(Cue cheesy 60’s soap opera organ music.) When we last saw Gingah, she was gradually expanding her horizons, running the occasional 5k as the Upstate New York road racing season wound down and successfully working up the nerve to sing in public. (Although she’s been singing in church for years—as a cantor at Albany’s historic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception—she never really considered that truly “public”…besides, it's rude to boo someone in church. Even Judas doesn't get booed during the reading of The Passion.)
Over the course of the previous year or so, through the modern marvel of Facebook, I have reconnected with so many of my fellow theatre alumni from WVU. We’ve all gotten a little older and perhaps somewhat wiser, but the essential personalities I remembered so well have remained—familiar, warm and comfortable as a favorite old sweater.
Well, the horizon, like the universe, apparently, keeps expanding.
A few months ago, on a pleasant summer evening, I walked to Steamer No. 10 Theatre, about a mile from my home in Albany, to audition for a staged reading of Joanna McClelland Glass’s† Trying, which was being produced by Theater Voices. I had been eagerly (and extremely nervously) awaiting an opportunity to audition after a 25-year absence from the stage. (I graduated with a BFA in Theatre from West Virginia University in 1985. Since then, life got in the way.) A staged reading, wherein the actors carry their scripts while performing in a fully blocked production, seemed like something even rusty ol’ me could do. I actually surprised myself by not sucking at the audition. (Auditions, like job interviews and first dates, have always intimidated the hell out of me; as a result, I have typically bombed at all three. With alarming consistency.) The director, Carol, was very complimentary when I spoke with her by phone later that week. Unfortunately, there was one obstacle I couldn’t quite overcome: At 47, I couldn’t pass for 25. Not even a very mature 25. But I had already told myself (on that walk to the theatre for the audition) that the most important thing was the experience of auditioning. Basically, I treated it like a training run. This wasn’t about the result; this was about the process. And in that process, I met some wonderfully warm people who quickly reminded me why I love the performing arts. I also agreed to operate the tech board for the production, so at least I was getting back into theatre. When God closes a door, somewhere He opens a window.
Between work, running and still trying diligently to housetrain a sweet but very willful Chihuahua mix puppy, I still haven’t prepared an audition song. But at least I have some sheet music now. When the next feasible audition notice arrived in my e-mail in box (it seemed I had to wade through an inordinate number of audition notices for very young people, or theatres that were nearly an hour away from my home, or looking for a specific ethnicity—Italian-American in one case, which would be an even tougher sell for me than trying to pass myself off as a 25-year-old), it was for a Christopher Durang play, Mrs. Bob Cratchit’s Wild Christmas Binge, being produced by Confetti Stage, Inc. This audition would require a prepared comedic monologue and the a cappella singing of any song, such as a Christmas carol. I was tired of using the I-don’t-have-time-to-prepare-an-audition-monologue excuse, so I dusted off the only monologue I had a shot in hell of having memorized in a few hours (since, by the time I saw the notice that morning, I realized the audition was later that evening): the Epilogue from Shakespeare’s As You Like It. I printed it out, read through it periodically through the day at work, and ran the lines as I did my afternoon training run. In the meantime, of course, I had plenty of time for what seems to be my real profession: second-guessing myself. I wondered if preparing a Shakespearean monologue for a Durang comedy would be akin to showing up for a 5k wearing a tuxedo. And clown shoes. Would the director roll his eyes? Would my brain seize up and cause me to forget part of the monologue? What if the Trying audition had been a fluke? What if I really still just suck beyond belief at auditions? I reminded myself that it was about the process, not the result. I went to the audition. I certainly didn’t leave anyone thinking they’d just seen the next Meryl Streep, but I didn’t suck. I remembered the whole monologue, sang a snippet of “Deck the Halls” (ironically, on the last line of the verse, forgetting the f*cking lyrics), read from some sides and met more fun, kind theatre folks. After leaving the audition, I prepared myself for the possibility of rejection. I didn’t even care what role I got, as long as I would have an opportunity to act. I hummed “Anticipation” to myself as I imagined the ketchup-like wait to hear about my audition.
