I PREFACE THIS ACCOUNT by confessing that I am among the most unlikely of individuals to pen a running memoir. I was not predisposed to mark miles. I took no pleasure from pounding pavement. Mine was the sedentary lifestyle, a comfortable routine of eating what I wanted, when I wanted. I looked upon the weekend warriors who strode up and down the Lower Manhattan Esplanade with a mixture of ridicule and open contempt. It seemed to me that unless one is being chased, there is no point to running.
It wasn't always that way. I was a former athlete of modest accomplishments. In July 1981, I ran my first 5k, an event commemorating the 75th Anniversary of the founding of my hometown, River Vale, NJ.
In the autumn of 1984, I entered my freshman year at St. Joseph Regional High School in Montvale, NJ. Standing 5'00" and weighing 95lbs, I was too small for football. Our Cross Country squad consisted of boys who looked like me. The upperclassmen claimed that my new sport would be great if I enjoyed throwing up after every practice and performing without spectators.
Undeterred, I returned home each night too tired to eat or to do homework.
We finished the season 5-2-0 in dual meets. Despite that success, my competitive passion was elsewhere. In November, I reported to ice hockey captain's practice at 88lbs and a resolve to never again run more than 2.5 miles.
In my sophomore year, I turned my attention to track & field. I became a 100m, 200m specialist. A teammate of mine, Rich Harrington, became one of the premier schoolboy milers in New Jersey. He described me as "quick," a label consonant with my physical appearance.
I never hit the weight room and consequently lacked the definition in my thighs and upper body that is typical of true speed merchants. Nonetheless, I held my own against contemporaries whose accomplishments still stand among the Garden State's greatest. My shining moment occurred during the 1988 Bergen County Meet of Champions. I came in fourth of five runners in what was then the second fastest 200m heat in Bergen County history. While I got smoked by three blurs that overtook me before I reached the top of the turn, I remain proud that I handily bested the entrant from Paramus Catholic.
Four months later I reported to Fordham University as a walk-on to the Men's Track & Field Team. I was honored to participate at the Division I level but was hamstrung by the many distractions that come with living away from home for the first time.
An ankle injury in December sabotaged my training and I competed in a single 60m race at Southern Connecticut State University's James W. Moore Field House. Our team subsequently won the 1989 New York State Collegiate Track Conference Indoor Championship, an accomplishment to which I made no contribution due to injury.
The outdoor season produced equally disappointing results. In the spring of 1989, Harrington, struggling with a knee injury sustained at Drexel University, and I reunited on a cold, rain-drenched afternoon at Columbia University's Baker Athletics Complex. Compared to the scholarship talent on the track, my 100m performance was as lackluster as my former teammate's middle distance effort. That event more than any other motivated my decision to step away from collegiate athletics and embark upon a decade of full-time employment with United Parcel Service® that ran concurrent with the remainder of my undergraduate and graduate studies.
Thus began my 20-year period of self-imposed exile from running.
MY WIFE, JENNIFER, did not grow up with a passion for running. A former state champion high school tennis player, she became easily winded following physical exertion. A quarter-mile jog would redden her face and frustrate her spirit. In September 2007 she decided to do something to better her conditioning.
Working with personal trainer Meaghan Shea several mornings a week soon built strength and improved Jennifer's cardio endurance. She ran the Big Brothers/Big Sisters of NYC RBC 5k "Race for the Kids" in Manhattan's Riverside Park and was pleased with the result. The following spring she built a base before joining Team for Kids ("TFK"), the official charity of the New York Road Runners ("NYRR").
When Jennifer told me she planned to run the 2009 ING New York City Marathon, I thought she was crazy. We were attorneys, not endurance athletes. But to my utter amazement, she remained faithful to the thrice-a-week group training schedule. On alternating nights, she would leave our apartment in Battery Park City to run alone. Upon her return she would find me as she had left me: on the sofa. When I inquired where she had run, Jennifer would matter-of-factly remark that she had gone up to Times Square, an 8-mile roundtrip trek. I would simply shake my head in dumbstruck awe, believing I could never match the feat.
