2012 so far, a list

1. Cabernet

2. CT scan

3. Endoscopy

4. Stent

5. Cabernet

6. CT scan

7. Cabernet

8. PET scan

9. Cabernet

10. Endoscopy

11. Stent

12. Radiation

13. Cabernet

14. Gemcitabine

15. Fatigue

16. Swelling

17. Nadir

18. Nadir

19. Nadir

20. Nadir

21. Cabernet

22. CT scan

My New York City Marathon, Part Two

Part one:  http://alwaysatthestartingline.blogspot.com/2012/11/my-new-york-city-marathon-part-one.html

The first weekend in November came. The day before the marathon, I drove down to Manhattan with my friend Cindy. I don’t remember much about the two nights we were in Manhattan. I remember waiting in line a lot. We took a cab to the marathon expo and had to wait in line to get my race number and t-shirt. That night we went to the runners’ pasta dinner near Tavern on the Green in Central Park, and we waited in line close to two hours to get in. I remember thinking at one point, “This is ridiculous. Maybe we should leave.” But by then we were near the front of the line. 

We sat at a round table with a white table cloth. We sat with lots of other runners from many different countries. I remember being really tired and being worried that I’d done too much standing. You’re not supposed do much of anything but rest the day before you run a marathon.  

I remember meeting Wendy and Pam the next morning in the lobby of the hotel, then going to the New York Public Library.  I don’t know how we got there. I don’t remember walking, but I don’t remember taking a taxi either. We stood in line forever there, waiting for the marathon buses to take us to the start of the race at Staten Island. 

I remember sitting around for hours in the cold along with thousands of other runners. I remember Linda walking by, and calling out to her. We were giddy and laughed about meeting up. The fact that we actually ran into one another there still astounds me to this day. There were 25,000 people there. The chances of meeting up on purpose were slim. Meeting up by accident was just ridiculous and random. It was wonderful. I haven’t seen her since.  

I remember walking to the starting line, which was not as organized as Boston’s. We had no idea where to stand. Those of us with one bib color were directed to one level of the bridge. Those with the other color went to a different bridge level.  There was a lot of shoving. 

Then we began. I remember feeling panicked and claustrophobic. There were tall men all around me and I remember worrying about getting an elbow in my eye. I remember getting kicked in the knees. I remember running across the bridge and feeling like I wanted to throw up when I saw the gap in the skyline where the World Trade Center towers once stood. I remember entering Brooklyn and seeing the crowds of people and thinking, “These crowds are good, but Boston is better.” 

I remember running on the “feeling groovy” Queensboro Bridge back into Manhattan and it being deathly quiet; the only sounds the slapping of sneakers on cement and Springsteen singing “Born to Run.” Someone had left a boom box off to one side, at the center of the bridge. 

I remember nearing the end of the bridge and hearing grinding like bulldozers, and thinking. “What on earth are road crews doing out here on a marathon course on a Sunday?”

I remember plodding down the curving exit ramp onto First Avenue to discover that the noise wasn’t coming from machinery. It was coming from the screaming hordes lining both sides of the road. I remember the rush of adrenaline and joy and a feeling of immense power as I ran down this wide open stage with so many other runners. I remember thinking, “You still have ten miles to go, you better slow down.” I didn’t slow down.

I remember my quadriceps turning to wood and spears jabbing my knee caps as I crossed a small bridge into the Bronx. I remember the sudden quiet of the Bronx and remember hating that part of the route. I remember the ridges of the road biting into the soles of my feet.

I remember crossing back into Manhattan and the explosion of screams and music that greeted me. There were gospel choirs everywhere. Spectators lined two and three deep.  I remember running toward Central Park and hitting hills and stopping to walk for the first time and thinking, “This isn’t done yet?”  

I remember waving to my friend Cindy, then turning into Central Park and narrower pathways and running past a well-off couple, a stocky man in a fedora and tailored wool coat. The woman wore make up and high heels and a long fur coat. They were holding a sign and looking into every runner’s face. The sign said “Linda we’re proud of you” or something like that, and had my Linda’s race number.  Crazy. What are the odds? 

I remember lots of leaves on the trees and finishing the race and seeing no one I knew and having to ask someone where I could find a space blanket and get my finisher’s medal. I remember having to ask where to go to return my timing chip, and taking it off myself and being told to dump it in a bucket at a street corner. I remember hoping the chip wouldn’t get lost or stolen and hoping I wouldn’t get charged for it.

