End of the Season Thoughts

So, I'm technically still signed up for the Philly Marathon this Sunday but I don't think I'm going to be running it. After a practice run yesterday afternoon I'm feeling pretty beat up. So that's it for all my big races of 2008, 3 marathons, a couple of half-marys and my first two triathlons. It's been a great year for me. So many firsts. My first multi-marathon year. My first sub 6 minute mile (more than an hour into a triathlon I might add) My first top 3 win with my first trophy and a many more great memories. So what's to come for next year? I'd really like to either have my first half-ironman distance triathlon and to qualify for Boston. I don't know if I can do both in one season but they're both top priorities. 

Yesterday, I had a truly magnificent run. It's already well into the fall in Prospect Park, there are more leaves on the ground than on the trees and the air has the faintly acidic tinge of decay. After a couple of quick miles I decided to take off my headphones and wander the trails where I was assaulted with a rustic peace which one rarely encounters in a major city. With every footfall I swished and crunched the wrack; more than once I frightened the skittish squirrels as they sprinted about. Feeling the cold air become heavy in my chest I contrasted the feeling of the walk/run with my racing as of late. 

These are the bipolar personalities of the runner. The physical and emotional stress of running a marathon are difficult to overcome and as an athlete, you have to step up to these challenges. Alicia calls me an 'athlete', I'm not sure I can handle that tag yet. I have never, ever been an athlete. I have been pudgy, I have been a smoker, I have played more than my own fair share of videogames, magic cards and I live to eat. I have played sports, admittedly, but I've never felt at home on the field. I felt like the smiling ethnic kid photoshopped into a candid college advertisement, more of a gesture than a reality. Yet in the last few years, as I've run more and more, my daily challenges have been coming from a footpath, and not a screen. So I suppose that I am becoming an athlete. Maybe that'll be my New Years Resolution, accept my athleticism. 

But there is a different side to running that's easy to forget. A non-athletic side that I was reminded of as I walked through the fallen leaves. A childish, gleeful and enrichingly playful rush of delight that comes from the exhaustion of playing in a park. At one point I caught myself jogging down a crunchy, leafy hill, breathing in the musk and humidity with a cool and collected demeanor. While in my mind I was 5 years old, playing in a freshly raked pile of damp leaves with my arms out-stretched yelling 'Weeeee!'. 

I'm certainly not old enough to be jaded; I still vote democrat, I can eat an entire pizza by myself, my Dad will comb my hair and my mom still puts ketchup out on the table for me when she makes steak. But I am old enough to sense that I am no longer the pudgy little boy throwing muck and pine cones into the air before dinner and, quite frankly, that's not ok, not just yet. For time being I am perfectly content to escape my job, and my rent and my debt and run off to a little hill in Brooklyn, throw my head back, scare a few squirrels and play in the leaves. If you'd like, you can come too but... (gets closer)... shhhh, I know a secret place... don't tell anyone...