I felt a little nervous about signing up for the Bronx 10. I hadn't raced at all since 2018 and I barely ran in 2021 due to a series of injuries culminating in a torn meniscus. But after some physical therapy this spring, I put together some good weeks of training over the summer and decided that ten miles was feasible. I was still nervous about it, thought.
In a way, it was nice to be nervous about something trivial, like a race, instead of fixating on death and the collapse of society. The worst thing that could happen in the Bronx 10 was that I would drop out and walk home. The start and finish line were at Yankee Stadium, which is only about a mile from my house. I told myself that I was nervous 'in a good way.'
In addition to feeling nervous in a good way, I spent time in the garden, which has been unusually lush and colorful this year, thanks to our decision to mix in some calladium with the hellebores. Calladium isn't hardy, which is unfortunate, but it performs well in extreme shade and adds some relatively (by annual standards) un-garish highlights of pale green and pink at a time of year when we are thirsty for color.
Here's another angle.
We also have more hardy begonias in the garden this year, which flower in late August in white and pink.
The flowers last a long time and the seed pods look very futuristic. Sometimes it's hard to believe that humans evolved from hardy begonias.
Anyway, time passed in the garden and the day of the Bronx 10 approached.
I talked over racing strategy with my coaches.
'Go out fast and hang on' has always been my racing style, for better or -- often -- for worse.
On Sunday morning, I jogged over to Yankee Stadium (not pictured, because I didn't bring my phone) and joined the throngs at the starting line. There were almost 12,000 runners, but the event was very well organized, and runners tend to be very polite. We started a little after eight, and I found myself in the middle of huge pack, everyone going about as fast as I was, which felt fairly but not excruciatingly fast. I remembered to pace myself. It felt good to be in the middle of a horde of runners. I imagined that we were being chased by zombies.
A man on my right said to me: 'Isn't it strange how everyone's footsteps seem to sync up?' And I said, 'Yes, I was just thinking the same thing,' which was true, although it was also true that I wasn't in the mood to be having a conversation. Sometimes in races you end up feeling trapped running next to or behind someone who either talks too much or breathes very heavily or whose form is very distracting on account of heavily stomping feet or their wide, unmoving shoulders and huge head of curly hair compressed under a hat. 'Is that person running as fast as I am?' is a question you might ask yourself despite knowing that the answer is yes. I'll never forget running a marathon a few years ago when I was passed -- late in the race! -- by someone in a Gumby suit, and then by someone else dressed like a waiter carrying a tray and wine glasses, and of course by someone juggling :(
Approaching the second mile, while cresting a hill, I passed a huge set of speakers that in the tradition of all races was pumping out 'Welcome to the Jungle' and the loud music reverberating through my body as I raced north on the Grand Concourse in a pack of runners on a mostly cloudless (but humid) morning in the Bronx made me feel more attuned to the stresses of my life. But I also felt oddly calm, like I was in the eye of a hurricane.
I thought about my recent trip to Pittsburgh, where we had moved my father into the dementia unit of the facility where he and my mother live.
Before and after moving my father, I had taken approximately ten thousand photographs of a patch of brown-eyed Susans in the garden outside of my parents' apartment.
The flowers seemed to come alive at sunset.
I remembered how I had also distracted myself with early-morning runs to prepare for the race I was now running.
The forest had been an eerie but comforting place at this hour.
There were landmarks, but I had still found myself getting lost and confused.
But running through the Bronx, I was not confused or distracted. I felt immersed in the good and bad of life. I was running as fast as I could and getting passed by an enormous man with terrible form and frizzy hair. There was also sadness, almost as palpable as the music, but it was intensely peaceful to know that I was in the world even or despite all my problems with it. For now, my anxiety was gone, and I was still alive, which was already a kind of small miracle. This feeling didn't last for more than a few hundred yards before I remembered that I was running uncomfortably fast and I still had seven miles to go, which didn't seem like too much, but on this morning, in my condition, was more than enough.
When I finished, I was relieved not to be running a marathon, although a few days later I thought, 'hmmm, maybe I should run another marathon.'
Stephen, who was at the finish, managed to catch me right as I crossed the line.