I took my time getting home, sitting in my car for a good 10-15 minutes checking and answering e-mails from my CrackBerry before pulling away from the curb and heading away from downtown. Just as I pulled the car into the garage, my CrackBerry rang. It was Jeff, the director, offering me the title role of Mrs. Bob Cratchit. Like a complete idiot (because why do anything halfway?), I actually said, “Really???” <FACEPALM> (Note to self: That was asinine. Don’t do that again. It makes you sound like a dork.) Even in the midst of full-on asininity, I was thrilled beyond belief. As of this writing, we’ve completed our first read-through; our first rehearsal begins this Monday. We open December 10th at Albany's Masonic Hall.
As I considered my return to acting, I quickly found a lot of parallels between community theatre and running road races:
First, both involve stepping out of your comfort zone, whether that’s going to an audition or signing up for your first 5k. Either way, you’re putting yourself out there, risking ridicule or embarrassment (most of it just a figment of your imagination, you later find), saying to the Fates, “Please consider me worthy.” Do well, and you get the role or run a good race; do poorly, and you examine what went wrong and determine how to change your approach to avoid doing poorly next time. In both cases, “Screw this, I’m never doing this again,” just doesn’t cut it.
Second, you are because you do. I can “officially” call myself an actor because an accredited university (a real one, not some for-profit online diploma mill), after I invested four years of my life (and enough tuition to spend 10 years repaying student loans, despite two years of performance grants) to the study of theatre, gave me a piece of paper that states I am. In much the same way, one can call oneself an engineer because one holds a similar piece of paper attesting to one’s completion of the requisite course of study. But being an actor isn’t just about what you know; it’s also about what you do. (What you know informs what you do.) And in that sense, I have considered my profession to be “unemployed actor” for 25 years. Oh, I’ve been employed; and the skills I’ve used for most of the employment I’ve had—skills I’ve had the luxury of taking for granted—have come directly from what I learned while studying to be an actor. But to those who didn’t know my academic background, I’ve never been an actor; I’ve been a writer, a bank teller, a personnel manager. These have been various jobs I’ve had, but I’ve never considered any of them (with the sole exception of writer) to be even remotely like a profession to me. They paid the bills and I was good at them and they were all legal. And, in a sense, the work I get paid to do is what enables me to devote some time to the work I love to do. But to be an actor, all you really have to do is act. Granted, studying the craft is tremendously beneficial, but there are plenty of people who are good actors who've never studied Stanislavsky or Strasberg/Meisner/Hagen/whatever. You don't have to be in Hollywood or on Broadway to be an actor, any more than you need to be in the Olympics to be a runner.
People tend to have an image of what a runner is: slender body, disciplined routine, the latest athletic apparel and that long-distance, concentrated stare. When you line up at the start of a road race, whatever the distance, you see an abundance of people who look just like that. But you also see a lot of people who look nothing like that. People like me, for instance. If you didn’t know anything about me and you saw me on the street, you would never peg me as a runner. You will never see someone like me on the cover of Runner’s World. It’s often been frustrating for me to find good athletic running wear because sometimes even the ladies’ XL size leaves me gasping for breath (before I’ve even taken my first step), relegating me to the saving grace of online athletic apparel suppliers that recognize the needs of “plus size” female athletes. When I started running, it seemed as though just about everyone told me I would lose a lot of weight and “get so skinny”; well, I’ve actually gained a few pounds. (I’m working on it, I’m working on it. But that’s another blog entry for another day.) I’ve run all of my 17 races (so far...and that's just since June of this year) between 200 and 213 pounds. And let me emphasize that I ran most of those races. I ran them slowly, but I f*cking ran 3.1 miles at each race. I don’t care if you weigh 200+ pounds or 98 pounds soaking wet; running five continuous kilometers at any speed is an Accomplishment-with-a-capital-A. Sometimes we non-traditional types need to remind ourselves of that: I AM A RUNNER.
