Eight years ago today I went for a run in Forest Park with a guy I'd never met.
We'd spoken on the phone (I in my childhood bedroom with the door closed and the lights off while my parents ate Chinese food in the next room) and chatted online after making contact on JDate. (Not until years later would I find out that he had done a search for women within one mile of his zip code under 5'4" whose profiles included the words "Mets" and "running" -- b'shert indeed). I was suspicious because he hadn't even set up his profile yet, and the two photos he sent me did not inspire confidence: In one of them he was posing goofily with a drunken Santa, and in the other he was leaning against a doorframe, unsmiling and looking really, really Russian.
But I, like Bethenny of The Real Housewives of New York City, was in a place of yes that year: yes to the career path with the Department of Education that would bring me back to New York City from Boston, where I'd just finished graduate school; yes to any guy on JDate who wanted to meet me in person. (I'd suffered through a memorable date at a bar in Cambridge during which I seriously considered slipping out while the guy was in the restroom, and yet I was still accepting all offers.)
I was surprised, and pleased, when he suggested we meet for the first time to go for a run. It was unseasonably warm for January, and I agonized over what to wear, finally settling for shorts over running tights to prevent him from getting too good a look at my behind. When we met in person, I was heartened: He was much, much cuter than his photos.
We ran at a similar pace, a good sign. He talked about being in the Army and I talked about some Army guys who'd run near me in a race, chanting cadence: "One mile, no sweat! Two miles, better yet!" Previous JDates had taught me not to prolong the first meeting, so when we reached the end of the park I was all, "Well, bye!" and he suggested a cooldown walk.
I think I stopped for a salt bagel after. I smiled all the way home. The following week I went out for sushi with another JDate guy (remember, yes to everyone). This one wore a gold Star of David chain and talked a lot about his mother. I'd been cautiously optimistic about the runner, but the sushi guy in comparison elevated him to new heights.
He was working full time and also going to school, and I think neither of us were phone people, so we communicated a lot through email. He'd write with quirky greetings ("Hola senorita") and suggest quirky outings, like the Beatles brunch at B.B. King's or outdoor swing dancing at Lincoln Center. He was an engineer, and he sort of wrote like one ("I guess that negates what I previously said"), but I found it charming.
Today, I text him probably 50 times a day about completely mundane things (Exhibit A: The last text I sent said, "So do you think we should start sending Eli to school in underwear?"), but when I want to overload on a huge dose of nostalgia I go back and read those early emails we sent to each other, which I archived instead of deleted on a hunch that they'd be meaningful someday.
"I was thinking, since we both seem to be morning people, do you want to meet a little earlier on Saturday?" I asked on January 10, 2007. "Sure thing," he wrote back.
Phil and I have gone on tons of memorable runs since January 13, 2007. We ran 10 miles in a downpour at the Broad Street Run in Philadelphia in 2009. Later that year, we ran Phil's first marathon two weeks after our wedding, with "JUST MARRIED" emblazoned on the backs of our shirts. Phil pulled me to a PR (by exactly one minute) in the Brooklyn half in 2011. Later that year, Phil ran a sub-2:00 half-marathon for the first time at a race in Central Park; I was so simultaneously impressed and jealous that I went out the next day to a women's-only race on Long Island and did the same thing. This past spring, we ran a 5K sponsored by the NYPD in Flushing-Meadows Corona Park while "handcuffed" together, and we got a plaque for coming in third place. (Yes, there were only three handcuffed couples. I still have my plaque, though.)
Once, Phil met me in downtown Manhattan as I was finishing a 20-mile run and produced popsicles he'd packed for me in a cooler. Once we were supposed to meet friends at the Staten Island Botanical Garden and we decided to run to the ferry terminal instead of taking the subway. Once we set out in the dark on Martha's Vineyard to do a long run into the sunrise. It started pouring, but we didn't turn back.
When we got a dog, Ellie became our new running buddy. We let her run off leash in the trails of Forest Park and on the beach in Montauk. We brought her to a turkey trot on the boardwalk in Coney Island and overheard someone say, "If that dog beats me, I'll shoot myself." Phil shrugged apologetically. "Better get a gun out," he said. We brought her to another turkey trot on the boardwalk at Rockaway Beach, where she and Phil chased down a little boy's runaway dog and still managed to beat half the field.
