I Left A Part Of Me Back In New York

By: Mimi Albert

I said goodbye to New York City 8 years ago. In the cab ride to JFK, looking back over the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge, I told myself to remember that moment. To take a mental snapshot of the image of Manhattan in my rearview so I could remember the last time I saw New York City as my home.

I didn’t identify as a runner until my last 3 years in New York. It was only then, after 7 years of calling it my home, did I start to become intimately with the curvature of the city. I noticed things I never paid attention to before. The cracks in the sidewalk, the timing of the crosswalks (not that New Yorkers pay much mind to the crosswalk), the tree stumps that protrude from the soil, refusing to be bound by bricks and pavement. For the first time I explored Central Park - I mean really explored. Meandered through paths visiting the hidden and not so hidden gems of the park. I ran through the Zoo, by the duck pond, up to the reservoir and looped back around on the bridal path. I experimented with different ways to enter and leave the park, always having a plan to suit my mood. I relished in the knowing head nod to other runners who also claimed the 5:30am version of the park as their own.

It was in Riverside Park and then up by the George Washington Bridge that I learned the most about myself as a runner and as a 20 something living in a city where being comfortable felt so beyond my reach. I have distinct memories from a 2 mile section of path just north of the Harlem River Park, Dinosaur BBQ, and The Cotton Club. I once got caught in a rainstorm so bad it shorted out my headphones. Another time I was so injured as I approached the tennis courts north of 165th st that I had to stop and walk the 40 blocks home because I didn’t run with a metro card or any money for a taxi. Another time, running south from Riverbank Park Center by the Harlem Fields I inadvertently raced a man to my fastest mile ever at the time. 

After my weekend long run, I would reward my effort with a trip to the Fairway near 125th street, blocks from my apartment, to refuel. 

As I looked across the bridge on my way out of the city I knew I would be back, but I knew I wouldn’t be the same. Neither would New York. 

When I made my first trip back it was nearly 2 years after I left. I stayed with my brother in Bushwick, Brooklyn. A world away from my old neighborhood of Morningside Heights. With a new home base came new running routes. I explored Brooklyn and fell in love with Prospect Park. When I ventured into Manhattan I would start from 14th Street and make my way over to the Hudson River path. It was familiar but still different and new. I finally ran the New York City Marathon in 2016, over 4 years after I first left. The only part of the course I had run before was when you enter the park from 5th Ave and run to the finish line. Running to that finish line felt like running home. My feet knew each of those steps by heart. 

Since that 2016 NYC Marathon I’ve found my identify as a Bay Area runner. After the 2017 Boston Marathon I started working with a running coach who is still my coach. She showed me all the secret routes from Woodside to San Jose that took me 5 years to discover. The contours of Stanford’s campus are as familiar to me as the Harlem Hills of Central Park once were. I no longer ache to wake up before dawn like I once did because I am getting older and it’s harder to move in the morning, but also there is no fraternity of runners that make their way around the same magical loop each morning like they do in NYC. Or maybe there are, but the sprawl of the peninsula means more effort is required to discover that special place. But still it is plenty special. Just like varying the entrances and exits of of Central Park, running in the Bay Area is a choose your own adventure kind of experience. Want flat and a breeze? Try the Baylands. Want some gentle rolling hills with some horses to keep you company? Head over to Alpine or Portola Road. Trails more your thing? Windy Hill, Huddart, and Wunderlich will keep you busy for awhile.

My brother left Brooklyn and New York altogether a few years after I did. For 3 years the only NYC running I did was in the  2018 NYC marathon. But last year he moved back. This time to Washington Heights, across the street from my old office. Across the street from Coogan’s and The Armory. He’s within a stones throw of those tennis courts just below the GW bridge where I once had to stop in anguish. Just 1.5 miles from where I raced a man to my fastest known mile way back when. 2 miles from the Fairway where I used to treat myself after a weekend long run.

