Running for Your Life: The Road Back

At dawn after the marathon the parrots came. On fall mornings the Quaker parrots that nest in the Green-Wood Cemetery main entrance arch and the nearby Con Ed substation, the parrots fly through our neighborhood, announcing themselves by squawking, a din easily distinguished from the jays and crows who also pass by and sometimes roost for awhile in our massive oak tree, leaves brush the house’s back wall, the other side of which I heard the parrots’ call that morning.

It was much different than other days. In fact, I had never heard the parrots at dawn. I woke with a start and in that moment listening to the parrots the pain and aches in my legs eased. It was only a moment before the worst of the pain returned. I couldn’t help but think that the parrots had come for a reason. Lying in bed, I thought, yes, something essential had been misplaced this past many months. At some point or other I’d let the idea of my being a marathoner, a man who could not only complete a 26.2 mile race but do so with distinction, define a large part of myself. In focusing on time and finishing place I’d left the parrots behind. How long had it been since I’d thought of running as bird-flying. To look into the sky as I run, to contemplate the hawk on the hunt, the soaring gulls, and most important, how long had it been since I’d gone on a run with a principal goal of seeing the Quaker parrots of Green-Wood in all kinds of weather.

Today (October 23) marks the ninth day since Steamtown, the first of which I ran more than thirty minutes, and yes, the Green-Wood parrots were there, a small flock of five on the most beautiful, fresh fall day. I smiled and felt a certain lift as I came back to running for my life.

Next: Running for Your Life: Upstate with Thurber

Running for Your Life: Half of One Percenters

Yesterday (Oct. 13), I did, indeed, run the Steamtown Marathon http://bit.ly/1emaLmv, and although I may not have done what I had hoped for at the outset (ie, managing a Boston Marathon qualifying time of 3:40 – best roadside sign of the day – You are ALL running better than the government!), I did come to a satisfying conclusion.

That in spirit I am a runner, not a racer. My time, 3:50:31, or 760th of 2,166 finishers, is something to be proud of. And I am. But there is something more.

At the end of the marathon, after a street food Philly cheesesteak, a shower in the Catholic high school boys locker room, and before hazarding the drive home in which, I thank my lucky stars I didn’t cramp up on the three-hour journey back to Brooklyn, I went to watch runners coming in at the finish line. The 5-hour-plus runners were nearing the end of their race. Here, I saw a dad runner, cradling one infant boy, the other is walking beside him. (The boys likely entered the course only a few yards before I saw them.) This man had done what I had just done, run a marathon. I turned to go to the car thinking a photo finish will be taken of the three of them.

These days the phrase one percenter has been co-opted by the class warriors. There are the wealthy, the one percenters, and the rest of us.

Then, there are the half of one-percenters. Those who have run a marathon.

Next: Running for Your Life: The Road Back

Running for Your Life: Last Week

Here we go. This Sunday at Steamtown, hoping for lucky No. 7. At this point, adrenalin counts for so much. Funny after all these years I still feel the butterflies. Training can only take you so far. Among a million thoughts that day, special ones will go out to my childhood friends in Canada because Sunday, the day before Thanksgiving Day, was traditionally the day we all gathered to play tackle football from our teens to twenties and thirties ... then, nevermind.

          Happy Thanksiving! Looking forward to reporting back on the other side!

          Next: Running for Your Life: The Big Race

 

 

Running for Your Life: Stay the Course

There is no easy answer to this. A week from Sunday I will be competing in my seventh marathon, my fourth since 2010. On Saturday, I will turn fifty-eight, and yeah, I’ve every intention of – if I manage to be steady enough at Steamtown to qualify for the Boston Marathon again – to run in 2015, my sixtieth year.

It bears reminding that I suffer from a condition: deep vein thrombosis that predominately affects the circulation in my left leg. If I don’t get in at least an every-other-day run, the leg will swell more than it does without, and, well, I’ve never been inclined to see what a long layoff would do to it, to how stiff and uncomfortable it might make for me in doing even the most simple things, like climbing stairs or walking up a hill, so suffice to say there has never been – outside of illness and injury, which might in the past thirty-five years total about a month of days – a time when I didn’t run at least a little bit every other day.

Once you find a course that you love, my advice is to keep at it. Saturday, my birthday, I will be a week away from picking up credentials for my seventh marathon. And, it’s not a lie to say that I’ve never felt better prepared for a marathon. All that, and more, because I have stayed the course.

Next: Running for Your Life: Last Week!

Running for Your Life: And All the Rest is Literature

On Sundays, before I come in to work on the business desk at the New York Post, M and I visit the farmers’ market in our neighborhood of Park Slope in Brooklyn. Recently (Sunday, Sept. 22), while M was out of town – a whirlwind author event tour – I went on my own, where, a bit down in the dumps about my own writing career, I confided some of those feelings to Rafael, our premium coffee, nut, granola and nut spread provider, who had, a year or so ago, lifted my spirits by calling me out as one of the readers during the “Moby Dick” marathon reading event in Brooklyn, saying only “Moby Dick,” his English not being as strong as it is now, and in this case, Rafael stepped away from a customer who was buying at least a three-pack of nuts to quote to me Paul Verlaine, saying, “And All the Rest is Literature,” which led me to look up the translation itself, THE ART POETIQUE, the final stanza of which is:

“Let your verse be the happy occurrence,

Somehow within the restless morning wind,

Which goes about smelling of mint and thyme...

And all the rest is literature.”

*

All systems go for the Steamtown Marathon. Twelve days and counting!

Next: Running for Your Life: How to Stay the Course