When we became parents, the single best purchase we made was our jogging stroller. We ran with Eli through the woods at Wissahickon Valley Park in Pennsylvania and down the boardwalk at Coney Island. We don't get to run together as often as we used to, but Phil has always supported me as a runner: This summer, Phil and his mom drove Eli to the beach while I ran 12 miles to meet them there; this weekend, Phil drove Eli to gymnastics while I ran 5 miles to meet them there. When I took off into the 20-degree winds at 8 a.m. on Sunday morning, I couldn't have felt more elated.
Before I met Phil, I always ran alone. I wasn't sure if I'd like talking to someone on a run, or if our paces would be compatible, or if we'd have similar racing strategies. We've gone on runs where Phil was chatty and upbeat even as I wanted to die and also kill him for his cheeriness. We've gone on runs where I want to push the pace and Phil merely wants to cruise at what he calls his "top speed."
It's a giant metaphor for life, obviously. We don't always agree on the path (I still prefer Forest Park, he likes Flushing Meadows). But we're still traveling it together.
This fall, we are both supposed to run the NYC marathon. Phil likes to boast that he's not going to run it with me because he'll be going too fast, but we both know better. There is no one who can challenge me to run faster or love deeper. There's also no one else with enough room in his shorts pockets to carry all my GU energy chomps. There's no one else I'd rather run my life with. Happy runniversary.
Showing posts with label running. Show all posts
Showing posts with label running. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
Thursday, January 1, 2015
In whatever time we have
I really wanted to go for a run today. It's symbolically important to me to run on New Year's Day, and plus the weather was cold but sunny -- perfect for running.
Phil wanted to drive to the Central Park Zoo since it'd be easy to park in the city and we just renewed our Wildlife Conservation Society membership. I had this vision that we'd go for a family run in Central Park, eat fluffy pancakes at the Boathouse Express Cafe and then hit the zoo.
But by the time we roused ourselves out of our lazy morning funk, the cafe was closed, and Phil didn't feel like running in the cold. So I optimistically dressed in my running clothes, figuring I'd drop Phil and Eli at the zoo and then head out for a loop on my own.
But then, as we walked into the zoo, Phil said, "If you go for a run now, he's going to miss you while you're gone."
He was right, I knew he was right. But ugh, I have never felt more resentful and selfish and guilty all at the same time than I did standing in the tropics staring blankly at a peacock while Eli raced in and out of the curtains.
Before I got married and had a dog and then a child, I very much valued my alone time. In fact, Phil still teases me about the time I kicked him out of my apartment during our first winter break together because I claimed to need some personal time (and then I missed him about two hours later).
One of the things I don't think I anticipated about having a child was the crashing sense that you are never alone again. This afternoon Eli and I were about to make chocolate chip challah together and I realized we didn't have enough flour, so I ran over to the supermarket to get some. Every time I do this I feel like I'm on some Mommy's Supermarket Sweep -- on the one hand, it feels like a luxury to be wandering the supermarket aisles perusing the pre-packaged Starbucks drinks and Rachael Ray stock mixes, but on the other hand I know the clock is ticking before Phil texts me that Eli is losing his mind and I need to hurry home. And there's this sense that any waking time during daylight hours that I spend doing something by myself is time that I lose with Eli, so there is always a cost; I always have to decide whether or not it's worth it, and isn't it selfish to choose myself over my child? When I first went back to work, I used to go to a running club on Tuesday nights, but eventually I felt so sad about missing that one night of bedtime (in which I get home from work in time to see Eli for approximately 20 minutes before he falls asleep) that I stopped going.
While the dough was rising, I decided I'd go for that run after all, only this time I felt guilty about neglecting my other running buddy, so I took the dog with me. She was her usual self, yanking me over to every single patch of grass we passed to make a pee stop, hanging back all slow at the end of her leash and then suddenly bounding forward after squirrels or fellow dogs. I found myself so frustrated with her pace that I just cut the run short and headed home. When I got there, Eli seemed both surprised and thrilled to see me. "Where you going?!" he said, as if he hadn't even noticed I'd been gone.
When I run with Eli, I feel like a stronger runner because I'm pushing 50+ pounds, sometimes uphill, and I feel like a better mother because I'm taking my son to experience nature while doing something that shows him what I love to do to feel healthy and fit. But I also make lots of unscheduled stops along the path to ask what's the matter or to assure him that I'll let him get out once we get to the tree stumps or to explain why we're not going to walk into the woods. When I run alone I feel the extra pressure to make the time count, to run faster and harder than I would be able to with the jogging stroller, to break speed records getting home so I can get my Eli-time started. But I also feel the freedom of running alone, the freedom to go where my sneakers take me, the freedom of anonymity without a stroller or a leash in my hands.
