Joy!

I had such a run tonight. It was the kind that was hard and easy at the same time. Hard because the route and pace were a little challenging but easy because I found so much wonder and fun in it. During my best running days, runs like this were rare and continue to be and maybe that's a good thing. If I derived no joy from the rest of my runs (and I do derive a more slow and measured amount of joy or general enjoyment from them), these once every few years runs would be enough, I think.

There's something about a clear, fall night and friends and running fast (or at least faster than I typically run) which is perhaps a  recipe for elation and I had all these things. It was a perfectly crisp fall night and I met up with my friends Elana and Emily at the Queensboro Bridge for an 8 mile run. Even leaving my apartment and walking into the night was lovely. Maybe because I had an unexpected night off, I was less burdened by my usual anxieties and more able to be excited

Hello Hi

Just blowing the dust off over here. I am happy to report that I'm a lot less lost than I was in March! Hooray. I haven't even gone back to read that post because I sort of don't want to. Upon further reflection, I'm not gonna. Not right now.

I've been busy since then. I'm seven races into 9+1 for 2018, which will be (if all goes well) my tenth New York City Marathon. I've been biking a whole bunch, and I also completed my third Ironman. Look, here's a picture of my medal and bib.

It was a whole thing. Normally, I would attempt to put up a race report and inevitably I would be too ambitious and try to break it up into like five different parts and only get through three or four but I'm getting back into all of this very slowly, which maybe has been my saving grace.

I've also been trying to balance comedy and storytelling and switching careers (and trying to get into graduate school a little bit). It's been challenging, but in a necessary and good way. Tomorrow I'll run my 8th Staten Island Half Marathon. Maybe I'll write about it after and maybe I won't.

Hopefully I will.

Night Runs and

Unlosing Myself

In the time since I first started running as an adult, I have never felt quite as lost as I have in the months since I last posted. In fact, that post maybe indicated better than anything else that I wasn't feeling the same about running as I always have. The runs I used to do (the marathon, the 60k, running around Manhattan) felt empty. I thought I would remember how I feel about running by just diving in and doing those things, but nearly 100 miles and a few weeks later I was scrambling to return to the mindset I had when I loved them.

I catch glimpses occasionally, so I know my love of running is still lurking somewhere under the surface of all my anxiety about everything. Running, like New York City, feels like an old friend who's giving me space to find my answers without disdain or judgment. I know it'll be waiting for me with open arms and happy trails when I'm ready.

Once, a few years ago, I went for a run on a perfectly chilly fall evening the weekend before the marathon. It was a group run that I joined on a whim, though apprehensive about the fact that I hadn't been training as hard as I should have been.

It was glorious and exhilarating, and I ran it hard and fast in that way that is joyfully reckless and impervious to physical pain. The effort was ecstasy, not toil. If you've experienced it, you know it's the sort of run that makes you revel in your abilities and the circumstances that allowed you those moments of complete fulfillment. I remember being so deeply in love with the world, and grateful to be able to recognize it.

So. I know what I'm looking for and that I'll find it again eventually, and that has to be enough for now.