People walk past, runners cross the bridge, trains from all directions loaded with commuters pass by… There are trees down the bridge but also areas of plain grass, because the soil was poisoned to avoid trees growing in order to see refugees more easily.
"Bridge Runners was the only consistent thing I did," she said.
Photograph: Julio Cortez/AP 12.04pm BST The male marathon runners on Westminster Bridge.
Mile 2 Following the graceful curve of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, runners practically coast into Bay Ridge, their introduction to Brooklyn.
The runners crest the bridge with the skyline of lower Manhattan crisp in the distance to their left.
The last leg of the race took runners on a bridge over the Potomac River, with no shelter from the sun.
"Bridge Runners is great because it takes someone who never ran before and has them go and do this crazy thing like run a marathon," Ms. Zapotechne said.
For several years, it paid Mr. Saes a salary and provided Bridge Runners with an operating budget, although that ended last year.
The daylong civic celebration will begin at 8 a.m. with a mass crossing as bicyclists, walkers and runners cross the bridge from Manhattan into Brooklyn.
"We'd cut a hole in the fence and send the runners onto the bridge with arrows painted on pieces of wood to tell them where to go".