When I got home I told Phil I needed a run to myself and that I planned to run the next morning. Phil announced that he wasn't going to wait around at home for me (which I can understand, because that can end in disaster) and he'd be taking Eli somewhere by himself, at which point I petulantly whined that I wanted to go on the family outing, too.
Basically all I want is for the rotation of the Earth to be suspended and my family to be frozen in time for 45 minutes while I go for a run by myself outdoors in the daylight; is that too much to ask? (Alternately I would settle for Hermione's time turner from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.)
I don't know how much I'm a fan of new year's resolutions, but if I did make them I realize how they would all boil down to time: how to carve it, who to spend it with, what's worth it and what isn't. How to spend time with Eli without compulsively checking my phone ("Leave your phone!" and "Put your phone away!" are already a part of his vocabulary). How to make time for myself -- which I'm sure helps me be a better wife and mom -- without missing out on time with the people who've made me a wife and mom in the first place. How to see my friends without abandoning my family. How to enjoy time with my family without neglecting our chores. Sometimes I want to have a glass of wine with my dinner but I'm afraid the wine will make me sleepy and I'll be forced to go to bed early, thereby missing out on 45 precious minutes I could have spent watching My Five Wives on TLC.
If there's anything that classic Twilight Zone episode taught us, it's that the only way to really get all the time you need in the world is to be the only survivor of a nuclear apocalypse (and even then your happiness isn't guaranteed). There's a poem by Margaret Atwood where she describes being bored by the minutiae of everyday tasks like carrying wood and drying dishes. "Perhaps though/boredom is happier," she writes. "It is for dogs or/groundhogs. Now I wouldn't be bored./Now I would know too much./Now I would know."
Sometimes I feel all the time the weight of that knowing, that echoing cavern of each-moment-is-preciousness. All the things I do with my time: divide it, spend it, save it, waste it. Savor it. I guess if I had to settle on one resolution for the new year, it would be more of a thoughtful question: How am I going to savor my time?
Phil wanted to drive to the Central Park Zoo since it'd be easy to park in the city and we just renewed our Wildlife Conservation Society membership. I had this vision that we'd go for a family run in Central Park, eat fluffy pancakes at the Boathouse Express Cafe and then hit the zoo.
But by the time we roused ourselves out of our lazy morning funk, the cafe was closed, and Phil didn't feel like running in the cold. So I optimistically dressed in my running clothes, figuring I'd drop Phil and Eli at the zoo and then head out for a loop on my own.
But then, as we walked into the zoo, Phil said, "If you go for a run now, he's going to miss you while you're gone."
He was right, I knew he was right. But ugh, I have never felt more resentful and selfish and guilty all at the same time than I did standing in the tropics staring blankly at a peacock while Eli raced in and out of the curtains.
Before I got married and had a dog and then a child, I very much valued my alone time. In fact, Phil still teases me about the time I kicked him out of my apartment during our first winter break together because I claimed to need some personal time (and then I missed him about two hours later).
One of the things I don't think I anticipated about having a child was the crashing sense that you are never alone again. This afternoon Eli and I were about to make chocolate chip challah together and I realized we didn't have enough flour, so I ran over to the supermarket to get some. Every time I do this I feel like I'm on some Mommy's Supermarket Sweep -- on the one hand, it feels like a luxury to be wandering the supermarket aisles perusing the pre-packaged Starbucks drinks and Rachael Ray stock mixes, but on the other hand I know the clock is ticking before Phil texts me that Eli is losing his mind and I need to hurry home. And there's this sense that any waking time during daylight hours that I spend doing something by myself is time that I lose with Eli, so there is always a cost; I always have to decide whether or not it's worth it, and isn't it selfish to choose myself over my child? When I first went back to work, I used to go to a running club on Tuesday nights, but eventually I felt so sad about missing that one night of bedtime (in which I get home from work in time to see Eli for approximately 20 minutes before he falls asleep) that I stopped going.
While the dough was rising, I decided I'd go for that run after all, only this time I felt guilty about neglecting my other running buddy, so I took the dog with me. She was her usual self, yanking me over to every single patch of grass we passed to make a pee stop, hanging back all slow at the end of her leash and then suddenly bounding forward after squirrels or fellow dogs. I found myself so frustrated with her pace that I just cut the run short and headed home. When I got there, Eli seemed both surprised and thrilled to see me. "Where you going?!" he said, as if he hadn't even noticed I'd been gone.