Third, you don’t have to be the best; you simply need to do your best. Some of those very athletic-looking types toeing the line at a 5k will leave at the end of the race with a medal or a PR, but the overwhelming majority of them will leave knowing that they ran the best race they had in them that day. Just as you don’t have to win an Oscar or a Tony to be an actor, you don’t have to win a 5k to be a runner. Maybe your goal was to PR, maybe it was to run comfortably or just have fun. For my most recent race, the Race Away Stigma 5k in Troy, I didn't even have a time goal. I just wanted to run the full distance and not have my hips feel like they were trying to kill me from the inside. I relaxed, had fun, conquered (slowly) a hill that had forced me to slow to a walk twice just a few months ago and ran without pain. The result? My second-fastest race time ever. Go figure!
Fourth, you prepare thoroughly for the whole play, but you act in the moment. No actor would even think of setting foot onstage without having prepared extensively—learning lines, rehearsing blocking, exploring and developing a character. But when the play begins, you’re acting; you must be right there, in that present moment, not three pages ago, not two scenes ahead. An actor lives in the now. All of that preparation is what frees you to let go of everything except now. As a runner, you go through your long- and short-term preparations, but once the race starts, you just run. You pace yourself, follow the “script” for that race that you’ve developed through your training (and, as necessary, ad lib when something goes awry) and let the result be what it is.
And fifth, once you get started, you will be amazed to discover the community that’s out there. Before I registered my first 5k, the Freihofer’s Run for Women, I had no idea how many road races were out there. I knew the various distances—5k, 10k, 15k, half-marathon, marathon—but I had no idea that there were races damn near every weekend. At last night’s performance of Confetti Stage’s production of Heresy, I found as I perused the program that there are even more local theatre companies (and, therefore, more acting opportunities) than I realized. And with two good, solid auditions (one of them resulting in an actual role) under my belt, the question now is not if but when; and that question isn’t answered, “Someday,” but rather, “Does the audition or rehearsal schedule conflict with my Mrs. Bob commitments?”
One of the nice side benefits of running and returning to the theatre is that I have had to be more disciplined with how I organize and use my time. As a self-professed obsessive-compulsive, anal-retentive, perfectionist control freak, I’m almost ridiculously well organized; but the best plan isn’t worth sh*t unless it gets put into practice. I’ve also started mapping out my off-season training plan, with the goal of being 10k-ready by late January, so I can get a few 10k races under my belt before heading to Atlanta for the 2011 Peachtree Road Race. (I already know that my current PR more than qualifies me to run the Peachtree, but I have to get in first—and registration for that race notoriously sells out in hours. And they cut off registration at "only" 55,000.) If all continues to proceed reasonably according to plan (and if this approaching Upstate New York winter will do me a solid and be f*cking mild for once), I hope to be (gasp!) half-marathon ready by summer. I’ve even got my sights on a duathlon in 2011 in the hopes of moving up to a sprint triathlon in 2012, hopefully in Ohio, where my athletic inspiration, "Ironman Tiffany," lives.
So if you’ve ever toyed with the idea of trying community theatre or running (or both) but thought you couldn’t because you don’t “look” the part, take a deep breath, exhale with a firm-but-Zen-like, “F*ck it, let’s GO!” and take that leap of faith. Do the work, step by step, and before long you’ll find your old excuses falling apart like a house of cards on a rickety folding table being periodically brushed by a Newfoundland puppy who desperately needs to pee. Your knees that used to ache when you just thought about running will gradually acclimate to it and, in time, you may even find that your knees ache more when you don’t run. Your I-don't-have-time-to-be-in-a-play excuse will dissipate as you organize your time better. All you have to do is start. An object in motion tends to stay in motion; an object at rest tends to stay at rest. It's hard to argue with physics.
The rewards are immeasurable. You don’t need to win the race or get the lead role. All you have to do is engage the process and see it through. That’s where confidence comes from. You don’t have confidence or discipline first; you develop them by pushing your own envelope, facing and conquering little challenges day by day, week by week, month by month. And most of all, surround yourself with people who will cheer you on, even if only from afar, who will love you for who you are and admire you for reaching out beyond what you think you can do. (Victorious, inspirational “Rocky“-like music swells. Fade to black. Roll credits.)
†Damn you, E.B. White. I still think ’s looks weird after a monosyllabic proper noun ending in s, but since your Elements of Style has long been considered the standard for modern writing, I’ll do it. But I refuse to like it. You probably split infinitives, don’t you, E.B.? Bastard.
