be far more physical than I had expected, but I could run and so could the rest of the team. We decided to at least try to be competitive.

First, though, the four of us had to jet over to The Patriot bar in Tribeca for our first checkpoint. There we would be held for twenty minutes while we regrouped. When we got to Church and Chambers it was packed with shopping carts and people in costumes, all huffing and puffing and swigging unknown drinks. I signed the team in while everyone else cracked open the grapefruit juice concoction. Amber also called her friend Dave as our new fifth team member. He literally arrived 20 minutes later clad in a red jumpsuit. Team Red Menace was in it again!

By then the adrenaline was pumping full throttle. Adrenaline is a funny thing. It can make you do things like bungee jump off a bridge or push through the last few miles of a marathon. For Team Red Menace it made us chase up Church Street and then through Saturday afternoon traffic along Canal, all while shouting, “Fear the Red Menace! Fear the Red Menace!” We were five fools tied to a shopping cart in the middle of January and running at top speed. Cars honked and veered out of the way. Eventually we realized that we had to stop the madness as moving targets. We hooked a left onto Lafayette Street and crossed over onto Broome. Now we were neck and neck with an orange team. We ran at top speed while shouting obscenities at them.

Taking Broome east over to Clinton Street turned out to be good strategy. There were no other runners or cars so we had the road to ourselves. Sure, there were neighborhood folks going about their business and they looked at us running and shouting as if we were red and black aliens. But we were so high on endorphins we just shouted and peeled off layers until most of us were running in just sweatpants and shirts, no hats, gloves or overcoats. It was about 35 degrees outside.

At Clinton Street we upped the ante even more shouting and made sure everyone within a five block radius new that Team Red Menace was coming in for a landing. I ran into the Lotus Lounge to sign the team in for the second checkpoint while the rest of the team filled up on water and the grapefruit juice cocktail. Someone started tossing Hershey kisses about and we ate those as well. Someone from another team started blaring Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger.” For the last leg of the race, the vibe was electric.

I got the time sheet and within ten seconds the team was chasing up Clinton and across Houston Street to get to the finish line in Thompson Square Park. My lungs burned but there was no way we could slow down, not when the end was literally seven blocks away. At Seventh Street volunteers again pelted us with snowballs and we screamed at the top of our lungs. Team Red Menace had finished! All hail the Red Menace! We sweated and sniffled and cheered. The Idiotarod had been conquered!

Afterwards everyone piled into Kabin bar on Second Avenue for beers and awards. Team Red Menace didn’t place, but it seemed like we were in at least the top third. Kerry and I inhaled a burger and fries as if it were our last meal. Who knew running five miles could leave a girl so hungry? After a couple of pints and some merriment I decided to head home.

I walked out of the bar as every muscle in my body screamed for mercy. I hoped for a few hours of rest before the parties I had to hit later that night. Outside Kabin, I looked for the cart. It was gone. I smiled as I walked up Second Avenue. It had gone to that big grocery store in the sky.