My New York Trip

I didn’t take my laptop to New York. I wanted to travel light, and to record my thoughts and observations with pen and paper, the way I started journaling my running, when I was a young girl. I wanted to pare my trip down to the essentials: my running shoes and orthotics, essential running gear, my heart open to possibilities. Faced with a lot of free time and down time (no kids, no training!) I wrote a lot over the weekend. Here are some of my reflections from new York.

Thursday, November 1, 2007

The TRIP is finally here, the voyage to New York has begun with the issuing of boarding passes. I’m sitting in the afternoon sunlight, in the pleasant international boarding lounge of the Vancouver Airport. I love the silence and the softness of just sitting in a boarding lounge, waiting for the departure to new places. Even before I had children and life became so much more than my own path, I liked leaving for trips.

I have always loved the adventure of travelling and a life in sport has afforded me many such adventures. I chose sport because I was well suited to the training and attention to optimum health, the time spent outdoors and the competition. Life in high performance also means travelling and hotel rooms and strange food and cities. I have come to understand the layers now: that I love the challenge of having to arrive at a starting line many time zones away, and be prepared and ready to execute a perfect race or as near to perfect a performance as I can. In my career I can honestly say that I have enjoyed and felt grateful for the privilege that my hard work has given me; the chance to race as an elite athlete, the bonus of hotel rooms and flights to new cities, the opportunity to toe the front of the line.

One day I will miss the racing at the elite level, and can already appreciate the richness that it has brought to my life.

I said good bye to the children this morning, already missing them and already looking forward to my time to be a professional. The irreconcilable emotions of motherhood.

Friday, November 9, 2007

The lobby of the Hilton is like Grand Central Station: huge and noisy. It is a circular room, and lined with rose coloured marble. It is busy and bustling and not cold at all. People are friendly here in New York this time, maybe excited, like I am for the start of the marathon. Walking across the Avenue of the Americas, someone holds the door of Starbucks open for me, people make small talk in the elevator. My room is on the 39th floor and from my room I can clearly hear the continuous intermittent honking of horns, the rush of traffic, the sirens, the blasting whistle of the bellman as he calls in a never ending demand for taxis. When I look down I see the tops of yellow cabs, stuck at intersections, moving right and left again. It’s all fabulous. it's a world away from my home in Victoria, where all we here is the wind. It’s New York.

I am being treated very well. The New York Road Runners are adept and practiced at putting on events and taking care of elite athletes. The best in the world come to race here and to win, and all their needs are anticipated. Before I even raced, I was given gifts. A shoulder bag filled with goodies that I shall cherish, inlcuding an engraved pen from Tiffanies. You’d think that by now I wouldn’t care so much about getting race gear, but I still like it!

In the elevator (and I’m in there for a few moments as it rised from the Lobby to the 39th floor), there is a small television screen playing an endless loop of the ING promotional video of the marathon. They have a runner’s eye view of the marathon course, speeded up so that you see the whole course in about 5 minutes. It’s awesome, though it makes some people dizzy; I don’t have time to see the course, but this gives a visual picture of the streets we will run through.

It’s so quiet in my room with the king size bed. No singing or laughing, or wrestling or dancing to music. No Hotwheels cars. I like it, this time on my own, but now and then, from nowhere, a loneliness rises up from deep inside me. Love for Maia and Ross and Lance floods into my heart. I look out the window to the high-rises of Manhattan and I can’t wait for race day.

Saturday, November 3, 2007

A quiet day, trying to find a balance between staying off my feet and resting, and getting a little light activity. I don’t like feeling stiff from lying about watching TV all day. I went for an easy run in the morning, at the tail end of the Olympic Marathon Trials for US men. It was hard to run anywhere. The sidewalks were packed with Saturday morning shoppers and spectators returning from watching the race. Central park was likewise crammed with people and many roads were blocked. I jogged along lightly, dodging pedestrians and trees, trying to get some sense of rhythm. The thing about NYC is that there are so many people in this place, they are everywhere, on every street, in every shop. Nothing, and nowhere seems to be devoid of life. It’s sort of nice really. Humanity.

At breakfast the rumours started. Questions and quiet talk about a tragedy, possibly a death in the marathon that morning. By mid afternoon, the rumours were confirmed that Ryan Shay, one of the promising young American runners, had died after a collapse at the 5mile mark. I did not know Shay, but it was quite shocking and one of those moments in life when you realize, yet again, how precious our time is. We were told to be strong, to race in the morning with life and joy as that is what he would have wanted, but there were close friends of Ryan’s in the race and I know this was not going to be easy for them. It felt strangely familiar to be looking at death while amid such life. Emily Mondor's tragic death last year before the National 10k Championships, Benny Van Steelant passing away right before Long Distance World Duathlon Championships in October.

I spent a long time at dinner, getting my carbs in, but catching up with Bruce and Rosemary Deacon, just chatting and laughing about running and life and children.

Later, I sat in my room, going over my morning routine, visualizing how I wanted to feel when I woke up, checking and re-checking that all the clocks were ready for the time change.

Lucy