Dreams can come true!
20 years ago, I was a 19 year old runner, living in my first apartment and figuring out how to make it on my own in the world. As for so many years as I grew up, my daily run was the only constant thing in my life, the act that took me out of myself, my meditation if you will. I was getting relatively good at it, and finding the half marathon distance to suit me well. I was never going to be a 'contender' but I was reasonably quick as a club runner.
Most mornings you would find me at 6:30 running the loop around the Edgbaston reservoir, near where I lived in Birmingham, that took me past the old Gas Street basin with it's run down factories and closed off docks. That summer an article appeared in Runners' World about urban running, and featured the reservoir loop in Central Park, New York. The photograph they published showed the cinder track around the Jackie Kennedy Onnassis reservoir, the iron railings separating the the track from the waterside and, rising above it into a clear blue sky, was the Manhattan skyline.
To me it was the epitome of urban running, a place to dream of going one day, somewhere far off that just my feet could take me to. It symbolised pretty much everything I wanted at that point that didn't include mountains, my other passion. The simplicity of putting one foot in front of another, the exotic ideal of traveling to somewhere far off, and the dream of blue skies. This morning, for me, that long-held dream came true.
It's been a long month here in the US, a life-changing one with all that has happened but this morning was simplicity itself. The alarm woke me at seven, and out of the holdall I pulled my battered, shortly to be retired, Nike's, a pair of shorts, socks and my running hat. There would be no heart rate monitor today, no gps to tell me how far or how fast I was running, and only a watch because I never take it off. Stripped down to the barest essentials this was a run to take pleasure in just the act of running.
I walked out of the hotel into the most perfect running weather imaginable: Bright and sunny, warm with just a hint of the early morning cool that will soon burn away and not a breath of wind. If I were to order weather for today, it would have been exactly this. I turned right out of the hotel on West 77th and head east, my feet picking an easy pace as I haven't run since the big triathlon a couple of weeks ago, and this was to be just an easy run. I pad softly along the tree-lined streets of the Upper West Side, past the brownstone walk-ups you see in Seinfeld and so many programs based in New York, on past the Museum of Natural History where my cousin Kevin and his girlfriend Christina work, thinking of the joy I've found in reconnecting with that side of my family after far too many years until, finally, I cross onto the Central Park loop. I turn left, comfortable with my pace now, easy but still causing me to work a little as the road goes gently uphill. Half a mile and there's the cinder track and the railings I recognise, where I turn right and finally get my first view of the reservoir. Blue in the morning light, I can't help but smile at the view unfolding before me. Looking left I see one of the twin-towered art deco buildings that line the west side of the park, where John Lennon lived with Yoko Ono and where, sadly, he was shot just outside. The warm stone glows in the low rays of the morning sun as I join the other runners on the loop.
This is exactly how I saw it in the photograph 20 years ago and I grin constantly to myself as I go, thinking of all the places that I've run over the years: villages in Africa with curious children following me, a country enmeshed in civil war but whose inhabitants would still smile at the crazy person running down their potholed streets, the deck of the ship I worked on in the middle of the Atlantic or the shanty towns where the two sides of life were so starkly divided into those driving the Mercedes with their blacked out windows that would anonymously pass by while the people who lived under a plastic tarp would smile and wave to me as I ran through their neighborhoods.
I thought of the run in Kota Kinabalu earlier this year, where I ran through a poor area simply because that's where my feet took me. Along the way I looked up at one point to see a father and son running towards me. The young boy must have been maybe 8 or 9 years old and dressed, like his father, in a pair of sweatpants and old sneakers yet, when he saw me running towards him his face lit up with a great toothy grin at someone else who was out here running. Our worlds, so starkly divided, came together so simply from the act of running, we needed no common language other than our sport and our smile. As he ran towards me I raised my hand in salute and he high fived me as I passed. I looked over my shoulder as I ran on to see him looking back, still smiling and waving to me. Running has giving me insights into other peoples worlds over the years, given me a common language and a connection where there was none before and I am grateful beyond words for that.
My thoughts came back to the present as I wind my way round the lake, the view changing with each corner until I was heading south, back to where I joined the track. Now, as I look up, the skyline is filled with the crowded tall buildings that make up midtown Manhattan and you could truly appreciate why they were named so aptly: Skyscrapers. I stop for a moment to take it all in, to fix in my mind this image that I had wanted to see for so long, what I call one of my Kodak moments, to be remembered and treasured through the years to come, a memory that will stay sharply focused forever.
I let my legs start moving again, until I pass back under the canopy of trees and onto the road again, merging in with other runners and staying to the side so that the cyclists could pass easily. I turn right at the bridge and run back gently to the hotel, turning just before I go inside to look back up the street once more to where the trees of central park stand silhouetted against the sky. Maybe 3-4 miles total distance covered, but so many miles and years to complete it.
It will remain within me, one of the most glorious runs of my life.
