More than 28,000 people participated in the 44th annual Brooklyn Half Marathon on May 17, a race beset by grueling conditions that claimed one runners’ life.
When the first wave started the race in Prospect Park at 7 a.m., the temperature was already 66 degrees Fahrenheit with 90% humidity, according to Weather Underground, and temps only rose as the day wore on.
Charles Rogers, a 31-year-old Manhattan resident, suffered cardiac arrest and collapsed on Ocean Parkway near Mile 8. He was rushed to Maimonides Medical Center, but couldn’t be saved. In 2022, another Manhattanite, 32-year-old David Reichman, collapsed and died after crossing the Brooklyn Half finish line.
“After the race, I found out what had happened, and it hits home,” said Robert Denker, a longtime runner who participated in Saturday’s race at age 81. “…you never know. You feel the least bit of discomfort, a lot of people say you want to push forward, but you really shouldn’t.”
A GoFundMe started to help support Rogers’ wife, Sydney, had raised more than $26,000 by May 19, just two days after his passing.
Runners come together to face a tough race
“The conditions were certainly not working in our favor,” said one runner, Deena Mikhail. “Between the heat, humidity, the unexpected sun that came out.”
But, she said, the challenging conditions ended up being a “testament to the running community.”
“Everybody — strangers, right? — rallied around each other,” she said. “The spectators were phenomenal.”
When Mikhail, who was racing alongside a few friends from her Jersey City-based run club, started to struggle and said she felt lightheaded, a woman running in front of her turned around and asked if she had taken any salt tabs to get some electrolytes.
“She was like, ‘Do you need salt? You should take salt right now,’” Mikhail recalled. “Thanks to her I took the salt pills … it certainly helped the situation.”
She paid it forward toward the end of the race in Coney Island, when she saw another woman struggling with cramps after running almost 13.1 miles. Mikhail stopped and gave the woman a leftover salt tab — and stayed until she was able to start walking on her own again.
“Those two instances in particular solidify how the running community really do stick together,” she said.
It was Mikhail’s first Brooklyn Half, but probably not her last — despite the heat and struggle.
“Of course, running onto Coney Island’s boardwalk, and looking up, and seeing the big tower, and the Cyclone and everything, it was pretty cool. It’s certainly a once-in-a-lifetime experience” she said. “Having the volunteers medal you on that boardwalk was an iconic experience as well. It was worth the fight for 13.1 to have that experience. That’s going to stay with me for quite some time.”
Mina Verzosa, a member of Just Us Running Club who was running her fourth Brooklyn Half Marathon, also said the humidity was hard to contend with. But she was well trained, she said, as she’s in the midst of preparing to run in the Rio de Janeiro Marathon next month.
Verzosa, 45, has been running since 2018. That year, she said, her doctor told her to choose one active hobby and stick with it — and she decided to try running.
“Actually, 10 years before, I became a member of NYRR, and I did the one mile [race] on Fifth Avenue,” she laughes. “And I said that ‘I don’t want to run.’”
But when she re-joined the club, she went all in on training and finished her first full marathon in 2019. Since then, Verzosa run plenty of NYRR races, including half and full marathons.
“This is a good sport,” she said. “I know a lot of people don’t run, it’s never too late to start.”
A lot of members of JURC started “late in life,” Verzosa said, and that hasn’t stopped them from running some of the most prestigious races in the world.
“We want to keep running until we get really, really old,” she joked. “Until we can’t run anymore. It’s inspiring to see a lot of us still be able to run, and also for other people who are in their 70s and 80s who are still running.”
Denker is among those 80-somethings still running. A member of NYRR since the 70s, he’s run more than 80 races over the years, and finished fourth in his age group in this year’s Brooklyn Half Marathon, with a time of just over three hours.
He ran the first part of the course alongside his daughter, but started to feel the heat after a few miles.
“After that, the humidity was brutal, and the sun was coming down, and it was pretty hot,” he said. “Around mile five, five to six, I really slowed down a lot. And that’s very unusual for me.”
Many of the runners around Denker were struggling with the heat too, he said. But he persevered, and finished fourth in his age group. He was a little disappointed, he had hoped to finish in under three hours — but appreciated that the runners who finished in first and second “had some incredible times.”
Denker said he announces that every marathon was his last, but might still return to the Brooklyn Half Marathon – if he can get in.
“I’m lucky I’ve been able to get in,” he said. “I intend to, I intend to train. We’ll see what happens, I have to make up for this year.”
