Thinning the Field

This morning I ran 18 miles and I'm not gonna lie, it wasn't exactly the easiest thing I've ever done but thankfully I never reached a point where I didn't think I would finish. I felt confident and strong and this race helped to erase the negative energy still lurking from my horrible 16 mile run two weekends ago. Above all, this morning helped psych me up for the full marathon that is precisely one month from today. In fact, by this time next month, I will have hopefully crossed the finish line and put this whole thing behind me. But I digress...

This morning at 6:20 while I was walking the 15+ blocks to the starting line I casually said good morning to another runner (the only other person out at this ungodly hour) He commented on my all my gear (all being an iPod and a fuel belt) and asked why I look so worried for "it's only 18 miles." He then proceeded to announce that this year alone he had run 5 marathons on 5 continents; this man was the inspiration for this list for it's you oh bragging man, it's you who I could so do without:

• Bragging Man/Woman
  The man that, no matter how far the race is, uses the word "only" to describe it. This is the same man that likes to spill his race results for every race he has finished in the last calendar year, the races he still has to attend (I'm running this as a warm-up for the Ironman, a half in Hawaii next weekend etc) The man who literally says "I don't bother with marathons anymore, I only compete in races that are 50 miles are more." The man who says, well last weekend during the Erie marathon, it rained. At least today it's sunny. (See here he thinks he's being tricky and throwing a positive spin on the weather my way, but really what he's doing is saying Hey, by the by, I ran a marathon last weekend and today I'm running 18 miles. That's right, no week of rest of me) Right, because last time I checked running a marathon is like so much easier than walking to Lex to catch the subway. Bragging man, I hate you. You make me feel like a failure, you make me feel weak, you make me question why I think 18 miles is hella far, but above all, you make me feel as if I'm competing against you when really, I'm competing against myself and the clock.
  

• The early finisher who//Refuses to cheer//Stop running
  This person is almost always a man. He laps you on his way to the finish line. You seem him at mile 8 and you still have ten more. Everyone hates this man, it's not just me. However, what I hate about this man, besides his perfectly muscular legs and long, gliding stride is his inability to cheer for the rest of the field as he watches us struggle by him with two more entire laps of the course to complete. He stands without a bead of sweat on his body chewing his apple or banana, casually sipping water like it's a martini. Hey you! We all hate you! If you can't cheer, you could at least clap. Whistle. Something, anything will do here. Your standing there is not helping. If you're just going to stand there silently [gloating,] go home and take your ice bath!
  
  This same man sometimes decides that finishing a half marathon in the time it took me to run six miles is not enough, oh no, he needs to add on to his mileage for the day. But instead of continuing to run with the rest of the field, he runs towards the field as if to say, hey look at me as I pass you, yet again, this time going the opposite way. Look at me, I'm so great at this running stuff that 13.1 miles, yeah, not far enough...I'm tagging 10 miles on to the end of this race and will still! Be. Done! Before. You! Man who refuses to stop running, I hate you.
  

• Coughing man
  I have never ran with/next to/near a woman who does this. This man coughs every three seconds for the entire race. Not like oh I have a cold cough, oh no, this is just a hacking cough that refuses to stop. Coughing man, I cannot drown you out even with my iPod turned up to the loudest possible setting and humming along to myself. You make me wish I had wings so I could fly fifty feet ahead just so I wouldn't have to run next to you and your ill-productive cough that's more like clearing your throat. Look, I see you next to me. I hear you. I get it, we're running and you're coughing. You have my full attention.
  

• Sadly, this last and final person I honestly could do without, is usually a woman, in fact, I've never seen a man do it in all my races. This woman lines up at the front of the pack, with the said runners who will later be lapping us on their way to victory. She lines up with the 7 minute mile men and wonders why they are wearing shoes by Brooks or Saucony and hers are made by Keds or worse, Nike. The gun goes off and this woman starts walking. She doesn't realize that the thousands of runners behind her are going to have to weave around her, and so, instead of walking to one far side, she walks right down the center of the road as if to say, oh I'm sorry, is my walking getting the way of your running this race. Hey walking woman, they have a section for people walking, right under the sign labeled "12 Minute+ Walkers." It's a crazy esoteric idea, I admit. But, your lining up with the wrong mile grouping really annoys the rest of the field and if I see you on marathon day, I might have to get you with my taser gun that I'm investing in just for you, oh walking woman at the head of the pack, I loathe you.
  