When I run with Eli, I feel like a stronger runner because I'm pushing 50+ pounds, sometimes uphill, and I feel like a better mother because I'm taking my son to experience nature while doing something that shows him what I love to do to feel healthy and fit. But I also make lots of unscheduled stops along the path to ask what's the matter or to assure him that I'll let him get out once we get to the tree stumps or to explain why we're not going to walk into the woods. When I run alone I feel the extra pressure to make the time count, to run faster and harder than I would be able to with the jogging stroller, to break speed records getting home so I can get my Eli-time started. But I also feel the freedom of running alone, the freedom to go where my sneakers take me, the freedom of anonymity without a stroller or a leash in my hands.
When I got home I told Phil I needed a run to myself and that I planned to run the next morning. Phil announced that he wasn't going to wait around at home for me (which I can understand, because that can end in disaster) and he'd be taking Eli somewhere by himself, at which point I petulantly whined that I wanted to go on the family outing, too.
Basically all I want is for the rotation of the Earth to be suspended and my family to be frozen in time for 45 minutes while I go for a run by myself outdoors in the daylight; is that too much to ask? (Alternately I would settle for Hermione's time turner from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.)
I don't know how much I'm a fan of new year's resolutions, but if I did make them I realize how they would all boil down to time: how to carve it, who to spend it with, what's worth it and what isn't. How to spend time with Eli without compulsively checking my phone ("Leave your phone!" and "Put your phone away!" are already a part of his vocabulary). How to make time for myself -- which I'm sure helps me be a better wife and mom -- without missing out on time with the people who've made me a wife and mom in the first place. How to see my friends without abandoning my family. How to enjoy time with my family without neglecting our chores. Sometimes I want to have a glass of wine with my dinner but I'm afraid the wine will make me sleepy and I'll be forced to go to bed early, thereby missing out on 45 precious minutes I could have spent watching My Five Wives on TLC.
If there's anything that classic Twilight Zone episode taught us, it's that the only way to really get all the time you need in the world is to be the only survivor of a nuclear apocalypse (and even then your happiness isn't guaranteed). There's a poem by Margaret Atwood where she describes being bored by the minutiae of everyday tasks like carrying wood and drying dishes. "Perhaps though/boredom is happier," she writes. "It is for dogs or/groundhogs. Now I wouldn't be bored./Now I would know too much./Now I would know."
Sometimes I feel all the time the weight of that knowing, that echoing cavern of each-moment-is-preciousness. All the things I do with my time: divide it, spend it, save it, waste it. Savor it. I guess if I had to settle on one resolution for the new year, it would be more of a thoughtful question: How am I going to savor my time?
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
My last long run
I'm not a fast runner, but that doesn't mean I'm not a competitive one. I've always run not only to feel healthier but also to feel stronger and faster.
When you're a new runner, setting a PR (a personal record) is easy. All you have to do is run a new distance and voila! Instant PR. Then you might run your second 5K and try to beat the time from your first.
After 10 years of running, though, I've run every distance, from the mile to the marathon, more than once. I can even tell you exactly when I peaked: In 2011 -- right before I got pregnant -- I PR'd in the mile, the 5K, the 4-mile, the 5-mile, the 10K and the half-marathon. BOOM.
I let my competitive drive ebb when I was pregnant. I though it was impressive enough that I was out there running at all, and I got a kick out of runners who would speed up around me in races so they wouldn't get chicked by a pregnant lady. In 2013, I eased back into running, and by 2014, I was ready to rock and roll. I figured I could set "post-pregnancy" PRs and "in my 30s" PRs.
This winter, I was running out in Long Island at the RunNassau race series when two women in my age group surged past me close to the finish, saying to each other, "One pink girl down, one to go." These ladies saw me as competition? I loved it. Bring it on.
At two of the races, a 5K and a 4-mile, I even took home age-group awards. (I know what you're thinking: Well, how many people were in your age group? And the answer is: more than three, and I beat all but two of them, so there.)
It was all part of my strategy to keep running through the winter, kick ass at the Brooklyn half-marathon in May and then have a great base to start marathon training in July.
And it worked: The 2014 Brooklyn half was my second-fastest half ever. (And I've run 16 halfs, so this was not an insubstantial accomplishment.) Certainly a huge post-pregnancy "in my 30s" PR.
BUT. This was a race I did not enjoy. I surged ahead from Phil at mile 4. By the time I ran the final miles on Ocean Parkway, I was miserable. I was running as fast as my lead legs would carry me, which as it turned out was pretty damn fast but not fast enough to make the race go by any quicker. (And as it turned out, I finished a whopping three minutes ahead of Phil, who had trained approximately not at all. Grrrrrr.)
