problem at all. My feet hit the pavement hard, and my knees didn’t buckle. The danger is over.
Probably.
It’s become really cold, and the town is full of Halloween pumpkins. In the morning the path along
the river is lined with wet, colorful fallen leaves. If you want to run in the morning, gloves are a must.
October 29, the marathon a week away. In the morning it started snowing off and on, and by the
afternoon it was a full-scale snowfall. Summer wasn’t all that long ago , I thought, impressed. This was
typical New England weather. Out the window of my campus office I watched the wet snowflakes
falling. My physical condition isn’t too bad. When I get too tired from training, my legs tend to get
heavy and my running is unsteady, but these days I feel light as I start off. My legs aren’t so tired
anymore, and I feel like I want to run even more.
Still, I feel a bit uneasy. Has the dark shadow really disappeared? Or is it inside me, concealed,
waiting for its chance to reappear? Like a clever thief hidden inside a house, breathing quietly, waiting
until everyone’s asleep. I have looked deep inside myself, trying to detect something that might be
there. But just as our consciousness is a maze, so too is our body. Everywhere you turn there’s
darkness, and a blind spot. Everywhere you find silent hints, everywhere a surprise is waiting for you.
All I have to go on are experience and instinct. Experience has taught me this: You’ve done
everything you needed to do, and there’s no sense in rehashing it. All you can do now is wait for the
race. And what instinct has taught me is one thing only: Use your imagination. So I close my eyes and
see it all. I imagine myself, along with thousands of other runners, going through Brooklyn, through
Harlem, through the streets of New York. I see myself crossing several steel suspension bridges, and
experience the emotions I’ll have as I run along bustling Central Park South, close to the finish line. I
see the old steakhouse near our hotel where we’ll eat after the race. These scenes give my body a quiet
vitality. I no longer fix my gaze on the shades of darkness. I no longer listen to the echoes of silence.
Liz, who looks after my books at Knopf, sends me an e-mail. She’s also going to run the New York
City Marathon, in what will be her first full marathon. “Have a good time!” I e-mail back. And that’s
right: for a marathon to mean anything, it should be fun. Otherwise, why would thousands of people
run 26.2 miles?
I check on the reservation at our hotel on Central Park South and buy our plane tickets from Boston to
New York. I pack my running outfit and shoes, which I’ve broken in pretty well, in a gym bag. Now all
that’s left is to rest and wait for the day of the race. All I can do is pray that we have good weather, that
it’s a gorgeous autumn day.
Every time I visit New York to run the marathon (this will be the fourth time) I remember the
beautiful, smart ballad by Vernon Duke, “Autumn in New York.”