ATHLETICS:The Bronx is up and the Battery's down, and 42,000 of us are ready to take on one hell of a run in one hell of a town in the 40th edition of the New York Marathon, writes IAN O'RIORDAN

THE SHERATON on Times Square is a little tricky to find. As most people know, Times Square is not exactly a square. And the Sheraton on Times Square, several blocks away from the square that isn’t really one, is directly across the street from the Sheraton New York and Towers. Inevitably, most people head for one, to be told they’re staying across the street in the other.

Fortunately, by the time I got to the right reception on Thursday evening my mood was still on the right side of good. No matter how many times you’ve made the trip, nothing blows the mind as much as that full-frontal assault of the Manhattan skyline. Or as F Scott Fitzgerald put it, “over the great bridge, with sunlight through the girders making a constant flicker upon the moving cars, with the city rising up across the river in white heaps and sugar lumps all built with a wish out of non-olfactory money. The city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world.”

There are lots of good reasons to visit New York, but for 42,000 of us this weekend is all about running it. The city that never sleeps, the original melting pot, the greatest piece of real estate in the planet, will tomorrow be shut down in large sections – as we sweat and toil our way through those celebrated neighbourhoods from Bay Ridge to Sunset Park, from Williamsburg to Greenpoint, from Spanish Harlem to Columbus Circle and from the Upper East Side to Central Park South. If they can stage a marathon here, there can stage one anywhere.

“Thank you sir,” said the receptionist, making sure the entire lobby heard her. “If there’s anything we can do to make your stay more comfortable, don’t hesitate to ask.”

“Is there a bath in the room,” I asked.

“There certainly is sir.”

“Have you got an ice-maker?”

“We certainly do sir” – and then she paused, giving me a look that suggested, “you want to fill that bath with enough ice and beer to last the Hallowe’en weekend”.

I wanted to tell her about my plans for an ice bath after the race. However, running the New York Marathon for the first time is not necessarily something you want to advertise. Especially after a crash course in marathon training. New York may not be the original marathon, but it is the biggest, and widely regarded as the best. For the past five years, it’s had the greatest number of entrants and finishers of any big-city marathon, although it’s far from the easiest. They reckon two million spectators show up on the day to cheer us on, and I’ll be relying on every one of them to make it to the finish.

The race has also come a long way from its humble beginnings in 1970, and, tomorrow, the 40th edition promises to be the most spectacular of all; which explains why I’ve come along for the ride.

All this week, they’ve been staging press conferences in Central Park, right next to the finish area, beside the Tavern on the Green around W67th, with past, present and possible future champions. The name that kept cropping up was Fred Lebow, who not only dreamed up the New York Marathon but turned it into the sort of mass participation event that has inspired similar big-city marathons around world.

By cosmic coincidence, the man sitting next to me on the flight out here, a Dr Steve Flynn, knew Lebow, or at least shared some time with him in hospital. In 1992, Lebow was diagnosed with a brain tumour. He didn’t let that slow him down. He still ran New York the following year. Although he died four weeks before the 1994 marathon, his extraordinary attitude towards running still pervades the event.

“Lebow was the embodiment of the New York spirit,” Dr Flynn told me. “He was gritty. He was a fighter. When he was in hospital with the brain tumour he would still run around the wards, proving to everyone that the illness wasn’t going to get him down. He showed that never-give- up attitude, the just-do-it, long before, say, Lance Armstrong.”

Born in Transylvania, Romania, in 1932, Lebow narrowly escaped the Holocaust, and eventually settled in Brooklyn. An avid runner, he was also obsessed with running’s inclusiveness, the idea that everyone could benefit from it. Having seen how war could divide people, he believed running could bring them together, and this became a sort of lifelong goal. He founded the New York Road Running Club, and, inspired by the old Yonkers Marathon, decided to bring 26.2-mile running to downtown Manhattan.

On September 13th, 1970, he convinced 127 club members to run four laps of Central Park’s six-mile interior, followed by the two-mile 72nd Street circuit. He charged them a $1 to enter, and personally called them the night before, pleading with them to come along. The day itself was brutally hot, and not surprisingly only 55 finished. Gary Muhrcke, a 30-year-old New York fire fighter who had worked a full shift the night before, won in 2:31.38, and was given a watch and a small trophy. Like everyone else on the day, he had no idea of the marathon history he was making.

Six years later, to coincide with the US bicentennial celebrations, Lebow convinced the New York authorities to allow him take his race through all five boroughs – starting on Staten Island, and into Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, the Bronx and back into Manhattan for the finish in Central Park.

These days, they charge €182 to enter, or €242 for non-US residents, and rather than plead with people to show up, they have to deal with people pleading to run. The 42,000 limit doesn’t come close to meeting demand.

Instead, the entry is decided by a lottery – and there are a lot more losers than winners. The actual winners are a lot better off these days too, with €130,000 going to first man and woman, plus, as a bonus for the 40th edition, another €70,000 if they’re a repeat winner.

Down at the Tavern on the Green yesterday it was Paula Radcliffe’s turn, the two-time defending champion, who also won in 2004. She turns 36 in December, but remains the face of women’s marathon running, particularly as she intends to chase that elusive Olympic medal in London 2012. She’s eyeing the course record of 2:22.31, but, in words I didn’t want to hear, declared the “New York course is a bit of a challenge, and I don’t feel I’ve got the better of it yet. It is tough.”

All week, runners from around the world have been descending on Manhattan. Their presence is everywhere, and this evening, we’ve booked out every restaurant in Little Italy. Yet like any big city marathon, less than a dozen of the 42,000 of us harbour the slightest ambition of winning. It’s about making it here, not quite in the Sinatra sense, but making it to the finish.

In that sense we’re all in it together, in it for the indomitable display of sporting inclusiveness, just as Fred Lebow dreamed it up in the New York summer of 1970.