Jennifer also made a new group of "running buddies." These included Matt Martinez, MD, a pediatric cardiologist, his energy project consultant wife, Sondra, and their close friend, Stephanie Pianka, a financial management executive.
TFK orchestrated a number of social events for its members and their significant others. I explained to Jennifer that I had no interest in being around people who were obsessed with running. I liken the experience to being the designated driver at the frat house kegger. If you have no shared field of experience with your social companions, the interaction will likely degenerate into antisocial awkwardness.
At one point I became so boorish as to tell Jennifer, "If they begin to talk about running, I'm going to get up and leave." She told me she thought I was joking. I assured her I was not.
On October 1, 2009 New York Times health blogger Tara Parker-Pope included Jennifer in a profile of first-time marathoners running through pain. Jennifer struggled through an iliotibial ("I.T.") band injury. The connective tissue runs along the outer edge of the leg and provides stabilization to the knee. Inflammation in that region is one of the most common, and frustrating, injuries to plague distance runners. Faced with the choice to defer entry until the 2010 ING Marathon or risk further injury that year, Jennifer opted to gut it out, a decision which surprised no one who knows her.
The Thursday before the 2009 ING NYC Marathon we attended the Expo at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. I could not imagine a place I would less rather be. I walked amid row after row of marathon apparel. Foreign women dispensed with the decorum of changing rooms and stripped down to their bras and panties in the middle of the floor. Collectively, this was truly a breed onto themselves.
As a peace offering, Jennifer bought me a shirt that depicts two Pac-ManT-esque figures. The text bubble above the first's head says "Marathon, Marathon, Marathon .", while the other figure has x-ed out eyes and a "ZZZZZ" text bubble above its head. No memento could have more accurately captured my feelings.
Three days later, Jennifer completed the 40th New York City Marathon, her first attempt at that distance. She proudly wore her Finisher's Medal to the restaurant where we celebrated the feat with family and friends. She also wore the recognition to her law firm the next day. I took solace in the belief that our lives would return to some semblance of normalcy as the marathon faded into memory.
I was wrong.
JENNIFER CONTINUED TO BASK in the post-race afterglow. Thanksgiving came and went. Christmas passed by as well. On New Year's Eve, she shared another fond reminiscence of the marathon. And for reasons I have yet to identify, that was the straw that figuratively broke my back.
At 8:20pm I unilaterally decided that we would scrap our plans in favor of the Emerald Nuts® Midnight Run, a 4-mile jaunt in Central Park.
Now it was Jennifer's time to opine that I was crazy. I had not run a mile that year. I did not own compression tights, a technical shirt, or any item of moisture-wicking apparel. What I did have was the gut you'd expect to find on a 40-year old who lugged around nearly 30lbs over the classic Body Mass Index.
Dressed in multiple layers of non-breathable clothing and wearing running shoes that had long since passed their prime, I looked like Rocky Balboa, circa 1977.
We made it to the New York Road Runners office shortly before 9:00pm and registered for the run.
Amid the freezing rain and ice-slicked pavement we toed the line with nearly 4,000 other revelers. At the stroke of Midnight, fireworks exploded above Cherry Hill and we were off.
The first mile wasn't all that taxing. The festive mood, music and adrenaline all helped to distract me. The euphoria soon ended as reality set in at Cat Hill, a relatively slight incline. My breathing became labored and the sweat drenched my under layer and the hair beneath my woolen cap.
As I recall our pace never broke 11:00 per mile. With each successive step I spoke less and struggled more.
At Mile 3 I saw a bright light ahead. Understanding it could not be the Finish Line, I grew confused. As we approached the source, I realized to my shock and horror that it was a camera crew.
CNN correspondent Gary Tuchman...
