Running in Central Park with Cranky

This weekend I continued my tour of the North East by visiting New York City.

I could tell you many things about trying to pull the trip together with 2 days' notice, taking the bus down, being forced to go to Times Square against my will, and staring at the lights changing color in the mall in Colombus Circle for half an hour, and how the friend I went to visit was too busy sucking face with her girlfriend to pay attention to any of the people who had come from various states to visit them. I could tell you about all those things, but I'm going to skip it to tell you all about the BEST part of the trip instead:

MEETING CRANKY RUNNER!!!

For a cranky guy he sure was patient with the dozens of comments, emails, phone messages, and text messages that it took to arrange our meeting in Central Park at 10 am on Saturday. Dozens! No exaggeration.

Saturday . was . freezing !!!

I would later find out from Cranky himself that it had been 27* when he woke up that morning. So at only a couple of minutes of 10 I emerged from the subway (already thoroughly chilled from nearly an hour of sitting still on the frigid subway) wearing running tights, 4 shirts, and my Sox beanie. A few minutes later I added some gloves I bought off a street vendor for $5 to my getup. As I walked pas the park I was flabbergasted to see people running around in shorts.

When giving me directions, Mr. A. Chilles had described how to get to our meeting point, the Apple store on 59th and 5th, and finished off the instructions with, "You'll figure it out." Me? Figure it out? Does he read my blog?! I went the wrong way out of the subway and it took me 10 minutes to right myself (and buy a pair of gloves) before I spotted the glass structure with the Apple logo on it. I'd never seen a photo of Satan, so I just looked for a guy in running clothes. I spotted one walking away from me that seemed like he was looking for something and started chasing him. I had gotten pretty close when he crossed the street and broke into a trot, which saved me the embarrassment of walking up to a random New Yorker in the street and asking, "Cranky?!" Who knows how that would have been received.

I turned around and found the real Cranky, who was much nicer looking than the fake Cranky anyway. We went down into the Apple store to warm up before muscling our way through tourists and into the park. It was my job to set the pace and Cranky's to not get so sick of running so slow that he ditched me to freeze to death.

Satan showed me the Boathouse, a ritzy looking lodge that I would have loved to sit down in and drink hot cocoa in all day rather than go back out into the cold. But out we went and stopped in the public restrooms behind the restaurant. When I pulled my pants up I noticed that my legs were numb, I couldn't feel the waistband on my thighs at all! This was crazy! We ran up to check out the sailboat pond which I recognized from a movie, or maybe a CSI episode, or both, and then ran back down to follow the path around the park's perimeter. A couple of cyclists came flying up behind us and yelled venomously, "Get outta the road!" to a middle-aged woman who was walking along the path with her elderly mother.
"Jerk!" I commented.
"Welcome to New York," said Cranky.

Meeting people face to face that I met online always scared the crap out of me, but here I was settling into a very comfortable conversation at a not so comfortable pace with a man that until yesterday I'd only known as "Mr. Satan A. Chilles" and "Cranky Runner". In fact, he wasn't diabolic or cantankerous at all and when he kept up an easy chat while I struggled for air I didn't get the urge to kill him even once. I get grouchy when I can't breathe. We talked about all kinds of things: running, triathlon, the history of New York, and the cold. Mostly, though, we talked about racing for fun. FINALLY I'd found someone who didn't necessarily care about speed, just going for as long as he could and enjoying the ride. Given, there was a big difference between our abilities, and running a spur-of-the-moment marathon is a lot less time consuming or draining for Cranky, but I'd finally found someone who'd run 2 marathons in 3 weeks just because he didn't feel like waiting till next year. I love meeting people on the internet!

Speaking of suffering, did you know that there are hills in Central Park? I'd heard it described as "hilly" by athletes preparing for the Olympic trials, but it hadn't registered. I don't mean hilly like San Francisco where you have a good excuse to tell someone you're trying to impress that you need a break, but rolling hills that shut you up in a hurry and make you do weird things to try to breathe through snot so you can get to the top still running. "Oh God!" I said more than once.
"There have been times when the only way I've gotten up some of these hills is just by saying Oh Jesus, Oh Jesus, Oh Jesus until I get to the top," Cranky consoled me. But I knew that he was usually going twice as fast as this and at the end of a marathon or 60k when he got to that point. We'd only been running for about half an hour.

By the time we finished the 5 mile loop I was wondering how long I would hold out before having to admit that I was spent. That is, if my hamstrings didn't give out before I did. And then, like an Angel leading me to heaven, Satan led me up the last incline back on to 59th St where thankfully we began to walk. Cranky took me a couple of blocks to the church where his running club holds their post-run meeting and breakfast. There I got a free bagel, hot coffee, and got to hear them recognize Cranky and his friend Tim for finishing the Knickerbocker 60k the week before. Yeah, I said 60k. During the announcements I had my sweaty beanie sitting in my lap, and when I stood up to meet Cranky's friends my whole lap was wet. Fantastic!

So I met Tim looking like I'd peed my pants. Tim has the kind of legs and the kind of balls I only wish I had. After running his first marathon ever on November 4th he decided to show up at the Knickerbocker 60k just to see how far he would last, and FINISHED it. Not only finished, but right on Cranky's heels. Now that's fast. Cranky brought up my "marathon on a whim" to give us all something in common to talk about, but my achievements paled in comparison to Tim's marathon and ultra debut and Cranky's back-to-back-to-back marathons. Together Tim and I found more common ground in trying to convince Cranky to do a certain New England race that at least 2 other bloggers will also be participating in. But I promised I would keep my big mouth shut about its name, nature, or distance. (I'll keep it zipped, but you can find out from the man himself here).

When Cranky led me back to the metro I was sorry to let him go. I may have been freezing my buns off, but I'd found a warm, fuzzy place inside of me that made me want to adopt as my own this glamorous life of piggy-backing races, training in Central Park, being part of a running club with matching jump suits for winter and summer, and running 3:30 marathons. It was definitely the highlight of my trip, winning out over the Toys R Us in Times Square 2 days after Thanksgiving and the extra 2 1/2 hours the ride home took me.