Somewhere in this mess of an apartment I have a
copy of this Sports Illustrated, from November 1979.
It's of special interest because there's a big
panoramic photograph of all the NYC Marathoners on
the Verrazano Narrows Bridge at the start of the
race, and in the lower right hand corner you can
clearly make out my dad. I was the one who found him
there, nursing my fourth-grade gift subscription to
SI. I recently bought a copy of this issue on ebay,
but it's packed in the storage room now, or in Alex's
flatfiles, or somewhere. Hence no scan for you. I
think that was his first marathon. He ran it again in
1980, and one more time in 1981, when his time was
about 3:10, but he looked pale as a ghost walking up
the lane in his mylar blanket afterwards. The next
week on Halloween, the day of my first drum lesson,
he went out for a run with my sister riding her bike
alongside, and he never came back. Massive heart
attack, advanced atherosclerosis. Sis did a fine job
administering CPR, but there was no hope. He was 41
and I was eleven. The conventional wisdom in my
family has always been that his excessive running
killed him. He was excessive compulsive, in his way.
Took up photography and bought a Hasselblad, won
prizes. Took up guitar lessons and then built a
guitar, working deep into the early hours of the
morn. I like to think, or hope, I carry some of the
gene, but not to its deadly degree. So I started
running in 1996 (only New Year's Resolution I've ever
stuck to), but swore to myself, and more importantly
to my mom, that I'd never do a marathon or even get
close, and fortunately I haven't had the desire. It's
on my mind now because I've upped my regimen
significantly for the summer months. Doing 5.5 miles
five days a week, which is the most I'll probably do.
It's a way to be outside in the occasionally gorgeous
weather we get up here, and a way to commune with the
spirit of my long departed father, and let's be
honest, a way not to be such a behemoth. I'm a
big-boned guy to begin with, and I loves me some
eatin', so if I don't watch it I hulkify and scare
the neighborhood children. After doing this for three
weeks I feel fit, a bit slimmed down, and I feel my
legs constantly. Not pain, but just a little
persistent song - "we're here." In the afternoons I
sometimes catch myself thinking "too bad I've already
run today, because now would be a great time for it."
And on the two off-days I pine to get back out there.
When I'm on my more usual 3-day-a-week schedule it's
all I can do to make time to get out and at it. It
seems a chore, and there's little residual
body-awareness (but certainly some degree of
anti-hulking agent). I suppose my point is simply
that I can see how one could get consumed with it.
With those 40 or 60 or 80 minutes where you gambol
along, drifting from thought to thought, feeling your
body grow tighter and your knees and calfs hum, then
icing your shins, french kissing the water fountain's
cascade, feeling intense and connected and in
control. I can see the drug side of this all.
Whenever I push beyond a certain point, though, like
if I were to up the 5.5 mile route to 7, my body
stops singing and starts hollering, it falls apart at
the seems. Pulled muscles, shin splints, stress
fractures. It's, I suppose, the blessing of not
really being built like a runner at all - an internal
alert mechanism to spare me from the familial path to
which I am perhaps alarmingly drawn. Whoops, gotta go
sleep now - gotta hit the pavement bright and early
in the A.M.