Creating Traditions
Every morning I wake up and I run almost an identical route here in Queens. I can’t lie, my view on these mornings is not beautiful, nothing that anyone would use for a postcard. I run next to the stacks of the Con-Ed facility and the power plant hidden behind a barbwire fence. On garbage pickup days, the streets have a residual smell in the summer time from the trash left out from the night before. I get down to the park, and on certain mornings there are homeless people still sleeping on the benches. Despite all of that, it has become my routine and I find something soothing about that route and the the things I see. It brings me sanity for the rest of the day. Like my morning routine, I also have some traditions have been born out of my running habit.
There is a big difference between routine and tradition. Running traditions are kind of like annual holidays that break up the monotony of the year versus the day-to-day therapy of my morning runs. Creating a tradition as an adult is different versus the ones you have from being a kid that are somewhat organic and without any premeditation. My running traditions are contrived and organized, events that I have willed into existence, like running in Cooperstown every June for the past three years.
In 2014 I ran my first marathon, and my post race lull had me desperately search for another marathon in the Spring. In 2015 I found a marathon in Cooperstown, New York. It was there I had my first run-travel experience. I arrived on my own on Friday night, ate a light meal and woke up the next morning to run a grueling marathon in what I considered the mountains of upstate New York. After I had finished, I peeled off my shoes to reveal some painful blisters and lay down in a cold patch of grass. I lingered a little longer with the 50 or so participants and then I headed back to my hotel room, where I proceeded to take a long hot shower. At certain points, I sat down in the bathtub and extended out my sore legs and just let the water trickle over me. The feeling was entirely different from what I had experienced running the New York City Marathon.
Eventually, I got dressed and met up with my cousins who had driven up that morning to join me for hanging out at the Baseball Hall of Fame. We spent the rest of the day walking around this small town, and they both agreed we would do this every year. Last year we made that same trip and once again we ended the weekend with a pledge that we would come back again the following year. I’d like to think that the third year in a row made it a confirmed tradition. Cooperstown is now my annual escape for running, baseball and hanging out with my family/friends.
This year I elected to do the half marathon instead of the full marathon because my IT band hasn’t fully healed. Giving up the full marathon was a difficult concession, and it still bothers me. Running a full marathon is epic shit, especially in a place where you don’t have the comfort of cheers or familiar places. But running the half was the right decision. Sometimes as a runner I have to live the inverse of R.Kelly’s infamous lyrics —
“My mind is telling me, yes but my body is telling me no.”
Cooperstown is a reminder of how incredibly beautiful the untouched the world can be. “Race the Lake” takes me around a series of country roads that wrap around the Otsego Lake. The lake is also referred to as the glimmer glass lake because it seems to sparkle at all times, even when it’s still. There are large green pastures, covered in wildflowers that surround parts of the lake. And of course, I have to deal with a substantially different elevation when running around Lake Otsego versus the East River. I run hills in New York, but the phrase should not be used for what I experienced in Cooperstown. I have become convinced that the definition of hills is subjective for a runner based on where they live. The hills in Cooperstown humble me and yet I go back every time because the closest I can come here in New York is crossing over a bridge.
The half marathon started next to one of those big green pastures. About 200 people lined up for the race. They had someone from the local opera house sing the Star Spangled Banner. And without much ceremony, the race director shouted over a megaphone for us to start. I started towards the middle but quickly realized that I should move up. So I pushed along at around a 7:30 pace on the right side of the road. The race is an open road race, so after the start, all of us are instructed to move to the right side of the road where there are caution signs for the cars that pass. The first 8 miles are familiar from the years before. Rolling hills that are tolerable and actually fun. The green pastures seem to shrink, and we get closer and closer to the lake. This year the water was higher because it had rained the night before so the lake was still and the glimmer was even more noticeable.
Right after mile 8, I turned onto what seemed like a completely abandoned country road that was nothing but an incline. With each step, my breathing became more strained until I started feeling the weakness in my legs. The few people who had been around seemed to evaporate, whether because they passed me or they fell behind. One of them, an older guy, smiled at me as he strode by and said the view from the top is pretty amazing. I grinned and grimaced at the same time, recognizing how the muscles in his legs were accustomed to these hills and the thinner air.
By the time I came into the last turn, the finish line was right in front of a human-made beachfront. I could feel the dried salt on my face. I crossed the finish line with my slowest half marathon time since 2013. My cousin was waiting for me at the finish line. He laughed at me when I complained about my time and said: “I think you were sixth, isn’t that good?” I paused and looked around and saw the shore of Lake Otsego and the couple of runners who had finished ahead of me. I sometimes have to remind myself and that works both ways. Whether it is good or bad, I can never make this about a number because I would give up so much. And so after I shook off that silly disappointment, I watched as others crossed the finish line. We spent the rest of the weekend at a distillery, a brewery and a small town with baseball embedded into the fabric of it. By the time Sunday came around, we were both ready to head back after our annual trip through the Hall of Fame and a stop at Mickey Mantle’s where we always buy at least one new Yankee shirt.
The escape from New York brings some things into perspective. Like those morning runs, when I see those same dull gray streets, there are subtle differences that mean more than my pace on that given day. It is like waking up with that pretty girl I have been with for a long time and noticing something different in her face when she sleeps and as she wakes up. It is also where I realize that Cooperstown is objectively pretty and maybe New York isn’t. All of that scenery I have tried to accurately describe are the kinds of things I can snap pictures of and share on social media. But there are those moments on those empty country roads when I think back to the crowds in November on Fifth Avenue in New York City that drive me to a finish line. Those people and those crowds are not just props like the trees and flowers in Cooperstown.
And that is the other reason that Cooperstown has become a tradition. It brings into focus the challenge of the summer and fall months. Eighteen weeks is a long time. Next week I’ll start training for my fourth New York City Marathon. And if I needed any motivation to start my training, it is the reminder that no other race can replicate those faces, those cheers and the life that explodes out of New York City.
