NYC Marathon 2017 - Racing Angel Story

All was great. I had just seen old friends who live in Park Slope. It’s such a huge rush to see someone you know amidst thousands of runners and even more fans at the NYC Marathon. I couldn’t even imagine what it might be like to see my family -- my two daughters, husband, my parents and my sister (!) who had flown all the way from Indiana. Anyway, heading into WIlliamsburg, I can’t help but think about the life I had lived there in what seemed like a lifetime ago. A life that I escaped many years ago but has been lurking in my psyche for years. An escape from a relationship that was riddled with emotional and verbal abuse that has taken years to move on from. A situation I hope neither of my precious girls ever has to endure. Perhaps I was distracted by the emotion of it all but I literally ran right past my entire family. I did not see any of them, later they told me that it wasn’t until I past right in front of them that my sister saw me, but it was too late to get my attention. To say that this was upsetting would be an understatement. Of course, I didn’t know that I had run by them, I thought maybe they didn’t make it in time (anger), maybe something terrible happened to my mom (fear) and that is when I started to hyperventilate. (Quick side note, this moment happened next to McCarren Park which is next to the track where I used to run. Where I first started running a hundred years ago. When running became a tool, a life-saver, a way out of a bad relationship.) That is when my innervoice, a new strength I had found from training, intervened to say “You worked way too hard to let this be what stops you from finishing. Pull your shit together.” So I dropped those trash bags I had been carrying on my shoulders since I had moved and I started to move forward again, step after step, a few more miles through Queens.

And then begins the ascent up the 59th Street Bridge. No one tells you how awful, treacherous, and truly disgusting this bridge really is. You have to run on the first level of this bridge under the traffic overhead. It was so cold, wet, and dreary and it is a very big hill. It was rough, so here I am, again, walking and feeling defeated, feeling like there is no way I can keep going another 10-15 miles. About halfway up the bridge, I hear a radio. Usually this would drive me crazy, I can’t stand it when people have radios going without headphones, why would I want to hear the music you’re listening to. I hear Frank Sinatra and two guys belting out the lyrics to “New York, New York”. For some reason, this was exactly what I needed at that moment. As they got closer, remember I am walking, I started singing, too. If you know me at all, you know that I am not the ‘join in and sing’ kind of gal. I started to belt out the lyrics and pick up my feet and find my stride. I started to run again. As the two guys passed me, I realized they were pace leaders, and unbeknownst to them, my racing angels.