I remember being cold and looking for my friend Cindy in the family meeting area. I waited a long time. I remember asking many bystanders if I could use their cell phones, and having just one person let me. I tried calling Cindy, but the reception was bad and we couldn’t hear each other. 

I remember starting to walk back to the hotel, which was miles away, past the Empire State Building. I remember stopping in restaurants along the way and asking if I could use the phone and getting refused. I remember feeling cold and alone and resigned.  

I remember meeting up with two soldiers. They wore fatigues and heavy backpacks. They wore bunny ears made of tinfoil and pink paper. Their army boots were covered in salty lacework. I walked back all the way past Times Square with them. They were from England and had run the marathon for a charity. They had run in honor of a little girl who was fighting cancer. They’d arrived from England that morning. They’d done a marathon in England the day before. 

I remember asking them how they were able to do that. “What got you through the race?” I remember one said he’d taken 2,400 mg of Advil. 

I remember laughing with them and feeling not so alone.

I made it back to the hotel, where my friend was freaking out because she had no idea what had happened to me. She said she’d waited for me for hours at the family gathering spot. I didn’t know what to say. Maybe I’d gone to the wrong place? My head was spinning.

We ate out that night with a friend from Jersey City. The next morning, before we left, we stopped to pray at the World Trade Center site. There were still all kinds of photos and letters taped to the fences and buildings around the area. There were notes from people still searching for their loved ones. There were prayers and homemade cards too, from all over the world. 

The next day I showed up at work, limping and stiff, holding a copy of the New York Times. I waved it in the air as I approached a colleague. “Hey, I made the front page of the Times,” I called.

“No kidding?” he said. “Cool. Let’s see.”

I handed him the paper and laughed. He did too. On the front was an aerial view of all 25,000 of us, a long line of colored blobs, as we crossed the bridge from Staten Island into Brooklyn. 

I stayed away from the gym for a week and a half. The first night back, I parked the car next to the entrance, under a bright light. I shoved my pocketbook under my seat, just to be safe.  I spent most of the next two hours talking with my gym friends about my time in New York.  

It was 9 p.m. when I got out to the car. Even though the heat was on, it was cold and breezy inside the car. Something wasn’t right. I turned my head to find the back passenger seat window smashed in. I reached under my seat. My pocketbook was gone. 

I remember going back into the gym and calling the police. I stayed up most of the night canceling credit cards and worrying. The next day I got the window repaired, and visited banks to close my accounts, then opened new ones. I went to the registry for a new driver’s license. 

I wore my marathon shirt from Boston 2002, the one I’d run just seven months before. It’s the gold cotton shirt with the blue BAA insignia over the left breast.  I wore it on purpose. I was worn out and feeling vulnerable. Even though I’d just run my third marathon, I needed a reminder that I was strong. I chose to keep that picture when I renewed my license five years ago.

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks walking around in a daze. I haven’t been sleeping well. I’m writing bad poetry again. I have an ill family member and I am sad. Luckily, I know about being resilient. I know about hard roads. I know about taking things one step at a time. I know about loss. I know about taking the long view. 

I’ve been hitting the gym a lot. I’ve been spending a lot of time with my family. I’ve been spending a lot of time remembering too.  Today I wore my old NYC Marathon shirt all day. On the front is a female runner, holding her arms high and triumphantly. Above that graphic is this: Love it. New York City Marathon. November 3, 2002. I’m glad I ran it. I’m glad I got to write today about running it. I hope I get to run New York again some day.

Winter is coming and chances are good that it’s going to be rough. In a few weeks I have to go for a new license. I’m wondering what I’ll need to wear this time. At least I have this: many many choices.

My New York City Marathon, Part One

Part two:http://alwaysatthestartingline.blogspot.com/2012/11/my-new-york-city-marathon-part-two.html

Ten years ago today, I ran the New York City Marathon. I’d almost forgotten I’d run it, even though I have a poster from the marathon hanging in my study. Then I started reading about Hurricane Sandy and how it devastated New York. I read about plans to hold the marathon, then read about plans to cancel it and then realized I was having trouble remembering about my own NYC race.  

So I started going through drawers and closets and plastic bags full of running gear. I found the short sleeved t-shirt that all runners received as part of our entry fee. It was rolled up in a ball at the bottom of a drawer full of old race shirts. I found my finisher ribbon in a box in the spare room closet. I found a photo taken near the start on Staten Island. 

In the background is the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. To the right is a long line of portable toilets. In the foreground are four of us: Me, Wendy, Pam, and another runner, a young woman with dark eyes and straight caramel hair. Linda? Tammy? Her name escapes me now but it was when I saw her face that I began to remember.   