Hey, Gingah! Where've ya been???
Well, for those of you who have been going through Run-Gingah-Run withdrawal (symptoms include re-reading old blog posts, repeatedly and futilely pressing the F5 key to refresh your screen, and craving Ben & Jerry's—any flavor), let me assure you that I have not abandoned you.
I've been running (most recently, the UAlbany Homecoming 5k and the Power House Athletics inaugural 5k Challenge to benefit Lance Armstrong's LIVESTRONG Foundation) and still have a few more races on my schedule for this year.
It's been a pretty rough few weeks, as personal emotional crap rudely invaded my training routine. (I respect my readers far too much to go into those pathetic details. I'd just as soon discuss my bowel movements. Hmmm...I sense a theme!)
After the UAlbany Homecoming 5k (which I had to run/walk), I had a really solid (albeit slow) 4-mile training run the following Monday. Then I took a tumble doing something as literally pedestrian as walking the dogs (damn curbs), banging up one of my knees a bit (lovely bruise) and leading later on to some significant hip pain. When I ran the Komen 5k a couple of weeks ago, I ran practically the whole race with my hips aching; I figured it was a result of a particularly intensive leg press session the day before the race. <FACEPALM> But this hip pain continued through the week, even after a visit to my chiropractor (which helped to some extent, but not entirely) and frequent applications of BioFreeze. If you own stock in companies that make industrial-size store-brand acetaminophen and ibuprofen, you should have a nice dividend coming your way at the end of the quarter. I was popping those puppies like Tic-Tacs.
The pain grew gradually worse through the week, keeping me from doing any workouts. The fact that my job involves sitting on my tuches all day (I'll leave it to my Yiddish-speaking friends to correct my spelling of "tuches") only seemed to exacerbate the problem. I also ran the board for a local staged reading of "Trying" by Joanna McClelland Glass, and the chair in the tech booth certainly didn't help my hip problem. During sections of the performance without cues, I did my best to stretch my legs and hips to alleviate the pain. Meanwhile, I was still popping NSAIDs like there's no tomorrow. As I began to experience pain running down my right leg, I began to wonder if I had developed sciatica. Of course, I always try to remind myself of the medical school admonition: "Sometimes what appears to be a zebra is just a horse."
So yesterday morning, I headed up to Saratoga Spa State Park for the Power House Athletics 5k Challenge. Since my hip problem had kept me from training, I hoped, at best, to run the full distance, preferably pain-free. I ran slowly, and, of 79 entrants, I finished 77th (which I considered appropriate, since my bib number was 1177). I took some pride in discovering that the two people who finished behind me are both younger than I am. But what made me proudest was that I ran the full distance. What surprised me most was that I did not have any hip pain during my run. Astounding! (Later that afternoon, after the endorphins wore off and just before I headed to the theatre for the final performance of "Trying," the hip pain returned with a vengeance, so I was singing "Hello, Ibu!" again.)
The impending end of this year's road races is something I see as both a blessing and a curse: a blessing because it will give me an opportunity to focus more on rest and gradually rebuilding my base and (God willing) getting my weight down, which I'm certain is the primary factor in my health woes (as well as factoring, no doubt, into some of the aforementioned emotional crap); a curse because I will miss the nearly weekly supportive boost that I only seem to get from racing.
My next race, #17 for those of you keeping track, is the Race Away Stigma 5k this Saturday in Troy. Again, my goal is to run the full distance and to run pain-free. I've decided that improving my time is just the icing on the cake. (Did someone say caaaaaaake???) And that'll be it until the Christopher Dailey Foundation Turkey Trot in Saratoga Springs on Thanksgiving, after which I'll conclude my 2010 road racing year with the City of Albany's Last Run 5k in mid-December.
In the meantime, I'll see about getting my hip checked out at some point (my primary care physician is also an orthopedist who is board certified in Sports Medicine--one of the reasons I selected her; I just hadn't taken into consideration the fact that she would be out on maternity leave), focus my efforts on rebuilding and reinforcing a well-rounded fitness base, training my very willful 6-month-old Chihuahua-mix (which is the one thing most likely to kill me), and getting involved more in the local theatre scene.
