about this site | email
     
 

NYC 2003 - My First Marathon
by Chris Lear

Chris Lear

Over the next nine weeks, Chris Lear, a Colorado-based full-time sales representative and freelance writer, will be sharing his training diary as he prepares to run in this year's edition of the ING New York City Marathon — his marathon debut. Lear, like the vast majority of this year's entrants, is not a full-time runner. Yet, as for most of the competitors running this year's event, November 2 will nonetheless represent the culmination of months of hard work and planning. Each finisher, in the end, will have his or her own story to tell. In coming weeks, Lear will share with you his story: his goals, dreams, triumphs, and disappointments as he prepares to tackle the 26.2-mile behemoth for the first time. He hopes you'll enjoy the ride…

Entry #3, August 28, 2003

The best run I had this week was definitely a certain sprint that took place entirely in my mind. Let me explain: I'm in Manhattan with my wife, Shawn, one night early last week, checking out Anthony Bourdain's famed joint Les Halles. We're both fans of his book Kitchen Confidential and have been dying to check out the "steak-frites" that Les Halles hangs its hat on. We're dressed for the occasion: I'm sporting some sharp duds, and Shawn looks great in some white capris and a mostly-white formfitting tank top.
We get seated where all the bigwigs do, in the back corner next to the broom closet, with the rest of the bridge and tunnel set. But it's a French-style bistro, right? So it's cool.

The waiter comes by and asks if we'd like some eau minerale.

I say, "What?"

"Eau minerale."

"What?"

"Eau minerale."

Ah, oui-oui, a little francais going on. Though I speak French, I'm a wee bit slow on the uptake. Ixne on the fizzy aqua, garcon, I tell him in splendid Franglish, but we'll take a little wine.

We're not disappointed when we spot the medieval goblets they hoist onto our table. And now it gets interesting. Our garcon starts rattling off the specials in French. I can barely understand English, let alone French, above the din, so I shrug my shoulders, huh?

"Mais, oui-oui-oui...magnifique..."

I'm lost. I go to whip my hand to my ear while shrugging to convey the universal, "I can't hear a word you're saying so save the French for the frogs, pal," when the unthinkable occurs. My elbow cracks Shawn's wine glass like Tyson slapping a schoolgirl.

Dazed, I stare at my elbow trying to figure out what ran into it when I catch a glimpse of my mortified wife out of the corner of my eye. Turns out she didn't really want a full glass of red wine — every last drop of it — covering her white capris. Not the hot accessory this season. And that's when I imagined myself running, sprinting far, far away to a little happy place.

Believe you me when I say it was a looooong walk back to Penn Station. 26.2 doesn't seem so long now after all...

Fortunately, the rest of the week was uphill from there. Eventually my wife forgave me, and I even managed to get in my first day of doubles — 40-plus minutes each run. Of course, I relinquished whatever advantage I had earned the following night, when I boarded a bus with my coworkers moments after the workday ended, to have a celebratory dinner in the Dolce Madison Park Hotel.

These tradeoffs, however, are part of what most of us who are toeing the line on November 2 are learning to deal with. I'd like to keep these tradeoffs to a minimum, but I can live with the interruptions. After all, how many marathons go according to plan? In an odd way, these interruptions are preparing me to deal with the inconveniences and tribulations I'll undoubtedly encounter on race day.

I learned another lesson in compromising on Sunday when I ran for an hour (I had planned to run an hour forty-five) with my wife and her good friend and former University of Colorado teammate Lesley Higgins on the boardwalk on the Jersey shore, on arguably the nicest day of the year. I don't often run with women so I was a bit baffled by the differences in the unwritten code that govern running etiquette. For instance, when we came to a left-hand turn onto a new stretch of boardwalk, we came to a virtual standstill while the women went through a nonverbal game of "You go first. No, you go first." While I'm still not good at playing that game, I concur with their conclusion that running is a heck of a lot more fun when you have someone with whom to share the journey. So despite our differences, I hung with them and enjoyed the ride, and bagged the additional forty-five for some quality beach time.

I'm off again now to Colorado. I can only hope there are more good times, and a few more miles, to follow.

Yours in running,
Chris
     
Nothing contained herein may be reproduced online or in any form without the express written permission of the New York Road Runners Club, Inc.