So in some ways it was fortuitous that I broke my toe at the beginning of July and had to miss out on the first stretch of marathon training. I tried to reason that it was a good way to temper me; in the marathon, I'd take it easy and enjoy myself.
Unfortunately, the break in training also ruined my momentum. When I finally started doing long runs in mid-August, I'd lost my motivation. I'd forgotten how much further you have to run when you train for a marathon as opposed to a half. Too soon I was staring down the barrel of long runs of 15, 16, 17 miles when all I really wanted to do was hang out with Eli. Plus I hadn't trained for a marathon by myself since 2008, and I missed doing long runs with Phil. Doing long runs by yourself, without headphones, is like purgatory; I started to get super jealous of everyone I passed who was out doing regular activities like drinking Coke or eating pizza. It was a self-pitying slide into: What is the point?
Then I thought: Maybe in an effort to slow down, I've let the pendulum swing too far in the other direction. Maybe I was running too slow -- taking lots of walk breaks, swigging Gatorade, unable to get a good rhythm going.
So at New York Road Runners' 18-mile marathon tuneup on Sunday, I decided it was time to throw down. I'd aim for 11-minute miles (some perspective: I run my "fastest" short races at 8-8:30-per-mile pace, my "fast" half-marathons at 9:30s, my marathon PR was 10:30s and I'd been doing more like 12- or 13-minute miles on my summer long runs). I wore my lucky long run shirt -- the same shirt I for some reason always wore on my long runs when training for previous marathons -- and my old-school Garmin. And at the start, I felt strangely calm. Let's do this.
First of all, I should never underestimate what running among thousands of others can do for your spirit. And it didn't hurt that the weather, with the temperature in the low 50s and fall simmering in the air, was perfect for running. Also, there were some enthused volunteers and spectators out on the course, which can only mean one amazing thing: more cowbell.
The first few miles were lackadaisical. When you know you're going to go 18 miles, I think you have to pretend you don't know what's ahead of you. The first time I ran up Central Park's Harlem Hill, I had this brief flash of, I'll be back here two more times, hours from now, in the same spot, running up this same hill and I had to banish that thought because it was just too depressing.
But somewhere in the first loop of Central Park, I started to get into a groove. And then I experienced one of those magical movie moments where a little voice inside you says: Stop being afraid to go faster because you think you can't. You already know how to do this. You haven't forgotten. Stop being afraid.
Soon I was having one of those long runs where every song lyric on my iPod spoke to me ("I coulda gave up then but then again I couldn't have 'cause I've traveled all this way for something"), where every fellow runner I saw was inspiring. Lemon-lime Gatorade tasted amazing. My headband and earbuds miraculously stayed in place.
About 17.5 miles in, I came up behind a runner I strongly suspected was a former supervisor of mine. (I say "strongly suspected" because I generally try to avoid making eye contact with potential strangers after 17.5 miles of running.) He's a faster runner than I am and he had passed me much, much earlier in the run. Now here he was, walking, and I felt myself seized (perhaps foolishly) by my old competitive desire. Don't let him beat you!
And that's how I found myself sprinting to the finish of an 18-mile run. I hit the finish line half-laughing and half-crying: delighted and relieved and proud and rejuvenated. For the first time in years, it had felt like a privilege, not a chore, to run those 18 miles. And it felt like a blessing to be a runner.
(And then I went home and, like a stalker, searched the race results, and it was my former boss, and I did finish ahead of him by four minutes. And then I bragged to a colleague who pointed out that he is 50 years old, to which I say: WHATEVER, FOUR MINUTES, NYAH-NYAH-NYAH.)
So now, for the first time this season, I'm excited for November. It's not going to be my fastest marathon, but I have high hopes that it won't be my slowest, either. (That honor goes to NYC 2009, which Phil and I ran together two weeks after we got married with "JUST MARRIED" on the back of our shirts to the congratulatory remarks of all the runners around us -- so just because a marathon isn't speedy doesn't mean it isn't special.) It'll be my first post-baby marathon, my first marathon in my 30s, the 10-year anniversary of my first marathon and -- if all goes well -- the marathon that reminds me to stop being afraid.
Here I come, November!
When you're a new runner, setting a PR (a personal record) is easy. All you have to do is run a new distance and voila! Instant PR. Then you might run your second 5K and try to beat the time from your first.
After 10 years of running, though, I've run every distance, from the mile to the marathon, more than once. I can even tell you exactly when I peaked: In 2011 -- right before I got pregnant -- I PR'd in the mile, the 5K, the 4-mile, the 5-mile, the 10K and the half-marathon. BOOM.