I just want to take a moment to say THANK YOU to everyone who has given me genuine support in my running efforts; to my theatre friends (both old and new) for reminding me why I love the performing arts; and to Chris Ciceri and the Albany Devils for honoring me with the opportunity to sing "God Bless America" at the Devils' season opener as the New Jersey Devils' AHL team finally returned to Albany for the first time in several years. (Thank God I remembered all the words, didn't miss any notes and didn't fall over the railing!) Although I preferred the previous team name (Albany River Rats), it's so good to see professional hockey return to the Times Union Center (which I still keep accidentally calling the Knick...which it was, what, two or three iterations ago?). River Rats or Devils, hockey in Albany, to paraphrase Shakespeare, "by any other name would be as suh-WEEET!"
I wasn’t supposed to become a runner this year. I was actually supposed to become a runner last year, and my first 5k was going to be the 2009 Komen Race for the Cure in Albany. I even had a reason to run: to honor my pastor, known to most of his friends as Bill (but I’m just a tad too old-school to address a priest by his given name). Last year, he was diagnosed with breast cancer. Fortunately, the cancer was detected early and he responded well to treatment. He is now cancer-free. I wanted to run in his honor and as a reminder that, yes, men get breast cancer, too. I also wanted to run in memory of my eldest maternal aunt, Catherine White, who passed away in October of 2008. Well before she passed away, she was a decades-long breast cancer survivor.
I was disappointed not to have been fit enough to run last year’s Komen, since some medical complications I mentioned in a recent blog entry derailed my training plans. But if “Bill” has taught me anything, it’s that some things run on God’s timetable, not ours.
After I signed up for the 2010 Komen Race for the Cure, former college friends from West Virginia University planned a reunion of the Division of Theatre. It would have been my first opportunity in 25 years for me to meet up with my fellow theatre majors, but I was committed to run the Komen. So as my college friends gathered in Morgantown, I prepared to run my 14th 5k of 2010.
So many people generously supported me in the Komen Race for the Cure, helping me raise more than $400 for the Susan G. Komen Foundation. In honor of friends and loved ones who have survived (or died from) breast cancer, and in thanks to everyone who supported my efforts with a donation, I wore a sign on my back throughout the race:
I had two fundraising goals: one monetary and one participatory. I wanted to raise $250, and I wanted at least 5 of my collegiate friends to contribute. I was humbled, honored and immensely pleased to have exceeded both goals.
The week leading up to the Komen was certainly less than illustrious. Two 5k’s the preceding weekend combined with an acute cold to knock me out of training for the better part of the week before the Komen.
The Komen also represented the first time I would retrace the route of a previous race: my first 5k, the Freihofer’s Run for Women, this past June. I remembered that route well, including its two hills: the opening hill on Madison Avenue, and the second on Lake Avenue between the first and second mile. I already had a game plan in place, having learned a lot since then about running in general and in particular how my body responds to running. I knew where to focus my energy and where I could give my body a bit of a break when I needed it.
As always, my ultimate goal was to get a PR. The Freihofer’s, being my first 5k, came with a built-in PR; all I had to do was cross the finish line. Between that race and this, I had run 12 5k’s; some of them frustrating, a few of them personally thrilling, and all of them challenging. My most recent PR was 34:26 in the Saratoga Palio 5k, representing a pace of just over 11 minutes per mile. I would have expected at least to feel faster at that pace, but, if anything, the Palio 5k felt downright ordinary (read: fairly pokey). With that PR under my belt, I set my twin goals for the Komen: to run the entire race and to score a PR, shooting for 34:15. I knew the time goal was particularly ambitious for me, especially given my illness-induced inability to train as much as I would have liked. I recognized the very real possibility that I would have to cut myself a break and consider just running the whole distance as sufficient challenge in itself.