The routes I now run when I visit New York City are nearly the same as when I lived there more than 8 years ago and yet everything is different. The paths are more crowded, more developed. There’s less trash and more greenery. Fairway is now closed. Runners are wearing the latest shoes and wireless headphones. But more than anything, I’m different. I run these routes slower than I did back then. Not because I’ve gotten slower, but because I’ve gotten better. I’m older now and take my easy days easy. I don’t (usually) try to race the other runners I cross paths with. I’m not wondering what could be or who I might be with. I don’t need to think about what it would be like if I left New York because I already left. I left and yet there’s always a part of me still there. On those paths. In those memories. That snapshot of the city as I crossed the RFK bridge, looking back at all I left behind, forever emblazoned in my mind. 

It’s A Cliche Because It’s True

By: Mimi Albert

I talk about running a lot. I love to talk about running so much that I started a podcast about running. But the thing about running is that there is a perfect running metaphor for everything. So much that it’s become a cliche - it’s a marathon, not a sprint. This pandemic, it’s a multi-day last person standing race with no end in sight. Running teaches us to be patient. That’s directly applicable to anything in life - don’t expect immediate results or seek instant gratification. Go slow to go fast. Take your easy days easy so you can run your hard days hard. Well that’s the same in work and in life. Rest and decompression is essential for avoiding burnout. We all have bad workouts just like we all have bad days. When that happens we need to have self-compassion and practice positive self-talk. You give me any work or life situation and I will find a running analog to share.

But there’s something that makes running very different from the rest of life. Running doesn’t go through a restructuring, at least at the every day amateur level. Sure standards may change. What was a BQ or an OTQ one year may not be the same the next, but unless the Queen decides to change the marathon distance again, a marathon is 26.2 miles. A 5K, by definition, remains a 5K. Running, unlike other aspects of life, for the most part, is a meritocracy. You get out of it what you put into it and you are rewarded or disappointed accordingly. Running is within your control. We all deal with injuries and bad days. Not all races go to plan, and it certainly doesn’t feel fair when we’ve had the best training cycle of our life and we don’t achieve our goals. But there is always another race, another training cycle, another chance to improve.

For the past five years I have been studying burnout. Beyond physical and emotional exhaustion, burnout may occur when you don’t feel valued. If there have been changes at work that leads you to feel de-valued and undermines your work and years of service, not only will you be incredibly upset, but those feelings will quickly turn to burnout, which can have devastating consequences. Work will say it’s not about you, but it sure feels like it is. Running challenges you. It tests you. It may frustrate the hell out of you, but at the end of the day, it always rewards you.

The Why

By: Mimi Albert

Re-post from my June 2017 Runner’s World piece.

In 2008 my then-boyfriend ran the New York City Half Marathon. He’d train after work, running anywhere from three to ten miles along the East River path. I thought he was nuts. I’d been a runner since high school, but had never run more than three miles at a time. Why would anyone ever run more than three miles?

I was so disinterested in his half marathon attempt that I didn’t even go to the race to cheer him on or meet him at the finish line. I chose to sleep in, instead—that seemed like the sane choice.

While training for—and subsequently running—the half marathon, my boyfriend was also a (somewhat) functioning alcoholic. I wonder, now, how many of his “runs” were really to the bar or liquor store. About a year after the race, his drinking spiraled completely out of control. He was forced into a rehab program by his work, and mandated to continue outpatient treatment. He’d insist he was sober, but I could smell the alcohol seeping through his skin, and I’d find mini vodka bottles stuffed into the couch.

Eventually he had to move back to California, where we both were from. I moved back to Morningside Heights, where I had lived in college. I started a new job, and at the same time started graduate school and nursed a broken heart. Deep down I knew, however, it was for the best. Taking care of his problems helped me avoid my own, of which there were plenty. Without someone else’s issues to deal with, my own resurfaced: I had been diagnosed with depression and anxiety when I was 16. I developed an eating disorder in high school, recovered for a few years, but relapsed my sophomore year of college.

In 2009, when we broke up, I had been in recovery for four years. But now, so much felt, once again, out of my control. How could I pay back my student loans? What if I’d never find love again? What if I didn’t get a job that paid enough after graduate school? What if… what if… what if?

