Monthly Archives: March 2018

I am not a runner by nature .  At least, no more than any other human is a runner: we are, after all, evolved to run long distances.  Still, growing up as the “fat girl”, my mentality has always been that sports and running are “not for me”, that physical activity was outside of my capabilities.

I’m not sure what prompted me to even start trying to run a few years ago.  I’ve always been a fair cyclist, which has been my preferred mode of movement.  I suppose I thought running would help me lose weight.  I don’t believe it actually does, since as with most forms of cardio, it just makes one hungrier and causes increased caloric intake.  Instead, I discovered that running actually makes me happy, and that’s why I’ve kept it up.

There’s been a few factors driving this:

1. Pride in accomplishment: I like seeing my time per mile go down over the course of a season.  I start running around a 12 minute mile, which is slow – but usually get it down to 11 within a month or two.  (The screenshot to the left was walking the last mile, hence the higher overall minutes per mile time)
2. Being outside: I love being outside in the park.  I love Prospect Park.  it’s one of the best things about living in this part of Brooklyn.  Being able to go through the trees, past the lake, and eventually up past the Long Meadow, through the familiar forest and fields of Brooklyn’s backyard, makes me extremely happy.
3. Gamification.  I use Zombies, Run!, an app that mashes up running with storytelling and gaming.  Each day, I set off on a “mission” as Runner 5, a runner for Abel Township, a collective of survivors in a zombie apocalypse.  I hear the story come through as commentary from other runners and from the dispatcher, both as the town moves forward in the war against the zombies, and as background on how the apocalypse came about.  The narrative aspect is enough to motivate me to hear what happens next, and the game itself also offers a series of rewards through items collected on the path that can be used to build up the town, Sim City style, in the app.  The app also tracks my distance and, if set to “Chase Mode”, sends the occasionally shambling pack after me, requiring a running sprint to evade them.

So now, I run, 2 – 3x a week.  And then last year, it was suggested to me that I actually train running, as part of a possible triathlon effort.  And I thought, why not?  I like all the modes of movement involved, I just need to get faster at running and swimming.  Now, I run for joy in the short term, and for the end goal of eventually running a triathlon in the long term.  I may not get there – prioritizing training is hard when so much else is involved in my life – but at least I know I’m working on it.  And in the interim, I’ll just keep outrunning the zombies and fortifying Abel.

OK, this time I hope I’m not jinxing us all. We had the traditional First Day of Spring / Revenge of the Groundhog storm last week: over a foot of heavy snow in Brooklyn, which turned to ice and snow as it melted over the next two days. I do not mind snow, I do mind ice, especially black ice, the patches which masquerade as puddles. Finally though, the snow is down to patches, the sun is out again, and the air is losing its chill. I’m wearing only a pleather jacket over my sweater and blouse today, not the double-layer coat I wore yesterday when the winds were cold. Not only do I feel less frumpy but I feel hopeful.

After all, it’s almost Q2 again. Soon, I’ll be back at Merkle NYC in Midtown, not schlepping 2 – 3 times a week to New Jersey for on site client work. The constant commute – subway to town, bus to NJ – is not nearly as bad as the car-bus-ferry-hike I once did years ago to my first job out of UBC, located for some reason on Bowen Island off North Van. But it also doesn’t have the beauty of that other long -ago multi -step commute, and while a long commute can be made more bearable by the beauty of coastal BC, a long commute is decidedly not improved by the ride through suburban NJ. While some parts of Jersey are pretty and well cared for, the views I see are only those of run down sprawl and acres of polluted wetlands.

The view is much better on an alternate route, with a long drive up the Hudson River via the West Side highway, and a crossing at the George Washington bridge, but that shuttle design combined with the poor repair of the highway, is a tooth shaking and nausea inducing ride, and I often jump off at my destination trying not to vomit while holding my shaken head. I usually take it home anyways, as it’s far faster than the plush NJT bus, and listen to Matt Good Band as I go past the glassy towers of the West Side, seeing the Hudson and the residential towers as if they were English Bay, usually exhausted from the stress of being on site working with a challenging situation.

Or, to put it in soundtrack terms, the ride from Port Authority Bus Terminal to NJ is Oingo Boingo “Just Another Day”, a deceptively cheerful song about the end of the world. The ride home, on the corporate shuttle, between the water & the glass towers, is Advertising On Police Cars, a slow anthem of dystopia and disillusionment. I will be so thankful to return to my alternating days of biking to work to upbeat EDM in the Tiesto podcast & bouncing in to work.

Last week of March. It’s spring. I’m thankful it’s time to renew and reboot, to change the soundtrack.  I’m thankful the travel to this particular assignment is almost over.  I’m thankful to be able to ride to work again soon and to be working somewhere near the gyms I meet my friends at after our days are over.  I’m thankful my long commute days will be going the way of those last few patches of snow.

I move extremely fast when traveling on my own. Reduce my possessions down to a backpack and duffel and I can weave through all kinds of human foot traffic. Airports? I’m on the plane in 20 minutes flat. Train stations? I’ll find my track and train. Buses? I’ll run through Port Authority like an 80s movie commuter cliche. Ferries, I’ve been taking my whole life, I can get in the cafeteria line on a Queen or Spirit class vessel in less than five minutes from when I drive on, less than two from walk on.

This is the part of traveling I like. It’s being in the moment, like a ninja. I’m totally focused on the next step and the next transport. I’m not thinking about my to do list or worrying about the million anxieties in my life. I’m just leapfrogging from step to step of a journey. And I do that best on my own, without checked bags, just carrying what I can sling over shoulders. It’s the same mental state I go into when I bike in New York City, a total focus on movement and the space around me, combined with the constant puzzle solving of the directions and airport and train station signs.

On the other hand, I’ve also been home for two days in the past two weeks. It’s hard to believe it was only two weeks ago we left for Orlando, for our Disneyworld adventure. It’s only been five days since I flew up to Toronto. But it feels like I haven’t been home for longer. I miss my routines. I miss the gym. I miss my friends. And after five days in Toronto, I miss my men.

That last one is really why I don’t travel like I always wanted to, like I thought I would when I could afford to. It’s harder to travel as a family. There’s more stuff. There’s more people. It costs more. Yet I don’t want to go alone because I miss my husband and son too much. I don’t get the same sort of sense of travel flow with my family that I do when it’s just me.

So I love travel. But right now I’m over it. Staying put for a few weeks sounds like a welcome reprieve from being on the road, even when it’s on the road to visit the people I love most. It’s wonderful being part if my family’s life in Toronto, with my mother and my sister and my nieces but it’s not my life. And I’d stay a month if they needed me to, without complaint, just to be sure everything was OK. But just because I’d willingly stay longer doesn’t mean I’m not grateful to be heading home, for some quiet time, in my own home

, with my men, and the ability to again plan my life in Brooklyn.

And I expect to get that quiet time today…just as soon as I finish running through Penn Station from NJT to the Q train, blasting EDM in my Bluetooth headphones, and pretending, just a bit, that I’m a backpacker transferring from the Eurostar to the London Underground.