Disappointed NYC marathoners run in aid of Sandy victims

A devastating superstorm ripping apart the eastern seaboard may be enough to persuade many of us to take a day off, but marathon runners are made from tougher stuff.

When the New York City marathon was cancelled by hurricane Sandy, many of the 40,000 people expected to participate put their brains together and figured ways to run anyway.

In all honesty, some of what followed was more inspirational than the average hoard of stringy sprinters could ever hope to be.

Vancouver runner Steve Mattina, already in New York when the marathon was officially cancelled, joined thousands of fellow runners to arrange a makeshift marathon over social media.

Several thousand runners ended up doing laps through Central Park along the same route used in the original New York marathon in 1970. And folks still managed to come out and show support.

"People were cheering. There were thousands and thousands of people running around the park and it all worked," Mattina told the Vancouver Sun.

If they didn't run in New York, they found other marathons to join. The Road2Hope Marathon in Hamilton, Ont., saw an influx of last-minute participants who turned their attention north after the cancellation.

Dan Giblin told CBC that he travelled to Hamilton from Rochester, N.Y., after the New York City marathon was shelved.

"We trained so hard for this and it just really took our minds off things a little bit," Giblin said.

"But your mind still snaps back to the folks that are down there — my cousins, my friends who are doing the cleanup and helping."

Oh, yes. The helping. If you thought marathoners were all about wearing short shorts and beating their fastest times, think again.

According to Reuters, about a thousand would-be marathon runners boarded the Staten Island ferry on Sunday and joined relief efforts in one of the areas most affected by the storm.

Some of them threw on overstuffed backpacks and jogged through the area to deliver pet food, batteries, water and other supplies.

Jordan Metzl, doctor of sports medicine, credited with coming up with the idea for the Staten Island run, said it would have been a shame to let their training go to waste.

"Initially we were just going to do a run to raise some money and then we thought, hey, we've got these legs that are ready to run 42 kilometres, why don't we actually run in Staten Island and get things that people need?" Metzl told the news agency.

Another man refused to let the cancelled marathon disrupt his big plans of proposing to his girlfriend at the finish line, and recreated the moment anyway.

You just can't keep a good runner down.