20 years ago, I was a 19 year old runner, living in my first apartment and figuring out how to make it on my own in the world. As for so many years as I grew up, my daily run was the only constant thing in my life, the act that took me out of myself, my meditation if you will. I was getting relatively good at it, and finding the half marathon distance to suit me well. I was never going to be a 'contender' but I was reasonably quick as a club runner.
Most mornings you would find me at 6:30 running the loop around the Edgbaston reservoir, near where I lived in Birmingham, that took me past the old Gas Street basin with it's run down factories and closed off docks. That summer an article appeared in Runners' World about urban running, and featured the reservoir loop in Central Park, New York. The photograph they published showed the cinder track around the Jackie Kennedy Onnassis reservoir, the iron railings separating the the track from the waterside and, rising above it into a clear blue sky, was the Manhattan skyline.
To me it was the epitome of urban running, a place to dream of going one day, somewhere far off that just my feet could take me to. It symbolised pretty much everything I wanted at that point that didn't include mountains, my other passion. The simplicity of putting one foot in front of another, the exotic ideal of traveling to somewhere far off, and the dream of blue skies. This morning, for me, that long-held dream came true.
It's been a long month here in the US, a life-changing one with all that has happened but this morning was simplicity itself. The alarm woke me at seven, and out of the holdall I pulled my battered, shortly to be retired, Nike's, a pair of shorts, socks and my running hat. There would be no heart rate monitor today, no gps to tell me how far or how fast I was running, and only a watch because I never take it off. Stripped down to the barest essentials this was a run to take pleasure in just the act of running.
I walked out of the hotel into the most perfect running weather imaginable: Bright and sunny, warm with just a hint of the early morning cool that will soon burn away and not a breath of wind. If I were to order weather for today, it would have been exactly this. I turned right out of the hotel on West 77th and head east, my feet picking an easy pace as I haven't run since the big triathlon a couple of weeks ago, and this was to be just an easy run. I pad softly along the tree-lined streets of the Upper West Side, past the brownstone walk-ups you see in Seinfeld and so many programs based in New York, on past the Museum of Natural History where my cousin Kevin and his girlfriend Christina work, thinking of the joy I've found in reconnecting with that side of my family after far too many years until, finally, I cross onto the Central Park loop. I turn left, comfortable with my pace now, easy but still causing me to work a little as the road goes gently uphill. Half a mile and there's the cinder track and the railings I recognise, where I turn right and finally get my first view of the reservoir. Blue in the morning light, I can't help but smile at the view unfolding before me. Looking left I see one of the twin-towered art deco buildings that line the west side of the park, where John Lennon lived with Yoko Ono and where, sadly, he was shot just outside. The warm stone glows in the low rays of the morning sun as I join the other runners on the loop.
This is exactly how I saw it in the photograph 20 years ago and I grin constantly to myself as I go, thinking of all the places that I've run over the years: villages in Africa with curious children following me, a country enmeshed in civil war but whose inhabitants would still smile at the crazy person running down their potholed streets, the deck of the ship I worked on in the middle of the Atlantic or the shanty towns where the two sides of life were so starkly divided into those driving the Mercedes with their blacked out windows that would anonymously pass by while the people who lived under a plastic tarp would smile and wave to me as I ran through their neighborhoods.
I thought of the run in Kota Kinabalu earlier this year, where I ran through a poor area simply because that's where my feet took me. Along the way I looked up at one point to see a father and son running towards me. The young boy must have been maybe 8 or 9 years old and dressed, like his father, in a pair of sweatpants and old sneakers yet, when he saw me running towards him his face lit up with a great toothy grin at someone else who was out here running. Our worlds, so starkly divided, came together so simply from the act of running, we needed no common language other than our sport and our smile. As he ran towards me I raised my hand in salute and he high fived me as I passed. I looked over my shoulder as I ran on to see him looking back, still smiling and waving to me. Running has giving me insights into other peoples worlds over the years, given me a common language and a connection where there was none before and I am grateful beyond words for that.
My thoughts came back to the present as I wind my way round the lake, the view changing with each corner until I was heading south, back to where I joined the track. Now, as I look up, the skyline is filled with the crowded tall buildings that make up midtown Manhattan and you could truly appreciate why they were named so aptly: Skyscrapers. I stop for a moment to take it all in, to fix in my mind this image that I had wanted to see for so long, what I call one of my Kodak moments, to be remembered and treasured through the years to come, a memory that will stay sharply focused forever.
I let my legs start moving again, until I pass back under the canopy of trees and onto the road again, merging in with other runners and staying to the side so that the cyclists could pass easily. I turn right at the bridge and run back gently to the hotel, turning just before I go inside to look back up the street once more to where the trees of central park stand silhouetted against the sky. Maybe 3-4 miles total distance covered, but so many miles and years to complete it.
It will remain within me, one of the most glorious runs of my life.