As it turned out, this week -- the twenty-eighth of the pandemic and (some form of) lockdown -- I wasn't quite ready to return to life in daylight. The previous week, I had gone out at different points in the morning and afternoon and felt constrained by the need to constantly maneuver around people, cars, and construction sites. I couldn't find my 'space,' that mental state when you're running and the miles just kind of evaporate. The streets are so much more peaceful at five in the morning. I started getting up early again and found myself running longer distances for no reason except that it felt good to run through the sleeping city, to be aware of its massive scale and potential in a way far removed from the depressing news cycle.
The city at this hour also allows for a kind of spontaneity that can be lost in the routine of lockdown days. This morning, I was planning to run down the west side to Houston Street before returning north, which has become my 'long-run' route, but when I reached 72nd Street, I decided to head east to Broadway and then south to Central Park. There was no automobile traffic, so I ran on the streets, which are always better than the sidewalks, with their treacherous curbs and cracks.
I ran the loop in Central Park, where I passed no more than a handful of people. This part of the run wasn't easy: unlike the way it appears on two-dimensional maps, Central Park is secretly very hilly, and the road is always twisting, which makes it easy to lose track of exactly where you are, particularly when you're running in the dark. But the pavement is in perfect condition, which in combination with the trees and lamplights make it the most dreamlike landscape I've encountered in the city. (It's not nearly as dreamlike in the day, however, when the swarms of bikers and runners take you away from your thoughts.) A few times, while running along the edge of the forest -- and it seems like a forest at this hour -- I heard the trees: creaking branches, rustling leaves, possibly a falling acorn, and for a few seconds, I felt like everything was going to be okay.
By the time I made it around, I wouldn't have been surprised if the loop had been five miles long, but I also wouldn't have been surprised it it were ten miles long. In fact, it's slightly over six miles, which was a bit shorter than I was hoping, because when I left the park, I looked at my watch and realized that -- if I wanted to run twenty miles (my target) -- I still had eight to go.
I ran back back to the river, where I turned north just in time to see the first streaks of daylight. Some parts of this path are also magical, like when it takes you out over the water and the guardrails are lit by square yellow lights that remind me of the lumenaria that my family -- and many of our suburban neighbors -- used to put out on Christmas Eve when I was growing up, which as I think about it now was one of the best Christmas traditions.
And of course the George Washington Bridge sparkles beautifully over the mutating pastels of the dawn. It really *is* like a painting (except for the rats that constantly dart back and forth across the path at this hour).
In the end, I ran 19.76 miles, which was a bit short of twenty, but got me to my other target, which was 92.24 miles over the course of seven days, or an average of a half-marathon each day. Recently, I read about a woman who's run something like 150 consecutive half marathons, which -- along with the nice weather -- inspired me to make a similar (but much shorter) effort.
Having made it seven days, I realized that I had no desire to continue such a streak. Still, with the mornings getting darker and darker, it's impossible to predict where the streets may lead.