The following story comes from Simone Morabito, an LLM international student at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, expected to graduate in January 2020 in general studies with a concentration in intellectual property. He speaks about how his love of running in the New York City marathon led him to both the love of his life and the love of this country.

The story I am going to write dates back to late 2006, and it cannot be told without also including my girlfriend Barbara, who is an essential part of it.

In April of that year, we had applied to run in the New York City marathon for the very first time. We both had turned 30, we had never visited New York and the United States and it would have been our first marathon ever. For all these circumstances, it should have been a special, unforgettable event.

But life often does not exactly go the way one wishes it to go.

That year, in June, I received the results of my written exam for the Italian bar: I had passed it, and the oral examination had been scheduled for the fall season! I had to cancel all the plans to come to New York and run the marathon: the bar exam was too important for my future career as a lawyer, and I couldn’t take that risk. I did make the right choice because, in the end, I passed it.

Running in the marathon, I thought, had been only postponed for a year. But in 2007, for different reasons, we couldn’t come to the city, and then in 2008, Barbara’s mother got sick and passed away in early 2009. This is still today a deep regret for us because in 2006, she had decided to join us on the journey, and now we did not have that opportunity anymore.

But we put the sorrow aside, and Barbara and I decided in June 2009 that the moment to run the marathon had arrived. We registered for the event, and on Nov. 1, 2009, we finally were at the starting line of the ING NYC MARATHON!

It was a huge experience for both of us before, during and after the event. I still remember the Barilla Pasta Party hosted at Tavern on the Green to load carbs the evening before, the colorful multitude of spectators cheering us all the way along the course and the people congratulating us the day after when they looked at us proudly showing the big medal around our necks!

The emotion we felt was so great that we both fell in love with the marathon and the city. Since then, not only we did we run in the marathon every year, we also flew from Italy to New York several times to run in other races organized by New York Road Runners, even just for three days to run a 10K or the Fifth Avenue mile.

In 2015, we joined the New York Harriers to be more involved in the events as if we were real local runners.  And this year (which will be our 10th marathon), we will actually be locals, because in early 2019, we moved to New York so that I can study, and Barbara can work. That’s why this year, the marathon will be really special compared to all the other ones we have run so far, even if each and every one of them is “special” for some deeply intrinsic reason.

What does this marathon mean to me? What is my bond to this race?

Let’s start by saying that I have run marathons in London, Berlin and Paris, to name a few cities. I loved all of them, but I didn’t find the same magic that I feel every time I run in New York. Some of that magic comes from the challenging route that makes the final result more appealing, the chance to touch all the boroughs of the city and, most of all, the finish line inside the amazing Central Park that I call simply  “the Park” for its uniqueness known all over the world.

The cheering people are fantastic as well (they literally don’t let you give up as they yell “KEEP GOING!” to the runners). I love the idea that for one day in the minds of thousands of spectators, we all are their heroes because we are running 26.2 miles, a distance that they consider impossible. And it doesn’t matter our final time: they will still say “YOU DID IT!”, and so we become their heroes!

Honestly, I have to say that I love also the deep silence in the Jewish borough (the only silent point in the marathon) that allows me to listen better to my body and to my breath.

But, at the end of the day and considering all the steps Barbara and I took since 2009, I realized that the main reason for this deep bond is the fact it has represented for me and Barbara more than a huge sports event. It has been our golden door into the United States of America.