35 at 35

(picture of a t-shirt signed by Ryan Hall, which a friend from work picked up for me in Boulder, Co)

Around the same time that I was turning 35 I found a marathon in Cape Town, SA called Two Oceans, which also happens to be 35 miles long (56 km by their measurement). Perfect! The only trouble is that I haven't been running nearly as much as I should. Yes, I did the NYC marathon (for the second time) back in early November 2011, but it wasn't one of my finest races. The race-organizing folks are calling Two Oceans an ultramarathon, but I kind of think that should be reserved for 50 miles or longer. Instead, I'll just call it "a long f@$%*ing race."

I've completed seven marathons. Back in 2008 I had been living in Brooklyn for a year and I decided that I wanted to train for my first marathon, the NYC...because I'm crazy. It is difficult to get in this race through the lottery alone, so I raised money for a charity that primarily helped people in poverty living in NYC. It was my way of giving back to this city. Not that things had necessarily been easy living here. I was in a relationship with someone who was neglectful and dishonest, I'd gone through many temp jobs and craigslist gigs (no, not *that* kind of gig) before finally getting a job I liked and I'd had a series of unfortunate roommate situation after my first roommate (who was awesome!) had to leave town for a medical emergency. In the words of my girl Dolly Parton, "The Big Apple took a bite out of me." Training for the NYC marathon took my mind off of my troubles and gave me something positive to focus on. But I still had no idea the extent to which actually running the race would change my life forever. It was, in fact, the best day of my life. I'll never forget crossing the start line, running through Brooklyn and right past my then-apartment in Bed-Stuy with my neighbors sitting out on their stoops, hitting Williamsburg and seeing friends everywhere, running into Queens and getting a big bear hug from my cousin who was yelling his head off for me, and then crying the last couple of miles in Central Park because it hit me that I was actually going to finish. For someone who is plagued with constant self doubt, this was undeniably a great accomplishment. Once that medal was mine nobody could ever take it away from me.

Here's where I should post a picture of me running the NYC marathon, but eff-you Brightroom photography and your terrible race photos! All their photos of me make me look bloated and sluggish. But maybe that's just how I look when I run. Instead, here is the photo with my four-legged training partner that I used for my fundraising page:

Since November 2008 I have fought occasional depression and bad decisions to successfully complete six other 26.2s: Chicago (2009); Silver Spring, MD (2010); Paris (2010); Harrisburg, Pa (2010); Napa Valley (2011); and NYC (2011, again).

This being the first blog post I guess I should say that my goal right now is to write about what inspires me in order to get inspired. I also want to sell tons of adspace and become rich!! JK.

I have three months to train for the Two Oceans Marathon, "the most beautiful marathon in the world." Geeez. This morning, on this beautiful holiday day, I ran for 2 hours around Prospect Park, listening to my standard Wolf Parade pandora radio station. It felt like a decent start. I only need to be able to do that times three...and I'll be good to go April 7th.