Broad Street Run 2012

It is only after the last (13 mile) leg of my 30-miles-in-3-days-in-order-to-cram-35-miles-into-the-longest-work-week-of-my-young-life that I am, at my core, ready to embrace the first race of my running season (May through November).  As last week popped with four runs and three strength workouts it rounded out with hot yoga, a heating pad and the familiar tingle of the 2012 Broad Street Run Registration.  This was my first real race two years ago; the first real physical challenge I'd faced since Melanoma; and likely is the race that set my confidence and drive on fire.

When you take a leap you will, inevitably, fall.  But you never forget what it felt like to soar into something unknown and empowering.  This is what the Broad Street Run is for me.

My first leap;
Rainbows under open fire hydrants;
10 assembly line Peanut Butter and Banana (PB&B) sandwiches;
A personal best (81minutes);
The way the ships quiet the crowd approaching the Navy Yard;
Water Balloons;
Students Run Philly Style Blue T-Shirts peppering the crowd;
Our Lady of Hope's stillness;
Fresh cut grass;
Safe landings after jumped fences;
The Gray Corral;
The beacon that City Hall becomes;
Father Esmilla's message of love and steadiness;
GU packets, like confetti, floating just above our feet;
The sound of the plastic water cups crunching into our strides;
Fairmount Park tailgates;
Red cheeked photographs;
Milestones through the initial mayhem of the first miles;
Digging in the last of the miles;
Chills that always come from cowbells (because they remind you of high school and because that seems so far away now);
Watching the Lehigh Drop;
The adrenalin pushing you through Temple, leaving you in South Philly and returning again as the Navy Yard welcomes you home;
The split breath of that last sprint; and
The teary-eyed look back at the finish line where you left it all.

It is not just a race, but a movement.  Not just a run, but a straight, flat, fast shot down to the quick of a City; The Broad Street Run is my beginning and the high after my low.  Tired after another long week in the off-season,  this race is ever still my reminder that it is not how we soar that defines us, but how well we rise after falling.  

You choose.

I've been (almost obsessively) listening to the Adele Live at Royal Albert Hall Album since December 25, 2011.  It was a random last-minute Christmas gift, purchased on the way from the office to the gym, in an actual store that specializes in selling actual CDs and DVDs.  My dad loved the gift and I've memorized every single word I later saved to my iPod.  

There is now a point on every (treadmill) workout when her cover of "To Make you Feel my Love" hits my ear buds and the desperation in those lyrics combines with the hour of the day (usually before 6AM) and it becomes a love song not about love at all; rather, the scrapes and the craziness, bruises and blows (to the body, soul and ego) and the gut wrenching realization that something has you where it wants you and you would do anything at any time to make it so, stands up and reminds you that this is in fact the case:

I'd go hungry

I'd go black and blue

I'd go crawling

Down the avenue

Know there's nothing

That I wouldn't do

To make you feel my love

And when those long notes push me into 7 minute miles to complete my workout just shy of 6:30AM, looking down a long day and another workout at 6:00PM, I know with more certainty than anything else, that I made the right choice - for the day, the week, the month and the year, for always - and it will continue to make the difference, in running, life, love and my ever after to Boston in 2013.    

It is in this moment that the small choices need to make the difference.  It's at 5:00AM when just turning on the right combination of lights matters.  It's at 4:30AM when the blender blending your green monster the first time you add the last of the ingredients matters.  It's on a January morning just before snow that finding your favorite glitten on your first try in the dark matters.  It's the feeling of new socks and the way your hat dries quickly on the heater at the gym that make these mornings effortless.  And so, here is to every small choice that got me to where I am today and made me realize I am a Runner.

Source: goaheadandsmilealready.tumblr.com via Michelle on Pinterest

"Life is one big road with lots of signs. So when you riding through the ruts, don't complicate your mind." - Bob Marley

Jamaica: 2012

One would think 85 degrees and tropically sunny connotes beautiful, uninterrupted beach running.  Unfortunately, this One would be wrong.  First, the beach, while perfectly arched against the blue water, is less in distance than 1.5 football fields strung together.  Second, there is no running (or walking) beyond this perfect little half moon.  And finally, it would make the job of the beach cocktail waiter that much harder if he had to try to catch me in order to deliver my 2PM Dirty Banana. 

So with the beach ruled out, three days of rest and no where to turn to but an open air workout room the size of my kitchen at home, I set out to run five miles on a treadmill that is easily a decade older than I am with its giant "faster" and "slower" arrows, complete inability to retain a workout summary and refusal to "pause." 

Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the machine not only turned on but also purported to keep track of pace and distance - the only necessities as far as I was concerned. And this is where I remained, uninterrupted, for the next 44 minutes, facing out at a wall of palm trees, no music, with only the sound of waves and the little coqui frogs to lull me into a calm, steady pace. 

This first run and those that followed in that private little corner away from the rest of the resort (and what felt like the world, my anxiety, troubles in general and any thought other than "left, right") was a wonderfully focused experience and meditative beyond its own four corners.  The path, once again, felt uncomplicated as I left that quiet niche and opened my eyes to the road with all of its signs. 

Speed is Work.

The next time you think you're bored on a treadmill, try sprinting on it for 3 minutes at race pace and then hopping off the flying belt and dropping to the ground for push-ups so rapid you can almost hear the urban-camo-wearing-rittenhouse-boot-camp-instructor-making-$35/class screaming in your ear.  Stop pushing up approximately 30 seconds after you begin.  Crumble to the ground.  Repeat the entire fiasco at least 7 more times.  Ideally, make this the second workout of your day so that when you peel yourself off the ground after that last, personal-record-setting set of push-ups, you are certain that only a hot shower and dinner stand in the way of what will certainly be motionless sleep. 

Do not mess with an iPod before, during or after this workout.  There is no time to coordinate a playlist or locate Lady Gaga amongst all of the other "L's" in "Artists."  This workout is fluid and exists largely without a full pause.  That is to say that even when you are staggering past the other members of your gym in the direction of the only working water fountain or when you are unraveled in a child's pose at the base of your treadmill with your left cheek placed pleasantly on the gym carpet (where you do realize this is a horrifying place to rest your exposed skin but are nonetheless powerless to move), your muscles are twitching and you should be stretching them just before you get back on the treadmill and begin another three minute sprint.

Watching the time tick down and stop after your final set is as triumphant as crossing a finish line - ever in sight, ever tangible -  ragged and gasping for the air your last push on the make believe course stole, you come to a stop and inhale.  Exhale. Fold in two.  Pick up your head, neck and shoulders from your knees.  Slowly.  And back off the treadmill until your feet, on solid ground, are able to glide you away from the first of many  speed workouts and into thirty more push-ups as sweat drips off your nose in perfect little drops onto the same place on the carpet where your cheek rested and you think of Gene Hackman reminding you that "[these] practices are not designed for your enjoyment."