I let my competitive drive ebb when I was pregnant. I though it was impressive enough that I was out there running at all, and I got a kick out of runners who would speed up around me in races so they wouldn't get chicked by a pregnant lady. In 2013, I eased back into running, and by 2014, I was ready to rock and roll. I figured I could set "post-pregnancy" PRs and "in my 30s" PRs.
This winter, I was running out in Long Island at the RunNassau race series when two women in my age group surged past me close to the finish, saying to each other, "One pink girl down, one to go." These ladies saw me as competition? I loved it. Bring it on.
At two of the races, a 5K and a 4-mile, I even took home age-group awards. (I know what you're thinking: Well, how many people were in your age group? And the answer is: more than three, and I beat all but two of them, so there.)
It was all part of my strategy to keep running through the winter, kick ass at the Brooklyn half-marathon in May and then have a great base to start marathon training in July.
And it worked: The 2014 Brooklyn half was my second-fastest half ever. (And I've run 16 halfs, so this was not an insubstantial accomplishment.) Certainly a huge post-pregnancy "in my 30s" PR.
BUT. This was a race I did not enjoy. I surged ahead from Phil at mile 4. By the time I ran the final miles on Ocean Parkway, I was miserable. I was running as fast as my lead legs would carry me, which as it turned out was pretty damn fast but not fast enough to make the race go by any quicker. (And as it turned out, I finished a whopping three minutes ahead of Phil, who had trained approximately not at all. Grrrrrr.)
So in some ways it was fortuitous that I broke my toe at the beginning of July and had to miss out on the first stretch of marathon training. I tried to reason that it was a good way to temper me; in the marathon, I'd take it easy and enjoy myself.
Unfortunately, the break in training also ruined my momentum. When I finally started doing long runs in mid-August, I'd lost my motivation. I'd forgotten how much further you have to run when you train for a marathon as opposed to a half. Too soon I was staring down the barrel of long runs of 15, 16, 17 miles when all I really wanted to do was hang out with Eli. Plus I hadn't trained for a marathon by myself since 2008, and I missed doing long runs with Phil. Doing long runs by yourself, without headphones, is like purgatory; I started to get super jealous of everyone I passed who was out doing regular activities like drinking Coke or eating pizza. It was a self-pitying slide into: What is the point?
Then I thought: Maybe in an effort to slow down, I've let the pendulum swing too far in the other direction. Maybe I was running too slow -- taking lots of walk breaks, swigging Gatorade, unable to get a good rhythm going.
So at New York Road Runners' 18-mile marathon tuneup on Sunday, I decided it was time to throw down. I'd aim for 11-minute miles (some perspective: I run my "fastest" short races at 8-8:30-per-mile pace, my "fast" half-marathons at 9:30s, my marathon PR was 10:30s and I'd been doing more like 12- or 13-minute miles on my summer long runs). I wore my lucky long run shirt -- the same shirt I for some reason always wore on my long runs when training for previous marathons -- and my old-school Garmin. And at the start, I felt strangely calm. Let's do this.
First of all, I should never underestimate what running among thousands of others can do for your spirit. And it didn't hurt that the weather, with the temperature in the low 50s and fall simmering in the air, was perfect for running. Also, there were some enthused volunteers and spectators out on the course, which can only mean one amazing thing: more cowbell.
The first few miles were lackadaisical. When you know you're going to go 18 miles, I think you have to pretend you don't know what's ahead of you. The first time I ran up Central Park's Harlem Hill, I had this brief flash of, I'll be back here two more times, hours from now, in the same spot, running up this same hill and I had to banish that thought because it was just too depressing.
But somewhere in the first loop of Central Park, I started to get into a groove. And then I experienced one of those magical movie moments where a little voice inside you says: Stop being afraid to go faster because you think you can't. You already know how to do this. You haven't forgotten. Stop being afraid.
Soon I was having one of those long runs where every song lyric on my iPod spoke to me ("I coulda gave up then but then again I couldn't have 'cause I've traveled all this way for something"), where every fellow runner I saw was inspiring. Lemon-lime Gatorade tasted amazing. My headband and earbuds miraculously stayed in place.
About 17.5 miles in, I came up behind a runner I strongly suspected was a former supervisor of mine. (I say "strongly suspected" because I generally try to avoid making eye contact with potential strangers after 17.5 miles of running.) He's a faster runner than I am and he had passed me much, much earlier in the run. Now here he was, walking, and I felt myself seized (perhaps foolishly) by my old competitive desire. Don't let him beat you!
