Time After Time

Week one of my thirteen week plan is now complete! Last Monday, I met with my amazing coach and good friend Kelsey who put me on a rather intense training plan, and words cannot even describe how good it feels to get back into the swing of things. As I was on my long run this morning, on this perfect summer NYC day, I passed by this statue above for the hundredth time, and had to stop to take a photo. I feel like we runners are constantly thinking about numbers and time: "What's my pace going to be for this run?" "What's my goal time?" "How many miles am I running today?" "This week?" Or more specifically during a race, "If I ran the first two miles at 6:45 but I want to average 6:30 minutes per mile, how fast do I have to run the next three miles to reach my goal?" By the time I figure out the answer to that SAT question, the race is over.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a total math geek and I love analyzing numbers. (Just ask my "Reach the Beach" relay team last spring. We ran two hundred miles in 29 hours with six people, and when I wasn't running, I spent the time analyzing everyone's performance to figure out the approximate start and finish times of everyone's legs in our group. I'm a TOTAL math geek.) However, on today's 8 mile run, I remembered why I do this. Of course the racing is fun, and I am a bit of a competitive person. But I also do it for the love of being outside, and in some of my favorite parts of the city. I do it for the joy I feel after completing a hard workout. I do it for the "zone" that I inevitably get into on my long runs, a sort of physically meditative state.

So even though you may see me and my fellow NYC runners doing exactly what that statue above is doing more often than not, sometimes it's good to remind ourselves ultimately why we do this. And why we keep doing it. And that feeling I got today, on my first long run back after 10 weeks of recovery, reminded me of just how happy I am to be a runner.

(Special bonus points for the person who can say what  the statue is in the above picture, and where it is in NYC. Answer in the comments below.)