Happy 2018!

I am resolving to post here more regularly this year and if my training thus far has been any indication, I just may follow through.

I realized just now before starting this post that I never updated my goals for 2017! I'm going to have to mull that over. One that I can tell you about is that I would like to run 1,500 miles this year. I've had years of running more (2012, 2013) and certainly years of running less (all the other years) and I think all things considered, this goal is ambitious without being overwhelming.

At the end of last year and to some extent, this year, I've made do with runs home from work to get in some mileage. That's all well and good, and if you've been around these parts awhile you'll know that no one appreciates a good run commute more than I do; HOWEVER, I keep telling myself that one of these days I'll avail myself of more sophisticated training resources and/or plans or even just bother following some sort of schedule. Perhaps this is the year.

So far, I've gotten into something of a rhythm. Saturday/Sunday is long run day, Monday is speedwork day, Tuesday is hills. That's more workout regularity than I've followed in a long time. I don't want to tout it too much because the year is still very young. Let's see where I am with this in June before I claim it as habit.

PS - I am behind schedule technically, but not by a lot and only because I had a bad first week. Onward!

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.

I Hit a Triple

Not literally. I am well past my softball days and hitting much of anything with a bat or otherwise. Every fall since I moved to New York City has presented an opportunity for endurance greatness (or maybe just suffering? Nah. Little of both) in the form of near-consecutive or consecutive weeks of marathon distance runs. I ran my first New York City Marathon in 2009. Only a couple weeks later, I made the foolish decision to tackle the Knickerbocker 60k, which is an ultramarathon (defined loosely as anything longer than 26.2 miles). I was not well trained for it, but I did finish. Thus began my annual marathon + 60k tradition. A double.

In 2012, after reading a blog post by one of my favorite bloggers chronicling his run around Manhattan, I decided to take the plunge. The distance around Manhattan is significant, somewhere a bit above 30 miles. I knew this endeavor would require a whole day, and I used my day off on Veterans' Day to accomplish it. This would have started my annual marathon + Veterans' Day Run Around Manhattan + 60k, only the marathon was cancelled that year. Another double.

In 2013, I was signed up for my second Ironman, Beach2Battleship in North Carolina (not then a WTC production, but since purchased by it). Late in the summer, I realized with a great degree of horror (maybe joy? Little of both) that this would result in four consecutive weeks of marathon+ events, the order of which was:

• Ironman (2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, 26.2 mile run) on October 26, 2013
• ING New York City Marathon (26.2 miles) on November 3, 2013
• Veterans' Day Run Around Manhattan (31-34 miles) on November 11, 2013
• Knickerbocker 60k (37.2 miles) on November 16, 2013

A home run! The 60k was (understandably) miserable that year, but overall I just did these things and didn't think much of it. In the years since then, I am increasingly impressed with myself for it, which is why I'm writing today with a 2016 update. This year, I ran the New York City Marathon, Veterans' Day Run Around Manhattan, and New York 60k. That's my first ever triple. 

And it's so, so meaningful. The time I have to run is ever more squeezed by my comedic ambitions. In 2013, I thought relatively little of the home run, though I think a great deal of it (and me, for doing it) now. In 2016, the magnitude of the triple is, on an objective scale, less than the home run. But I appreciate it so much more and immediately. Hopefully for anything I've lost in performance, I've gained as much or more back in perspective.

Race Report: HITS Half Iron Distance Triathlon - Part 4!