And that's how I found myself sprinting to the finish of an 18-mile run. I hit the finish line half-laughing and half-crying: delighted and relieved and proud and rejuvenated. For the first time in years, it had felt like a privilege, not a chore, to run those 18 miles. And it felt like a blessing to be a runner.
(And then I went home and, like a stalker, searched the race results, and it was my former boss, and I did finish ahead of him by four minutes. And then I bragged to a colleague who pointed out that he is 50 years old, to which I say: WHATEVER, FOUR MINUTES, NYAH-NYAH-NYAH.)
So now, for the first time this season, I'm excited for November. It's not going to be my fastest marathon, but I have high hopes that it won't be my slowest, either. (That honor goes to NYC 2009, which Phil and I ran together two weeks after we got married with "JUST MARRIED" on the back of our shirts to the congratulatory remarks of all the runners around us -- so just because a marathon isn't speedy doesn't mean it isn't special.) It'll be my first post-baby marathon, my first marathon in my 30s, the 10-year anniversary of my first marathon and -- if all goes well -- the marathon that reminds me to stop being afraid.
Here I come, November!
Thursday, July 31, 2014
Strong, not skinny
I've seen a lot of articles posted lately offering tips to mothers about how to model positive body image for their daughters. My only child is a boy, so my first instinct was to think, "Phew, dodged that bullet!" Frankly, one reason I warmed to the idea of raising a son was the knowledge that it was hard growing up a girl, and it was bound to be hard raising a daughter.
Then I remembered a girl I went to elementary school with who was mercilessly teased by the boys in our class. As I recall, she didn't have a particularly pleasant personality, but that's not why she was bullied. Boys made fun of her because she was "fat."
Even as third graders, boys knew that the worst thing you could say to a girl, the most offensive insult you could fling at her, was that she was fat.
I remember two things about recess in the fifth and sixth grade: playing Chinese jump rope and standing around with a group of other girls complaining about various body parts that we felt were our worst feature. The implication was that in order to be humble, a true girl's girl, you had to feel bad about your body, or at least dissatisfied with it in comparison to someone else's. "But your stomach is so skinny," you might say, grabbing your own love handles for comparison. "Not me, I'm fat."
I'm sure there are a lot of women who bounce right back from childbirth to their pre-baby bodies (Maria Kang, the famous "No Excuses" Mom," for example), but I am not one of them. Nearly two years after Eli was born, I'm still a good 10 pounds over my pre-baby weight (which in turn was a good 10+ pounds over my slender college weight). It's like a second adolescence, where the instinct is to look in the mirror, grab at my love handles, and moan, "Ugh. I'm fat."
A few months ago I got tired of thinking of myself as someone who used to be thinner, or someone who might be thin again someday if she stopped eating so many cookies, or someone who was thin until she had a baby and hypothyroidism. I decided that instead of getting skinny, I was going to get strong. (In fact, if I wanted to continue lifting Eli, particularly in the throes of a toddler tantrum, I needed to get strong.)
I started lifting heavier weights at the gym and doing pushups in my office. I swung kettlebells and I held planks.
As summer approached, I started buying those Spanx-ish bathing suits with generous ruching. I loved this article from the Huffington Post: "Moms, Put On That Swimsuit," in which the author writes:
When I push Eli in the jogging stroller, he doesn't say, "Mommy, be skinny." He says, "Mommy, be runner." He doesn't say, "Mommy, thinner." He says, "Mommy, faster."
He knows I can do it. He knows I can run faster, push harder. In fact, besides "Mommy," that's the primary way he identifies me.
I'll never, ever be 110 pounds again. But I'll always be Eli's mommy and, God willing, I'll always be a runner. I'll always be strong -- not skinny. And that's the body image I want to model for my son.
Then I remembered a girl I went to elementary school with who was mercilessly teased by the boys in our class. As I recall, she didn't have a particularly pleasant personality, but that's not why she was bullied. Boys made fun of her because she was "fat."
Even as third graders, boys knew that the worst thing you could say to a girl, the most offensive insult you could fling at her, was that she was fat.
I remember two things about recess in the fifth and sixth grade: playing Chinese jump rope and standing around with a group of other girls complaining about various body parts that we felt were our worst feature. The implication was that in order to be humble, a true girl's girl, you had to feel bad about your body, or at least dissatisfied with it in comparison to someone else's. "But your stomach is so skinny," you might say, grabbing your own love handles for comparison. "Not me, I'm fat."