I decided to save as much money as possible. I wouldn’t shop or go out, and I would spend as little as possible on food per day. Trying to control my food budget became a concealed exercise in restricting my eating—an excuse to do so. And since I couldn’t afford a $30 spin class, I decided to run for exercise. Running, after-all, was free, and it would help me shed those stubborn pounds that I felt like I “desperately” needed to lose.

I started with about two miles at a time through Riverside Park where I ran in college. Soon I was running three miles, then four, and then six. I discovered that the more I ran, the better I felt. When I ran, I wasn’t thinking about loans, or work, or love. When I ran, I solved all the world’s problems in my head. I would come up with ideas and think about goals I could set for myself. My mind and my body felt free. For the first time I noticed definition in my abs and my arms. Running (and restricting my diet) seemed to be working. I felt like I looked great! But when those two miles jumped to 10 and then to 13, my diet didn’t change. Slowly but steadily I began to disappear. I stopped hanging out with friends or doing any social activities. I wanted to save my energy for running, because if I was running then I wasn’t thinking, and if I wasn’t thinking, I wasn’t feeling.

I noticed something else happened when I began to run more. I was fast(ish). I knew that if I raced, I would probably do well. But, I didn’t want to race because it cost money, and I knew that I would have to train properly—and fuel properly. Besides, any decent training program would include some tapering, and that was out of the question. So I just ran.

I ran through negative temperatures and the oppressive NYC summer humidity. I ran through aches, pains, and screams from my body, begging me to stop. I ignored signs of injury, exhaustion, malnutrition, and dehydration. I told myself I was stronger than that. I ignored the concern of my coworkers and roommates. If I just kept running I figured maybe I would finally get somewhere.

The day before my 27th birthday I went for a celebratory run. Armed only with my iPod Nano and my apartment key, I set out for 13 miles. Around mile eight, my knee started to hurt (spoiler alert, it was IT band syndrome), and every stride was excruciating. By mile 10, I knew my run was over, but I was still three miles from home. I had no money for a cab and I had left my MetroCard at home. My only choice was to walk, which at the time felt like failure. And then, if on cue, it started to rain. I returned home drenched, in pain, and completely defeated. There was nothing to do but cry.

So after 99 of the longest minutes of my life on the elliptical, I met my brother at the theater. Halfway through the movie I had to go outside because I couldn’t breathe. I bought an apple from a cart on the street because it was the only thing I felt ok to eat. I went back to the theater and told my brother I was fine, but I wasn’t.

When I got home that night I thought I was going to die. I could feel my heart shutting down and I had to make a decision: Did I want to continue like this and end up in the hospital or dead, or did I want to live? I thought about what I loved, what gave me joy, and the only thing I could think about was running. I decided that night that if I wanted to run then I needed to live. And if I wanted to run and live then I needed to eat. I decided then that if I was going to keep living to run then I was going to see what I could do when I set goals.

On July 25, 2011, sometime around 10 p.m. I decided that running was worth living for.

Since then, I’ve run countless half marathons (I even won one!), 10Ks, trail races, and Ragnar Relays. I started to set my sights on the Boston Marathon. My dad is a native Bostonian and when I chose running, we started talking about how, when I ran the Boston Marathon he’d come with me. Marathon Monday was always one of his favorite days of the year.

I qualified for the Boston marathon on my home turf in Los Angeles on Valentine’s Day, 2016, and, though I had moved to Northern California in 2012, I made a triumphant return to New York to run the NYC Marathon in November, 2016.

On April 17, 2017, I ran the Boston Marathon. As soon as I made it to the top of Heartbreak Hill, I spotted my dad. I was exhausted, but a rush of adrenaline ran through me, and I sprinted to him and gave him the biggest hug I could muster. In that moment, I had never felt more alive. My heart had never felt so full or so strong, and I knew I had made the right choice.

Every run—and especially every race—teaches me something new. Boston wasn’t a perfect race, far from it. But it was perfect for what I needed that day. Running takes patience, adaptability, and resilience. There have been times (more than I’d like) that I have been injured, and so I have to seek the solace I find from running elsewhere.

That discipline and pursuit has allowed me to be better at everything I do. It’s changed the way I approach challenges and opportunities. It’s taught me to be grateful for what I have. It’s taught me how to live.