I ran my first marathon, the Boston Marathon, in 2001. My second was Boston 2002. Both times, I ran with the American Liver Foundation’s Run for Research charity team. The RFR is the second largest Boston Athletic Association charity running team, and it was through that great organization that I met Wendy, Pam and many other kind marathoners. 

That second Boston was a pretty tough one. Time-wise, it was one of my best runs. But there was a lot going on at home. For most of my training, my grandmother was dying. She and I were very close. 

“You are like my daughter,” she would say.

“You could be my mother,” I would say. 

I became my daughters’ one and only parent when the girls were quite young. My grandmother would babysit two or three nights a week while I worked. I would take her grocery shopping once a week and bring her to her doctor’s appointments. The three of us ate dinner at her house every Sunday. 

She was seventy-five when my first child was born. She was ninety-one when she died. One Saturday in January 2002, after a long run in Boston, I went to her apartment and found she had collapsed. I called 911. She went into the hospital that night, then to a rehab facility and then to a nursing home. She never went back to her apartment. 

During the next four months, I trained for the Boston Marathon. I tried to be a good mom to my kids, who were then in high school and middle school. I visited my grandmother as often as I could. 

During those months, I could not sit still. I could not focus. I could not sleep. I slept with a notebook and a pen. I would wake up at three in the morning and would write memories. I wrote poetry too. I am not a poet. Among other things I found today, I found that notebook. It has a red cover and a CVS logo. I’m glad I kept it and glad I wrote in it. The memories make me smile. The poems make me cringe, then smile. 

I ran Boston that April with “Nana” written in black magic marker on the front of my orange RFR singlet. One guy on the running team read it and said, “You’re supposed to put your name on the front and the name of the person you’re running for on the back. “ I ignored him. I knew what I was doing.  I wanted to hear people call her name while I ran. 

They did. For 26.2 miles thousands of spectators screamed “Go Nana!” It made me smile.  

My grandmother kept getting worse. She didn’t know us anymore. She stopped eating. Right after Boston, I started training for my first triathlon. I was bouncy and fuzzy. I needed to be busy. My grandmother died five weeks after the marathon, on May 22. It was less sad than you’d think. She’d been leaving us for months.  I was glad she wasn’t suffering any more. I was able to sleep at night again. 

In the weeks after my grandmother’s death, I signed up with Wendy and Pam for the NYC marathon lottery and continued training for the triathlon, which took place at the end of June. I found out I don’t care much for triathlons. I like the running and the biking, but the open water swimming stressed me out. Still, I got through my first one and signed up for a second one in July. I thought maybe the second would be more fun. Plus, all three of us had gotten accepted into the marathon. I needed to stay fit. Triathlon training was a good way to establish a solid cardio base. 

My second triathlon was on a Sunday in July. I did not love that one either. The Wednesday after that, I was out on a brisk ten-mile run, my head full of hopes of setting a new personal record at the NYC Marathon. Seven miles into the run, pounding down a steep hill, I hurt my hamstring. I had to cancel plans to run in the Falmouth Road Race that weekend. I rested a bit and the weekend after that attempted to run the Beach to Beacon race in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. I started limping three miles into that race, then jogged and walked until I finished. 

Many old ladies along the course urged me on: “Don’t give up. You can do it!”

The first time I heard this, I stopped and tried to explain to the woman that I knew I could do it, but I was taking it easy because I was injured. But she wasn’t listening. She was already turned away from me, cheering on someone else.  

I met the caramel-haired young woman from the NYC start --  Linda maybe? -- a few days later, at the physical therapist’s office in Boston. The physical therapist was this great guy I’d met the previous year, when I got injured while training for Boston. He worked with all the injured RFR runners and helped out many other charity runners too.  

I learned that Linda was also running New York and was also injured. I think she had a problem with her iliotibial band. For the next twelve weeks, from August to the end of October, Linda and I would spend hours talking while we subjected our injured bodies to e-stim, deep tissue massages, and other physical therapy tortures. 

The therapist told me that my chances of running New York were iffy. Turns out I had a tear in my hamstring. On his advice, I did most of my training on an elliptical and ran just once a week, indoors on a treadmill. Linda and I would compare training notes every Friday night. We’d get to the therapist’s office around seven or so, and leave around 10. I learned no one in her family was athletic. Neither was she, she said. I learned they all thought she was nuts. I learned she was Portuguese and that she grew up near Central Park and her family still lived near there.  

I haven’t thought about this stuff in years. I’m pretty shocked I remember it all so well.