It's the Final Countdown

Shopping with my soon-to-be "ex-boss" at the brand new H&M on 42nd Street for a new, first day at my new job outfit, drinking cosmos together after work, texting her later that night (while drunk) that boy do I have a story for her then spending the first twenty or so minutes of today spilling it like we're a pair of high school drama queens.

Taking a jell-o shot like I'm on Spring Break in Key West except this one was not off my best friend's chest.

Eating a cupcake out of a paper cup while dodging busses in the center of the streets in mid-town while trying to hail a cab uptown to continue the celebration at a bar where we sort of drink for free, talking to the cabbie who had no interest in us and was confused about Queens actually being a "part" of this great city, getting the inside scoop on the way uptown, remembering why I'm friends with these girls in the first place.

Being hungover at work and having nothing to do besides watch time tick by.

Will/Not Miss

The morning fashionista showdown at the elevators between the Martha, MK and Valentino employees.

Sample sales where and when no matter what you are doing, you quite literally drop everything and run for the 20th floor perhaps faster and with more urgency than if the fire alarms were going off

Eddie, the elevator security guard who, when told I was leaving was visibly saddened and demanded that I stop by to visit at least once a week

My 30 inch cinema screen and Mac Pro that is faster than any computer ever needs to be unless, of course, you're planning world domination

The outsourcing to an agency of almost, no wait, every single good project that comes down the pipe, never having a budget to do anything but house stock, house this, cheapest this, smallest that, always having to use specific pre-chosen colors and the "corporate fonts" which thank god futura is one of them

The 4:52 "I need this right away" e-mails that come in at least once a month on a Friday afternoon, waiting a week for copy or a phone number or an image that's always a lower dpi than any print designer could ever be expected to use, being told repeatedly that the printer can't open the file I sent over because they're still in CS (not even 2, just CS) that's so 2001.

Not having an IT department that can troubleshoot a Mac and having to wait sometimes weeks for an outside help guy to look at something gone crazy on my computer, waiting a full year to upgrade from a G4 that had so many problems there is literally not space in this blog in which to expand upon, a screen saver that would turn on whenever it wanted even IF I was working and an external CD burner that would open and close everyday at 11:14 on the dot.

Calling my boss "Bossy-O" and being bribed to do crappy projects in MS Word or Excel with chocolate and other such sweets, singing out loud, being told to shut off groove salad because it's too loud (ambient music, really too loud?) having talk like a Brit day only to be denied an entire day and get 5 minutes, NPR, one sentence e-mails back and forth to bossy-O all day long about everyone in the office and her very own top-secret life

Crumbs cupcakes everytime someone in our department has a Birthday

Arriving anywhere from 5-40 minutes late, never being reprimanded and spending my morning coffee-time talking weddings with my newly engaged friends

Spending thirty-forty minutes following my lunch "hour" writing this blog

The Crazy Dream that Wasn't

The 6:35 a.m. outgoing text message to my better half reads: "I just woke up on a jungle gym in the middle of queens." But let me start at the beginning...

