In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, the city wisely canceled the New York City Marathon (after some unfortunate hemming and hawing). But if you still want an endurance fix this weekend—mental or physical—Brooklyn has you covered.
For the fans of OG running marathons, the 2nd annual Brooklyn Marathon returns to Prospect Park on Sunday. Last week NYCRUNS, which runs the run, tried to expand the Marathon beyond their already permitted 500 runners (to include more of those left bitter by the cancelation of the NYC Marathon) but sadly their request was denied by the city. For valid reasons though!
Unfortunately we were unable to get the approval to increase the number of entries for this year's Marathon. Expansion was contingent on being able to use Prospect Park Drive, which we learned is being used as a staging area for emergency service and FEMA vehicles assisting in storm recovery and will still be there during the Brooklyn Marathon on November 18th.
Still, unlike the city-wide run, this Marathon must go on. Runners will be starting at 8 a.m. at Center Drive, circling around Lake Drive twice before looping around the entire park six times and finally doing one last loop from Center Drive, around Lake Drive and through the finish line. We're tired just typing that.
Meanwhile, for the more literary types, there is a three-day, all-star reading of the entirety of Moby Dick that will be bouncing between Brooklyn bookstores and the Housing Works Bookstore in SoHo (the reading honors anniversary of the tome's publication). Just a few of the more than 100 readers include Paul Dano, Zoe Kazan, Sarah Vowell, Rick Moody, Jonathan Ames,Lev Grossman, and Adam Wilson. One thing is for sure: While it probably won't be as good as Gatz this definitely will be more entertaining than buying the audio book (times, locations and readers here).