I'm sure there are a lot of women who bounce right back from childbirth to their pre-baby bodies (Maria Kang, the famous "No Excuses" Mom," for example), but I am not one of them. Nearly two years after Eli was born, I'm still a good 10 pounds over my pre-baby weight (which in turn was a good 10+ pounds over my slender college weight). It's like a second adolescence, where the instinct is to look in the mirror, grab at my love handles, and moan, "Ugh. I'm fat."
A few months ago I got tired of thinking of myself as someone who used to be thinner, or someone who might be thin again someday if she stopped eating so many cookies, or someone who was thin until she had a baby and hypothyroidism. I decided that instead of getting skinny, I was going to get strong. (In fact, if I wanted to continue lifting Eli, particularly in the throes of a toddler tantrum, I needed to get strong.)
I started lifting heavier weights at the gym and doing pushups in my office. I swung kettlebells and I held planks.
As summer approached, I started buying those Spanx-ish bathing suits with generous ruching. I loved this article from the Huffington Post: "Moms, Put On That Swimsuit," in which the author writes:
I refuse to miss my children's giggles because of my insecurities. I refuse to let my self-image influence my children's. I refuse to sacrifice memories with my children because of a soft tummy.
When I push Eli in the jogging stroller, he doesn't say, "Mommy, be skinny." He says, "Mommy, be runner." He doesn't say, "Mommy, thinner." He says, "Mommy, faster."
He knows I can do it. He knows I can run faster, push harder. In fact, besides "Mommy," that's the primary way he identifies me.
I'll never, ever be 110 pounds again. But I'll always be Eli's mommy and, God willing, I'll always be a runner. I'll always be strong -- not skinny. And that's the body image I want to model for my son.
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
10 years ago this week, I became a runner
In 2004, I decided to run a marathon. This was not the decision of a casual runner aiming for a challenge. It was not the decision of a jogger logging 5Ks and 10Ks who was finally ready to go for a marathon. No, this was the decision of an aggressively unathletic non-runner who had enjoyed a run on exactly one occasion. This was an outlandish decision. This was like the phrase "Go big or go home" was literally invented for my decision to run a marathon.
I decided to train for a marathon using the same method I had employed for every other important event in my life: I turned to a book. It was called The Non-Runner's Guide to Marathon Training, which is kind of like titling something The Non-Football Player's Guide to Winning the Super Bowl or The Non-Writer's Guide to Getting a Pulitzer. My non-runner's guide to marathon training was adamant that if I ran four days per week, in newly-purchased cute matching Adidas outfits, I would be able to finish a marathon and not die.
There are all kinds of moments in life that change you. I remember vividly the exact moment when running changed my life. I was looking in the mirror of my dorm room after the longest run I had ever done (as a non-runner, literally every run I did during marathon training was the longest run I had ever done) and I found myself studying my thighs. Body-type quizzes inform me that I am a "pear," so my thighs are sort of oversized and chunky, but that day suddenly they didn't look chunky; they looked strong.
Why am I taking this walk down marathon memory lane? Because this past weekend I ran the women's-only "Mini" 10K in Central Park (so named because the inaugural 1972 event was christened the Crazylegs Mini Marathon, after the miniskirt -- and also because women weren't recognized as "full" marathon runners back then), which I ran for the first time in 2004, shortly after I made that momentous decision to train for a marathon. I had never run 6.2 miles before, and it was the first race I ever ran.
This year's Mini, then, was my 10-year runnaversary. After dozens of pairs of sneakers, thousands of miles and one pivotal first-date run in Forest Park that led me to my husband and the family we're growing together, I returned to Columbus Circle in my coveted red bib to run the Mini for the 11th year in a row.
Every time I run the Mini I think about all the women who made it possible for me to say, "I am a runner" -- Kathrine Switzer, who was physically accosted by the race director of the Boston Marathon when she became the first woman to enter; Grete Waitz, who literally crapped her pants on her way to winning the New York City Marathon -- and I get emotional. The first Mini had 78 runners. This year there were almost 6,000.
I'll never really be able to explain why I became a runner in the first place, but I know why I stayed one. Happy 10-year runnaversary to me!
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| 2007. This is the first year I could find a photo. |
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| 2009. Check out my sweet flip phone. |
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| 2010. Same visor! |
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| I got to meet Kara Goucher, one of my running idols. Isn't her pregnant belly adorable? |
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| And Paula Radcliffe, another running idol (also with an adorable pregnant belly). |
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| In 2012 I ran the Mini while I was 7.5 months pregnant. And it was my birthday! |
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