To bring in 2006, I went in on a shore house down in Ocean City, NJ with a bunch of my friends from high school. New Year's Eve day I decided to go for a 5 mile run on the boardwalk. It was a time to reflect on the past year and mostly, get my head in gear for the upcoming year. I was confused and unhappy at this point in my life. I felt trapped in a job I didn't like because I had a mortgage. I felt trapped because I was just a bit more than halfway through the amount of credits I needed to graduate from Grad school at NYU - and I was very much over New York at this point in time. 12 years had been long enough. I was going to be turning 30 that year - where was I going in life? What do I want? During this run on a crisp morning with no more than a dozen other people on this boardwalk, with the salty sea air, the white crests on the water and the gentle crashing of the waves washing up on shore, this is what I was sorting out in my mind.
I wanted it to be a comfortable 5 miler - the goal was to pace myself. I had never really gone any longer distance than this so I didn't want to burn myself out too early. This was easier said than done. With all of these thoughts running through my head, my adrenaline was pumping and I realized I finished the first mile in just over 8:30, which was fast for me at that time. I was aiming for more of a 10 minute mile pace. I did slow down, but not on purpose. I wasn't at the level to sustain that speed for long. Still, by the end of the run, while it didn't solve my problems or give me any answers, I felt refreshed and ready to tackle whatever was to lay ahead for the next year.
January 3rd, I was back in NY. It was a cold Tuesday night with some snow/rain/hail mixture coming down. It was also the first night of my running class with NYRR. Lee had urged me to sign up for the 10 week running class New York Road Runners offered. I would meet this group every Tuesday night after work on the Upper East Side to do various drills (mostly speedwork) in Central Park. Another one of his clients, Janet, was also in the class. The first drill was about a half-mile warm-up, then a faster tempo mile, with a mile and a half cool down back to the gym. I kept pace right behind the instructor in our mile tempo - it felt ok at first but about a half mile in, it became a bit laborious. I was breathing heaver, squinting my eyes with the rain drops falling off my eyelashes and tiny pieces of hail pelting my face. I had no idea how fast we were going, but I knew I wanted to keep the tempo up, just a few steps behind her the entire time. Lee told me I don't push myself hard enough - that i'm much more capable of what I think I can do and what I actually do in performance. I thought about it, and he's probably right. So even though he wasn't there, I wanted to make him proud.
We turned the corner going up the drive on the west side of the park and would be finishing our tempo mile in front of Tavern on the Green (a famed restaurant in the park). I was running the last few hundred meters of the official New York Marathon - the same one that hundreds of runners and winners had run in the 30 year history of the race. It's pretty cool to think about that in hindsight, but at that moment, I just wanted to finish that damn mile. My lungs burned as I breathed in the cold air, the rain on my face had begun to freeze. I don't think it was any warmer than 30 degrees if that in this dark, blustery night, and all I was wearing were my running tights and mock turtle neck under armor technical shirt - with a hat a gloves. "8:49" one of the coaches yelled out to me as I passed her in front of Tavern on the Green. That is a respectable tempo mile, I thought to myself, considering I was still new to all of this.
The next day I was training with Lee at the gym, telling him about my New Year's run and my first running class. I thought he'd be proud of me, which he was - but it true Lee fashion, he pushed me even harder. He'd tell me I was capable of running 7:30 or 7 minute miles - maybe even sub-7. He also urged me to sign up for a 10 mile race he and Janet were running in three weeks time. 10 miles?!?! I had only done 5 and all of the sudden he wants me to double that in just 3 weeks? He must be insane!! I must be insane, because since he believed in me, I signed up.
It was the third weekend in January, temperature in the 30s. I was about to attempt to run 10 miles for the first time in my life - and in a race situation no less. There were probably about 3000 people there for this two-loop course that ran through central park. I lined up with Lee and Janet and another girl, Elaine, who I had just met on the NYRR website. She was a fellow runner in Washington Heights that I was hoping to be able to meet up with whenever we could to get some runs in together. So the four of us start out at a nice and comfortable pace - probably over a 10 minute mile. This is what Lee kept preaching to me - to start at slow, to feel like it was too slow so that I would warm up and conserve energy to have more of a punch at the end. Well, I got impatient and about 2 miles in, I started to run ahead of the three of them.
"She'll be back" Lee said to Janet - thinking that I was blowing it by picking up the pace too soon. It was pretty amazing - at mile 5, I was feeling great and hadn't let up - and I was about to surpass the longest distance I had ever run. Just past mile 7, I started feeling a bit tired. I hadn't drank or eaten anything during the run - I hadn't tried to eat or drink during a run ever, so now wasn't the time to experiment with it. I would later learn the importance of rehydrating and refueling. I probably slowed down a bit at this point, but oddly enough, Lee and Janet hadn't met up with me or passed me at this point. Janet and I would run about the same pace in our running class, and we were both capable of running in the 8:30 range (for shorter distances). Lee, of course, could be a 6 minute miler if he had been training harder. He was focusing on his cycling at this time, training for century rides - but regardless, he's in top form and fast. But he wasn't doing this for time - he was doing this to run with us.
Before I knew it I was at mile 9 - just 1 mile left to go. Even though I had slowed down a bit - I was still running. Didn't stop once. I knew Lee said to pick it up at the end - but I had to choose the right moment. Too soon and i'd burn out and not finish strong. There was no way I could accelarate for the entire last mile. So with a half mile to go, I started to pick up the pace - which took a bit of effort. But once you spot that banner and the finish line mat, you bolt for it. Well, I did the best kind of bolt of could at that time. I was pretty tired - but still felt elated afterwards. And I was amazed that Lee and Janet never caught up with me. When I met up with them afterwards, it turns out Lee's legs cramped up - to the point where he made Janet move ahead without him. But regardless, he was impressed that I picked it up and never came back. Not only could I pick up speed - but I found I had endurance. The following session in the gym I would have with Lee would have a conversation that would begin to change my whole way of thinking and my life.
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