The Equal Run
A couple of Tuesdays ago I woke up to the sound of my alarm clock and unlike the past couple of mornings, I reached over, tapped it gently to stop the noise, I wouldn’t be snoozing this morning. I pulled my comforter off of me, lowered my feet to the ground and rose from my bed. I had left the window closest to the bed slightly open, so I could hear the rain steadily hitting the green awning that sits a couple feet below my window. It was 4:45 in the morning, so there weren’t that many cars passing by but the ones that did pass confirmed the sounds of the tires were moving over the wet roads.
I paused as I was getting out of bed when I heard those sounds and remembered that my buddy Chris had mentioned the next two days would be filled with rain when we had texted about our running schedules. I grinned thinking that my day off on Monday was now being penalized. I walked into my kitchen and went through my normal routine. I emptied the coffee grinds into the garbage and refilled the tank to four cups. I opened the top and scooped the beans into the small round compartment that sits inside the coffee machine. It is always seven scoops, and I can do this even half asleep. I closed everything up, shut the lid, slide the machine back against the wall and then I hit the button that says “Grind.” The blade purred for about fifteen seconds, and then there was a hum of the water heating.
While that was happening, I pulled the container of Recoverite powder from the cabinet, and I put two scoops into the mixing cup. I walked over to the fridge filled it to the brim with water, shook it and placed it on the top shelf of the fridge. I pulled out my water bottle from inside the door, unscrewed the top and took three or four gulps, put the bottle back inside the door and then went back to the coffee pot. For breakfast, I would have a rice cake smeared with peanut butter. Once I had finished preparing the rice cake, the coffee pot blurted out a couple of beeps telling me it was okay to pour my first cup of coffee.
I was eager that morning because my legs felt fresh. I gulped down the coffee, ate my peanut butter rice cake and scrolled through NY Times on my iPad. Some mornings I can focus more on what I am reading, but today I wanted to get outside. I owed the miles. People who marathon train will understand that sentiment. It’s not literal, as if I can make up miles but when you start training, you know when you owe the miles to your legs. It is a covenant of the marathon trainer. If your legs feel fresh, that is good, but there is an obligation to punish them. This was one of those mornings, and I knew the rain would be there, but I wanted it. That is another secret I keep in this training sessions, on a morning like this in late September I know I can count on two things, the sun will not be out until after 6:45 am, and the rain empties my running path.
My first steps outside were around 5:35 am after a quick round of stretching and foam rolling. I press the button on my watch to start catching the GPS as I walked down the steps underneath the same green awning. On the days that it rains, I wear my hat to keep the drops from washing out my contacts. It was dark, and the rain was a little heavier than a drizzle but not a downpour. As is usual, I wait for the light at the crosswalk to start blinking before I start running. I have timed this out, so I know that by the time I reach the crosswalk, the light will change in my favor. I turned right and headed down the narrower but less trafficked sidestreet until I arrived at 20th Avenue. 20th Avenue is mostly desolate because the entirety of one side of that street is comprised of New York utilities — Con Ed and related companies occupy one side of that avenue behind a tall chain linked fence. Behind that is water and then Rikers Island so it as remote as New York can give you. For me, it’s a dream because I can jump into the green crackled bike lane and I have no fear of any oncoming traffic or crosswalks. It is literally an abandoned path with dim street lights until I reach the East River. At the end is a long promenade that goes for about a mile parallel to Astoria Park.
On that Tuesday morning, the rain picked up as I got into the park. The lights in the park were still on during my first loop as I splashed through the puddles that I could barely see in the mixture of the dim lighting of the moon. It wasn’t windy but the East River is swirling slightly, and it looked like high tide. The typical dog walkers and other elderly people who congregate on the benches along that path were absent this morning. I make it through my first loop around the park, and I don’t see another soul. On the second loop, the sun is struggling to break through the gray skies and rain and now the lights in park flicker off. At one point I run through the path that sits between the Triboro Bridge and the tennis courts. That little path has recently been re-paved, but there are no lights. I literally plunged into darkness, and my eyes had to adjust until I came out near the track. I felt the rain mixing with sweat on my shoulders, I could hear each one of my breaths, and I realize that the darkness and the wetness probably have me going about 5 to 7 seconds slower per mile, but I didn’t mind.
My legs feel fresh and loose, and I was enjoying this solitude. A morning to myself with hardly anyone in the park. No dog walkers or casual weed smokers meandering through the park. Even the everyday runners had dwindled, so I only see a couple of people that I give the solemn nod to. Daylight in those gray skies finally appears by the time I made it back to the front of my apartment. A relatively non-descript run of around ten kilometers that makes me smile as I start stripping my shirt off when I enter my building. No one will see me as I drip my way up the stairs to my door. I peeled off my sneakers and did some follow up stretches. From there I put on some dry sweats, drink my Recoverite shake and then sit down and finish the second half of the pot of coffee I brewed while reading emails and skimming the newspaper. I shower, dress for work and stride to the subway under a small umbrella. The rest of my day will feel better. I walk into the office with my chest puffed out because I feel like a badass. I battled through the rain and the darkness, and none of these other people did the same thing.
But I have to say that this time something else occurred to me because of everything that has been in the news recently. This one isn’t about marathon training or what my finish will be in November. That whole morning and all that immense pleasure I took was something that I understand now was a privilege. The benefit of being a man in a gentrified neighborhood where I can do all of this without fear or hesitation. It is a basic thing for me but something somehow that women of the same age, same demographic, same everything can’t experience in the same way. I am not writing this for the women out there because they know already. The thought probably occurred to them within moments of reading this. Empty dark and rainy roads don’t sound the same to everyone and maybe that is the problem.
The zeitgeist has always been that women are “victims” but its clear to me now more than ever that perhaps the culture of men doesn’t comprehend the word victim. Somehow, men like me always manage to bring it back to themselves. Trying to empathize or most of the time dimish the fear and loathing we managed to create. The concept that somehow it makes sense that a woman needs to be more cautious than a man, even to the extent that they can’t experience something as basic as what I had a couple of weeks ago. You see when I went out for my run that Tuesday morning, I worried about the rain because it would make me wet, the road would be slippery. I only worried about going slower.
What I didn’t worry about was who and what could be lurking in the shadows of the park that morning. Even beyond the rain, I have never worried about people shouting things about my appearance during a run. My runs are relatively private, even when I am running through the bustling streets of New York City. I don’t know what it feels like to be hunted. I have never been catcalled by someone on the road, and I have never had anyone follow me slowly in a car. So for that, I get the pure pleasure of being able to run and worry only about my breathing and avoiding the deeper puddles that would soak my feet. I can try to empathize, but that would be an empty gesture, something hollow because empathy won’t solve the problem. The word victim is not always preceded by the word “prey.” The phrase prey is more fitting in this circumstance because it demonstrates how someone, a woman, can be robbed of a human experience. The word prey is often associated with an animal.
Maybe that is the way to explain everything that we have been seeing to old white men. What we saw in the elevator with Jeff Flake and what we saw during these Supreme Court nominations was about one group of human beings asking for the bare minimum — that they should feel safe when they go to a party in high school or college or even during their morning run. That shouldn’t be a gender issue but a fundamental human issue. What I can say is that I hope that the men who fight this concept are the men of a different generation. I have to believe that we can be better than this because we can’t stop all the monsters out there but at a minium, we should listen to when they are being pointed out.