The weather forecast for “Komen Saturday” had, for several days, looked very much like the outlook for the Palio: autumnal temperatures and no precipitation. I kept my fingers crossed. As Saturday morning dawned, the forecast proved accurate. A cloudless azure sky and 50 degrees Fahrenheit boded well for a good race. I even had Friday morning’s solid, intensive, hour-long elliptical training session and tough, long-overdue triple set on the leg press to help compensate for a lack of running all week. The only potential snag was a direct result of that tough workout: my hips and glutes made it abundantly clear to me that they were not accustomed to such a hard workout. They would continue to express their displeasure emphatically throughout the race.
Every runner will tell you from experience that not every race will be a PR. It stands to reason that a human being, regardless of training intensity, will naturally experience ebbs and flows from one race to another. After the Palio, I thought breaking the 35-minute mark meant I would never struggle to finish a race running the whole way; it would simply be a matter of how fast I would run. But it seems running has a way of humbling you: when you think a day feels like nothing special, you end up surprising yourself with a good solid run; and when you feel like you could your best race ever, something inexplicable will thwart your efforts.
So I focused on running the full distance and working the hills effectively, not worrying about finish time. After arriving, snapping some photos and “trick-or-treating” among the sponsor tables, I stashed my extraneous stuff in the car and headed back toward the Empire State Plaza, detouring briefly to the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception (near the finish line) for a few pre-race devotional moments.
Three friends from work—Carolyn, Everton and Kathryn—were also registered to run the Komen, and I ran into Carolyn and her boyfriend’s sister-in-law, Teri, before the race. We stretched and chatted a bit, then headed toward the start line. I’d learned the hard way during the Freihofer’s Run for Women that if I started back where I was “supposed” to (because I expected to run about an 11- to 12-minute mile), I would get stuck behind a lot of participants who would opt to walk up the opening hill. Since I wanted to run it all and put in at least a respectable pace, I didn’t want to get boxed in. I was among the crush of folks under the overpass between the Empire State Plaza and the New York State Museum. Announcements were being made, but between the cacophonous chatter and the echo-heavy acoustics in the underpass, I couldn’t understand a single word being said. We were crammed together so tightly, I barely had room to move around much, so I just swayed back and forth to warm up my hips and knees and to get ready to run.
I remember reading a training quote a few months ago, referring to running a marathon: “Run the first third with your head, the second third with your legs and the final third with your heart.” I’ve adopted that for my races; despite the shorter distance, the principles hold true. It helps me break down the race into manageable chunks, which, when combined with a familiar course, help fend off the temptation to slow to a walk.
I don’t even recall hearing the starting signal. In a race with thousands of runners, you really just wait for the a$$es in front of you to start moving and follow suit. Due to my starting experience in the Freihofer’s Run for Women, I started farther forward for this race and stayed to the right to avoid getting boxed in or run over. So guess what happened? I got boxed in a bit at the start, since there were still people in front of me who were taking the opening hill even more slowly than I did. I focused on lifting my knees, keeping my head up, pushing off with my feet and taking quick “baby steps” up Madison Avenue hill. At the top of the hill, I switched my focus to getting a good breathing cadence going as the crowd of runners began to thin ever so slightly. The familiar transition points came and went: the few straight, level blocks of Madison Avenue between Swan and Lark Streets, the entrance to Washington Park, the downhill approach to the Lake House. At the one-mile mark, the clock showed me at a relatively modest pace of 12:10. I ran past the water station and prepared my legs for the next big challenge: the hill on Lake Avenue just after we exited the park.
As we headed up Lake, I once again focused my mind on lifting my knees, keeping my head up, pushing with my feet and taking short strides. In the midst of this, I was passed by a slender blonde who turned to her friend and said, “I don’t see how they can even call this a hill.” Keep in mind that I had my earphones in and I still heard this statement as clear as day. (I keep the music just loud enough so I can hear runners coming up behind me, but I’m typically focused on my breathing or my legs or the music, so I rarely notice what most people say during a race.) At blonde runner chick’s statement, I wanted to kick her butt; if only I’d caught up to her pace, I might have smoked right past her. Maybe next year…
As we turned onto Western Avenue at the top of the hill, I recognized the area where I had to slow to a walk during the Freihofer’s Run for Women, just shy of the two-mile mark. As I’ve done in every race since the Dunkin Run, I looked for people to thank—volunteers, APD, AFD—and extended my Attitude of Gratitude toward those around me. On Madison Avenue, not far before the two-mile mark, I saw a vested, flag-toting volunteer and shouted, “Let’s hear it for the course marshals!” A few of the runners around me joined me in some appreciative applause. At the two-mile mark, the clock showed 23:40, showing a slightly improved pace from the first mile. Although I was certainly tiring, I felt like I had enough left in the tank to go the distance.
