New Year's 2005, I attended a formal gathering in my best friend Joe's friend's brownstone apartment in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. I knew a few people and had heard of others, but one person that I met that night really made an impression on me. She was a 40 year old woman who was a body builder. A few years back, she had gone through a rough patch while going through a divorce and this is when she turned to working on her body physically which helped her find peace of mind. She had no intentions of becoming a body builder at that time - but she found something she loved and felt good about. She became a certified trainer and now helps others. She inspired me to get back out there and run again. So New Year's Day 2005, it was an unseasonably warm 60 degrees - a beautiful day for a run.
January was an incredible month in 2005, mostly because my beloved Eagles FINALLY became NFC Champions! It had been 24 years since they'd been in the superbowl when I was 5 years old. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to go and my Eagles buddy Joe jumped on board for the Superbowl adventure with me. Just before we headed to Jacksonville, I went to the gym one day after work. My contract with the gym was about to expire, so they tried to persuade me to sign a new contract and part of the persuasion was to get a free session with a personal trainer.
I had worked with a personal trainer for about 2 months close to 2 years beforehand. They asked me a bit about my interests and I mentioned running. So they scheduled a session for me with a trainer named Lee who was a big runner and cyclist. Little did I know then that I was to meet the man that would be instrumental in helping me change almost every aspect of my life.
My running was sporadic the first several months I began training with Lee. I started to feel better and feel stronger, but it wasn't as noticable to the naked eye. Lee explained that I had to do more cardio to shed some fat in order to see the muscles I was building. In the fall of 2005, I started running more consistently. Lee kept urging me to sign up for a local NYRR race - they had shorter distance races (around 4 miles) almost every weekend in Central Park. So finally, I bit the bullet and signed up for the Holiday 4 miler the first Saturday that December.
My Eagles buddy Joe had also recently taken up running and I urged him to sign up for the same race. I didn't sleep that much the night before - I was anxious - not knowing what to expect. Would I know how to lace up my chip (the timing device used to track net time for each runner, not the time from when the gun goes off - comes in handy if you dont' get to cross the start line until 10 minutes into the race because you're in the middle of a crowd of 10,000 runners). How would I do?
I met Joe and his friend at NYRR headquarters to pick up our bibs and chips the morning of the race. It was a 13 block walk to the start of the race. I couldn't believe how many people were out there this cold, Saturday morning. It was about 32 degrees and sunny - a crisp cool morning. Race time was 9:30 am - a later start than usual because of the winter temperatures. Joe and his friend lined up in a faster pace group. I decided to line up in the 10 minute mile pace group. The 4 miles that I ran in Central Park that morning is a bit of a blur - All I remember is I ran a comfortable place the entire time and that I felt a huge adrenaline rush when I crossed that finish line. From that moment on, I was hooked.
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