Happy St. Patrick's Day, and a Happy Marathon Eve to one and all. This morning was race simulation day. Woke up at 7 in the morning, put on clothes that are way too tight, covered those up with running pants and a long-sleeve shirt and zipped off to the Silver Lake Reservoir.
It was a wet, dark morning, and the loop around was silent and empty except for my feet shuffling along. It was a bit sad, saying "goodbye" to my training grounds one last time before I hit the Marathon tomorrow. I had my guilty pleasures iPhone music shuffle on. Guns N' Roses "Yesterdays" popped on, sensing my goodbye/up-cry moment with the Reservoir. Thanks, Axl. I made it home.
Tomorrow is my first marathon. I have a running background but not in long distance. I was one of those weird fast kids that started running on the high school track team at the end of seventh grade. I ran mostly 800 meters and switched to the 400-meter hurdles in eleventh grade.
Find out what's happening in Echo Park-Silver Lakefor free with the latest updates from Patch.
I ran the 400-meter hurdles at SUNY-Albany for my freshman year. At the beginning of my sophmore more year, I was running down to track practice and had this realization--brace yourself--that I was not going to the Olympics.
So it was time to do something else. I quit the team and went to the Overseas Studies Office and enrolled at a school in London. And so began my eleven-year siesta from any running at all.
Find out what's happening in Echo Park-Silver Lakefor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Time rolled on and things stacked up: the wife (amazing), the salon (awesome), the dog (best ever), the second salon (whoa, awesome), 20-plus employees, the screenwriting, the constant noise of the world we're in-- iPhones, online everything, texting, hustling, bounding on and on and on.
And I loved it all: the people I'd met and was lucky enough to share my life with, the entrepreneurial chase, the up-close interaction day to day. When I think back to the things that give me inspiration and the stamina to make things go go go, to my surprise, my former life as a runner and the simple lesson of "get out in front and finish strong" was there, like it always had but I never stopped to realize.
But life was getting too noisy and too busy. I decided that taking up running again was a great way to reconnect with that old determination and drive. It was also a way to find time to be quiet and collect my thoughts--at about nine-minutes per mile, zipping all over this great city.
The best part of the marathon is the simplicity of it. Twenty-six-point-two miles is the same racing distance every runner, from the Greeks to Olympians to all generations of runners worldwide, have stared down, endured, survived and finished. That makes the mindset, pain and pride the same throughout time. I find that comforting.
And with that, I'll get my pasta on tonight and my first ever Marathon on tomorrow.
Good luck and safe run to all participants.
If you want to Tweet, text or Facebook some high fives to me or any other runner out there, check out these links. My bib number is 5658. And if you need your hair did, check us out at The Establishment.