On Marathon Sunday (Nov. 2) in New York City – with the
singular menacing exception of Sandy Sunday in 2012 – brings running to the
fore. On this day we are all runners.
This is the season that whilst running I will catch a leaf
without any help but the wind, impossible to intuit, a jolt of luck, the real
thing, that brings a leaf to me to be held aloft, never touching the ground,
for placement on the very full of dry leaves tackboard on the wall behind my basement
writing workspace.
Fall is the season, and I’ve never been able to understand
why, that the second wind will come on a run. Not every time, mind you, but
often enough that it qualifies as exceptional. In fall, I will more often than
any other season feel that I can literally run forever, that on a six-miler, a
ten-miler, a sixteen-miler, I will come up the street toward home and feel like
a million bucks. No, better than that. Lots better than a million bucks.
Because it does, you know, keep you going. It’s hot, humid
in July and the sweat is literally pouring, a two-miler, at times, feeling too
much to bear; in early November, the chill in the air, the wind at your back
and it’s all you can do to hold yourself down, to not fly like a bird.
Cool spring days have their merits, of course. But there is
something about those first weeks of chill after summer’s ropy fog. The crystal
blue skies, the wetness of the air, the lungs; it’s the lungs, the song they
are singing that carries you along like nothing else.
Next: Running for Your Life: CitizenFour CitizenFour
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