* Chocolate soy milk and a banana on the couch while heating my shins....this all after my 3:46 alarm went off
* A yellow school bus ride to "couldn't locate it on the map if I tried/middle of nowhere/even the driver got lost Queens, stuck in front of the only two people on the entire bus that decicded 4 a.m. is the perfect time to share life stories of growing up in the UK and not say, catch an hour nap or sit in silence so the rest of us can sleep like the rest of the damn world (except perhaps in the UK where it actually IS of a normal waking time for a weekend)
* Arriving at the park by 5:20 and having over an hour to kill before the gun goes off
* Deciding that a red and blue jungle gym equipped with several slides, a rope bridge and monkey bars is the perfect place to have a nap. At this point it's still totally dark and there are stars in the sky. I still have no idea where I am in Queens. I fall asleep, dead asleep even though the people around us are laughing at the hilarity of our shared situations, my feet are hanging over the edge of the slide and there's a breeze that keeps my half-exposed feet and legs at a temperature slightly above frozen.
* Failing to wake up when my running partner's cell phone alarm beeps at 6:30.
* Standing in what seemed like a never-ending line to use the Port-o-Potties, still having to check baggage and hearing the starting gun go off while in line (and surprisingly not being stressed or annoyed or even anxious to sprint to the start and catch pace group)
* Enjoying my newly crafted playlist complete with songs that are best sung aloud even if the poor souls around me have to also hear it (hey, whatever helps me get to that finish line)
* Catching up to the Thai man who listens to Asian mediation music on a portable radio sans headphones and carries jingle bells in his hands while running, the same man who last week almost made me lose my cool around mile three....of sixteen
* Crossing the finish line ten measly seconds short of my last half marathon time
* Slipping into yet another deep sleep right after finishing the race like a cat sprawled out in the sun on the pavement, waking up to an empty park and hoping to still make the bus
* Finding out the this said bus has no driver
* Arriving back in Manhattan (at the time I would normally be waking up on a Sunday but today already having been awake for a full 9 hours) wondering if all of this really happened or if it was another one of my pre-race anxiety dreams where I somehow miss the finish line and lose my chip all while being chased by a man with a rifle through the canals in Venice.

Not Unlike The Grinch

Every once in awhile a memory, like a flash comes into my brain without an invitation. I am thinking about how I have to buy apples or milk when bam! just like that, the thought is there and I have to first acknowledge it and then really let it slip away, like water over a mossy river rock.

I had one of these thoughts today, and it was so melancholy and nostalgic, that for a moment, I thought I might cry....I thought I might break the vow I made to myself sometime back in February or early March when someone slipped and said girlfriend instead of just friends, and I cried so hard I thought my lungs might collapse. It was that same day where I was so tired from crying for so many days and so many years before that point, that the only sensible thing to do was to just never do it again. And so I vowed, that day, and each day since that I wouldn't ever allow myself to cry over him ever again. And until today, when I had this thought, when I could feel the suffocation coming, the tickle in the back of my throat, the wetness near the bottom of my lids, until today I've hardly ever had a reason to shed a tear, to let one or two escape. Ultimately though, realizing how strong you're capable of being, how capable you are of controlling your own emotions is an amazing feeling; it's as if someone took your blindfold off and there you stand, in the middle of Oz in vivid Technicolor.

There is a single white nail stuck in the corner of my living room near the ceiling. I tried to hang a string of lights last Christmas, or was it the Christmas before...regardless, I never actually got around to it. The lights were too heavy for these tiny nails and I surrendered to the task. So the nail stands. And tonight when I saw that nail, which I don't think I've noticed since maybe last January, all the sudden I had a tiny flash.

It's December. It's freezing both outside and inside my tiny Avenue A apartment. The bed is bigger than its allotted space and subsequently, in order to get into the bathroom, you have to wheel away the Ikea bedside table, which blocks the door. I am lying in bed under the covers undoubtedly in socks, a hooded gray Outer Banks sweatshirt and red, flannel snowflake pajama pants. "He" is still in the "living room" at the opposite end of our 250 square foot apartment watching Seinfeld, and when I ask him to come to bed he says something unmemorable. That year he strung lights in our kitchen, which was also the "hallway" between the bedroom and the living room. He strung them in such a way that each string dangled over its neighbor causing a tangled web of brilliant lights aglow. But these weren't just any lights; these were $7.99 K-Mart lights that twinkled...and I don't mean chased or blinked or dimmed from bright to not-so-bright, I mean actually twinkled, the way real stars do. When all the lights were off in the apartment and it was totally dark, these lights would twinkle so softly that it was like a magical snowstorm in the middle of our tiny illegally sub-let apartment. I would often just lie in bed and relish in the beauty of these lights. It was a simple joy in those not-so simple times. When "he" finally came to bed that night, he said something unmemorable but only after he stood by the plug and said "Say goodnight to the lights, darlin."

