Eugene man the only runner to finish the first and 50th New York City Marathons

After a week’s worth of events and days of walking and running on Manhattan’s hard pavement, Larry Trachtenberg’s legs already felt dead Sunday morning when he got to the starting line of the New York City Marathon.

His heart, however, was full and his head was determined.

That was enough to get him to the finish line.

The 67-year-old from Eugene, and the only person entered in Sunday’s 50th running of the race who also completed the inaugural New York City Marathon in 1970, crossed the Central Park finish line in 5 hours, 9 seconds.

“You couldn’t run 10 seconds faster?” Trachtenberg joked Wednesday morning when recounting his initial thoughts after completing his 26.2-mile journey through New York’s five boroughs. “No, it was great. I felt really super.”

Three days after the race, the Queens native was still riding high from his experience as one of the 14 “First Finishers” who spent the week getting honored and celebrated by the New York Road Runners club, which organizes the marathon.

There were dinners for the group at Tavern on the Green in Central Park and media appearances for Trachtenberg right up until the moment the race started.

He was on ESPN 30 minutes before the first gun went off and then was introduced to the crowd alongside the top professional runners who were about to compete for prestige and a big payday.

“They really treated us like running royalty,” Trachtenberg said. “It was kind of funny.”

Once the race began, Trachtenberg fell into line with the 33,000 other entrants and his heavy legs were soon buoyed by the atmosphere of the world’s biggest marathon.

It was a much different scene than what he remembered from 1970 when the then-16-year-old was one of only 127 entered in the first race, which followed a course contained to a loop through Central Park.

“Unbelievable in terms of the spectators and the energy of the spectators and the music,” Trachtenberg said. “It’s hard to believe I was running for five hours. If you told me that ahead of time I would’ve been like, ‘How can I even handle five hours?’ You would think it would be mental agony, but it wasn’t like that at all, it was real enjoyment. It was so exciting.”

Trachtenberg’s pre-race goal was to make it 15 miles to Long Island City in Queens where the course came close to his childhood home. Family and friends were waiting for him there and he stopped briefly for hugs and pictures and to remove one of his shirts because the day had warmed up.

“I felt like I accomplished one goal, but I said as long as I can still put one foot in front of the other, I’m not stopping,” said Trachtenberg, whose time at the half-marathon mark was 2:27:0. “I wasn’t feeling great at that point and I knew it was going to be slow going, but who really cares at this point, I was just going to go for it.”

After crossing the East River on the Queensboro Bridge and into Manhattan’s Upper East Side, Trachtenberg knew he was home free for the final six miles.

He was the 32nd finisher in 1970 when he ran 3:22:04. Sunday, running 11:27-minute miles, his finishing place was 17,150.

“For me, it would’ve been a big difference between finishing and not finishing,” he said. “I was proud, yeah.”

However, his efforts came with a price, Trachtenberg said with a laugh.

“My thighs kind of feel pounded out,” he said. “(Tuesday) and the day before it was kind of hard to walk down the stairs.”