We turned onto Henry Johnson Boulevard for the final block before re-entering Washington Park. In the Freihofer’s, I had slowed to a walk again just inside the park for a distance of perhaps a hundred yards. But I knew I would run the full distance today. My confidence was building with every step. Perhaps half a mile from the finish line (around the point where I had resumed running for a second time during the Freihofer’s), I felt someone brush up against my shoulder and was completely surprised to see Everton (aka “Scooch”) come up alongside me. I said, “Hey, Scooch! What are you doing way back here?” (This was his first 5k in who knows how many years, but he’s still a lot younger, fitter and more athletic than I am; hence, my surprise. He would tell me after the race that he had to slow to a walk five times. I half-jokingly suggested he should do some training runs with me.) We kept pace for a while, but by the time we exited the park for the last time and turned onto Madison Avenue, he was well ahead of me.
At this point, the race was all about how much energy I had left to exert. I pushed myself down Madison, knowing that the hill I had slowly climbed at the start of the race would pull me toward the finish line. I thanked a spectator who was sitting on the steps of his brownstone, cheering us on, and before I knew it, I was at the top of the hill. It was literally all downhill from here. As I crossed Swan Street, I started to applaud and thank some of the spectators along Madison when one of my greatest racing fears came to fruition: I tripped. Rather than my worst-case-scenario fear of a full faceplant onto asphalt, I immediately regained my footing without losing more than perhaps half a step. I raised my arms like a gymnast and shouted, “Aaaaaaand she sticks the landing!!!” One of the benefits of being fairly slow (and at least a little klutzy) is the opportunity to be entertaining; I am convinced that this is (at least partly) the real reason I became a runner.
I passed the starting line carpets and kept pushing toward the finish line. As I expected, given the illness-induced lack of training the preceding week, I was not going to PR; but I was going to finish sub-:36, which was better than I expected, given how I felt during the race.
While the start of the race is the most anticipatory, the finish is always my favorite part. I’m still not to the point where I’d rather keep running than stop at the finish line, and I’m not entirely convinced it’s even possible for me ever to feel that way. Until then, I’ll just keep enjoying the stopping part.
I was elated to have easily surpassed my performance on this same course just four months prior. At first, I estimated that I beat my Freihofer’s time by over two minutes; a later check of the official results revealed that I had come just one second shy of beating my Freihofer’s time by three minutes.
A volunteer removed the racing chip from my shoe and I fought through the crush of finishers to get to some desperately needed water. I met up briefly with Scooch and it finally dawned on me to head further down Madison to get away from the peak density of the crowd. I felt my CrackBerry vibrating against my back (where it was stashed in its usual spot between my bra and my compression top) and no sooner had I retrieved it when I saw the person who was buzzing me: Carolyn, who was standing with Teri. Carolyn was hoping to finish under :30. When the results were posted online that afternoon, it turned out that she not only ran sub-:30, she managed a PR. Score!
I never found Kathryn, but she commented on my Facebook status later that she cheered me on as she saw me approach the finish line. At that point, George Clooney could have been shouting his undying love for me (it could totally happen!) and I wouldn’t have heard it; I was that focused on getting to the finish line with whatever semblance of speed I had left in me.
I can’t wait to run this same course twice again next year: at next June’s Freihofer’s Run for Women and next October’s Komen Race for the Cure. Perhaps if my running keeps improving at an estimated three minutes every four months, then I could potentially run a 25-minute 2011 Freihofer’s and a 22-minute 2011 Komen. But there’s a tremendous amount of work ahead of me in order to accomplish those feats. There’s no point in enjoying races I haven’t even run yet!
I am sincerely and profoundly thankful to everyone who supported me in the Komen Race for the Cure and for their generosity to an organization fighting to end a scourge that claims a life somewhere in the world every 69 seconds.