This memory is a few and far between moment where I admit I miss him. When I remember something so charming and adorable as the effort it took to hang those lights in our miserable apartment, the effort it took to keep me happy in that apartment, in that period of our miserable just-starting out in the city lives. But above all, it makes me miss the way he would sometimes say something so sincerely loving that I could almost feel his heart growing three times its size.

The Autumn List

Apple picking, apple cider, tiny pumpkins too small to carve, Corduroy in colors such as mustard, caramel and plum or wine

That oh-so-impossible to find right light jacket for the cool morning commute

A cell phone that actually works, a blackberry that I don't pay for, more minutes than I could ever use, choosing my so-called "faves"

bean-card redemption at Hale & Hearty

the screaming tea kettle reminding me to relax

An office door that closes, an iPod dock, a desk with lots of drawers and cabinents, a project that is mine and mine alone

Freshly packaged sharpies in too many colors to choose from, a crisp yellow legal pad, an empty documents folder, the authorization code to new software

Halloween come and gone without one person belittling me for both hating the holiday and refusing to dress up and walk around the night thereof

Thanksgiving in Paris

Wool socks, a stripped scarf, a new winter thermo-jacket possibly in brown to replace the one I've had since I moved to the city

Tickets to Costa Rica, a surfing lesson, a villa right on the beach

Another attempt at the Brooklyn gardens in time for the foliage, my camera armed with a gigantic new memory card

A party to raise money for the marathon, happy hour, drinking one last time before I surrender to the "good training Gods," the first beer after the long month is over

Visitors from Princeton and Atlantic City with signs and banners and bananas

Cracking a new book and finishing it the same day, finally after all these years breaking down and reading the Harry Potter books, thirst, laughter, knowledge

An 18 mile run that doesn't kill me, a long-awaited tapering session, carbo loading for an entire week, real soda, chocolate and pizza

Finding a new spin instructor whom I adore as much as Sara

Signing up to teach the class, getting certified, passing the test

New hilarious seasons of my favorite shows, DVR, free cable & internet

Crossing the finish line

Taking the entire month of November off from running, watching movies, going to movies, going out to bars again, having fun, laughing, staying out past my bedtime, drinking, sleeping peacefully through the night, Advil-less days and nights again, slowly returning to normalcy...

How I'm Spending my Last 2 Weeks

Follow along closely, this might not make sense: your patience is appreciated.

I need a name for my NEW iMac, why because I name my computers. See #50.
I want it to be something clever, not like Jack or Sue. That's a dumb name for something as fucking awesome as a new iMac made by my hero, the Jobster not to be confused with my real hero, Eric Gill (for President.)
Hmm, the last two names of my computers were inspired by a place (Africa and my new (and by new I mean 100 year old apartment in Alphabet City) but I haven't been anywhere cool in awhile besides Chicago and Lake Erie and Central Park like 5 times a week and no no those just won't do.
Well, she is pretty. I assume she's a she I don't know why.
Well she is pretty bright. I want something bright and cheery since it's such a joy to have a new computer that actually works but something bright since her screen is like the sun, shining into my bedroom, except at night, when I want to sleep. Seriously it's so bright.
Quick! thesaurus.com words for bright, no wait, better: bright in a different language, Russian! Ah ha perfect, except I don't remember the word for "bright" in Russian. Fuck. But ah yes but my translator widget does. Seriously, I love this thing. How did I live without it?
Hmm turns out the word for "bright" in Russian is yarko. That's kind of a good name. I like it. Yes yes yarko. Yarko, sto toi delish! Perfect. Done & Done.
Yarko, hmm sounds like that name from the Animaniacs cartoon. Wait, that's Yakko (after a quick google search in which my boss was standing directly behind me wondering what I was doing and now thinks I have lost my mind but really I've totally just lost ALL my patience for being chained to this desk in total, complete and utter just plain full out-boredom)
One thing leads to another and suddenly I'm bouncing up-and-down in my Herman Miller office chair and the rest of the day err week minds as well not exist because this, this is why I LOVE the internet!

