Brooklyn Long Run
With the end of February, I commenced a protracted farewell to NYC. This has involved indulging many of my whims, especially for places that I'd previously left on a list to visit "someday". That day has arrived.
Contemporaneously, for reasons I have documented in my written journal, since the beginning of Lent I've been attending Mass every Sunday. I look forward to my time at Mass. I think it was in Mary Karr's Lit that she touched on the carnality of the Catholic Mass. I think about that almost I go to church--I take a glance around at the attendees and I feel a twinge of appreciation in the unity of our kneeling, our standing, our hand movements. I digress.
I've found that my perfect Sunday involves a coffee shop, Mass, a long run, and a beer. Not necessarily in that order. We attended 9 AM Mass, followed by a pit stop at Cream Coffee (7210 3rd Ave, Bay Ridge). Z and I worked on various house projects to prepare for our move. After sending a few emails for work, I changed into my running gear and filled up the flasks for my hydration vest. Feeling rather antsy, I listened to "Free" by Florence + the Machine while I threaded my ponytail into a baseball cap.
I turned onto Ridge Blvd, heading north into Sunset Park. There are rarely any other runners in Sunset Park and today was no exception.
At 59th Street, I decided to turn right and run up across 3rd Ave under the BQE to 4th Ave.
At 4th Ave and 59th Street, there is foot traffic at all hours of the day. It'll be difficult to leave behind my recently beloved Irish Haven, a dive-y Irish pub with live music throughout the week and monthly trivia. I actually just went to trivia with my friends Diana and Sarah on April 1st. We made friends with the Irish bartender and a guy sitting next to us at the bar, who helped us with questions for which we didn't have the answers.
Once I've crossed under the freeway overpass, I feel firmly in Park Slope. I mentally prepare once I've made it to 19th Street, because as soon as I turn right at 15th Street, I begin a (steep) multi-block ascent to the southwest corner of Prospect Park. With Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" playing on my Shokz, I bounded up 15th Street, ticking off the avenues as they came. 5th Ave with the Harbor Fitness location. 6th Ave with the quaint community garden at the corner, then the grade starts to flatten past 7th Ave.
Park Slope was the neighborhood I moved to when I first came to New York in 2021. Prior to moving to NYC, I'd been living in Vallejo and Napa since graduation. President Street with Union Street Station as my station. I'd never once considered living in Manhattan; Brooklyn is much more my speed. There's more space. Brooklyn feels quieter. Much of the borough just feels more "real". I also LOVE that in the area of South Brooklyn I both live and frequent, I never have to see fifty people in line for the latest overhyped spot on social media. Park Slope was the place I "came of age," so to speak. Although I think Bay Ridge is one of the best places to live in the world, Park Slope will eternally have a special place in my heart.
Once at Prospect Park, I turned left and ran north along Prospect Park West, which was full of elderly couples sunning themselves on benches, young families pushing strollers, and, of course, other runners. Thanks to my competitive nature, I always feel propelled by other runners. I picked up my breezy pace (~10:15/mi) to 8:30/mi. I made it to Grand Army Plaza and my Garmin beeped: 5 miles done. I quickly turned around and ran a faster mile, 8:12.
This is the part of the run I love--the long downhill from Prospect Park down to 4th Avenue. I caught my breath for a half mile and then ran under 8:00/mi for half a mile. By this time, I was hitting my stride. It only took me about 7 miles!
I can tell I'm having a good run when the streets from 15th Street back down to 59th fly by; the corollary to that is that when it's a bad run, I keep checking how many more streets I have to go. Fortunately, this was a good day. The wind was strong, yet there was nary a cloud in the sky. I felt comfortable, like I could run forever in my tank top and flowy hot pink Lululemon shorts.
I finished a block away from home, went for a quick lift at the gym, and admired the natural beauty of Bay Ridge in the afternoon sun.
This was one of my last long runs while living in Brooklyn. I'm experiencing premature nostalgia for this time period: my youth, my twenties, my unfettered freedom, my ability to get up and run to no particular destination for a few hours. I will never not crave that overwhelming boundless freedom that courses through my veins when I power myself through the streets of New York with some select provisions, my phone, and my keys. I love the brief respite from life's obligations--from being an employee, from being a wife, from being a daughter, from being a tenant. On my long runs, I am simply a woman in the prime of her life relishing in her physical prowess. Life feels replete with meaning. In a long run as in life, you're faced with tedium and perhaps some angst, you face challenges in the form of long blocks of hills or you're bequeathed a downhill stretch. Maybe a kindly shopkeeper gives you a thumbs-up or says "good morning" as they're opening up their store at dawn. Regardless of external validation or the hills or the heat or the boredom or the perpetual questioning of what all this is for, the point is to keep running.