Twice as Nice

Tuesday evening was spent in Baltimore, attending CB’s speaking engagement at our alma mater, Loyola College in Maryland. She stood humbly before a room of about 150 freshmen students and a dozen of her past professors, thanked them for a remarkable education, and then read from her memoir Not That Kind of Girl.  She read a passage about her search for a religion (pp. 110 through 120), relevant to her audience because she describes the chapel on campus, and how attending mass there had a hand in her conversion to Catholicism. I share this bit from her reading with you, because it is beautiful:

You had to forgive God for putting us all here on earth instead of blowing us into small glass creatures and then setting us immediately on the high-up shelf that was heaven to cool and grow fragile, to be nothing you could handle roughly.

She had these fidgety, cow-faced freshmen in the palm of her hand. They were captivated, silent as they listened hard. What a woman she is, my best friend. I am so proud of her, I love to see her triumph. Another not-at-all-slight benefit of her reading was that we got to spend an hour or so with Dan and his wife, as they attended the reading as well.

We took the train back to New York on Wednesday morning, feeling hung over even though we hadn’t really drunk but hardly at all. It was delayed, as the Amtrak regionals are wont to do. By the time I made it to the office, I had just enough time to grab my running clothes and immediately beat a hot path home for a 3 PM conference call. I was going to take the afternoon off, mostly, and then cap my evening with a Central Park run with EN, who I haven’t seen in entirely too long.

I wanted to run about six miles, though, so I headed in to the city early and decided to catch the sunset show at the rreservoir. Twice around would give me enough mileage to make it to six, including whatever I did with EN. And, I absolutely love the views of the city from the reservoir. The setting sun reflects off the buildings that face the park, and creates dazzling panels of pink, purple and silver in front of a navy sky. My aloof city gives so much back to the sharp observer. And so I set out. My sneakers crunched in the cinders as I ran just hard enough to warm up, breathing lightly. Little G beeped sweetly at me as my few miles passed by. It was a perfect run, propelled by the heat of the moment and the promise of things to come. 3.18 miles in 31:48 minutes.

As soon as I finished that warm-up, though, I had am email from EN that he missed his bus from Jersey and wouldn’t be able to meet me for our run. Bummer! So I took the cross-town bus from 57th and 8th to 57th and 3rd and ran home for another three miles. Hey, there ain’t nothing I can’t do if I’ve got my running shoes on and a MetroCard in my pocket! By this time it was dark and much colder; I ran fast simply to warm myself up. Up Third Avenue, across 59th Street, up First Avenue, left onto the pedestrian path at 60th Street. Up the short, steep hill towards Queens. Run run. Then, the long, sweet release of the downhill. It can demoralize racers as they trudge up it during the NYC Marathon, but when you’re swooping down towards grungy Queensborough Plaza, that hill is a gift. I ran through a darkness broken by streetlamps and headlights, through the plaza, over the Sunnyside Rail Yards, and then up the final half-mile hill towards home, on 43rd Avenue. I finally came to stop at 41st Street, warm. 3.02 miles in 27:47.