All the Small Things

The Australian guy, who, after my 16 mile run, congratulated me and told me how proud I should be, who talked to me despite my tears and acted like [this is normal for this strange girl to be crying while talking to me], who told me he was impressed by me, and who shook my hand like a true champion....of which, I am not.

The very last minute shopping spree, Mexican dinner AND coffee break in midtown on Sunday night, chocolate anything, Bryant Park on a fall-ish evening, midtown at night (so much more enjoyable than during the day) the adorable gray jumper dress that I just can't wait to debut on my first day of my new job, tights, leggings and the color mustard

Turkey bacon, a coffee headache, my first beer in what felt like forever, toasting to 16 miles and other such accomplishments, over-the-jeans calf massages, meeting the new boyfriends, seeing how the other half lives (and by half I mean "upper west side")

Putting in my two weeks notice, telling them they can't match it, walking away confidently knowing that I did the right thing......and being able to float for the next 2 weeks

After the Bombs

My closest and perhaps only true "friend" from grad school just told me she and her fiancé are moving to California. Yeah, that big state on the opposite side of the country, she's just picking up and moving there. Well, not really, the guy got a great job opportunity, but still. I've not yet had a good friend from the city move away...it seems so grown-up.

My running partner announced on our morning jog that he's signed himself up for yet another marathon, which means he'll be running TWO between now and the ONE that I am running in November.

2 people have just announced that they are pregnant and neither of them has told but three or four other people yet...I'm a ticking time bomb.

My parents are moving to a townhouse; they are putting our house, the one I grew up in, on the market in just a few months.

I finally got an offer! My new job starts in two weeks and I haven't told the guy in charge that I'm leaving yet...

Multi-Tasking

Running 4 miles to the 59th street apple store (and back) to purchase a new arm band for my Nano because the one I have smells so bad it would gag a homeless man drenched in his own urine and beer, asking the cashier to throw out my stinky arm-band and getting a look of sheer disdain (you want ME to touch that?), promptly putting on the new one (up-side-down) according to this said cashier, running home through central park at night, alone, without a light or any reflective material whatsoever, not even on my shoes, running on a trail that I've never even seen before and thinking the entire time my mother would kill me if she knew what I was doing.

Note to self: invest in a reflective vest. 51 days left to go and it's not getting any less dark.

On [Traveling to Run] in Chicago

finishing my third half-marathon with my second best time

thousands of fans. my bib (12337) had my name on it

50% off running gear, no will-power, mom's credit card

another shot in two weeks, not quite as sore as I was the first two times, a stellar full-body massage (which might just be my new favorite hobby, if only they were free)

QT with my #1 fan, a sign made just for me

shopping the mag mile

a run with a spectacular view, the lake by my side

a room with an equally awesome view

$7 chocolate-chip-cookie dough cheesecake, guilt-free deep dish pizza

the view from the top, the sunset

room service, cliff bars delivered to my room, the US Open women's final

getting up before the sun two days in a row (oh wait that's not fun)

Not Today Not Ever

I'm not gonna lie and say it doesn't bother me or that I don't sometimes wish it had happened another way

I'm not gonna sit here and say that from time-to-time I don't still wonder what you're doing, where you are or why you picked her instead of me

I'm not gonna pout or mope or even shed a single tear

I'm not gonna look back in anger or even with a little spite, and I'm not gonna relish, I'm not gonna savor

I'm not gonna wonder [anymore] about what could should or would have been; I'm not gonna worry and I'm not gonna fear, or hope or wish or even daydream...

I'm not. I'm really not. I'm moving forward and moving on and on and on and while it still hurts a tiny little bit in a very distant unfamiliar way, I'm not. I'm really really not.