An 'ah-ha' moment

I was in Philadelphia this weekend. First time there, nice town. Amazing art museum plus the Rodin Museum, Rodin was amazing, he must have never stopped working. At any rate, I digress. But one more digression before I reach my point: The Walnut Street Theater, the oldest theatre in the US and the oldesr continuously operating theater in the English speaking world! (and what was playing there? White Christmas? Such is the state of theater I suppose, but they were packing them in).

Now the point and why this is in my 'playblog'; but it is my blog and I'm allowed to diverge from theme from time to time. At any rate, what I didn't know was that this weekend was the Philadelphia marathon. Now, any time I have thought of running a marathon I have always cringed at the thought; the first time I ran the fifteen miler in Charleston (around 85 or 86 I'd say) I distinctly remember thinking after the finish: how can somebody run another 11.2 miles after that? of course, my witty addition over the years became ' it's not the 26 miles that's hard it's the .2 that'll do you in!'

But a friend from NY was running in the marathon and I thought I'd go watch and see if I could spot her and cheer her on. It occurred to me later that I had never watched a race before from an audience viewpoint, only from the inside. It was a revelation, and the titular 'ah-ha' moment. These people weren't in any better shape than me, a lot of them. Some didn't even take it all that seriously (one guy in drag, all red even down to red running shoes. another in all green, and I mean all green, even covering his head, he was like a running condom or something, and then there were the girls with turkey feather in construction paper on their backs: one bystander said: they obviously never studied physics). Of course I was at about the six mile point, it would have been interesting to see these same people twenty miles later.

So I made my commitment. I'm going to run in a marathon. I have about a year to get ready; and if I can't get into NY (logistically a nightmare getting out to Staten Island and such, in Philly it's much more civilized: you can walk out a hotel room to the start and crawl back to your hotel after you finish).

Not only that: when I got home I went for a run, since I'm doing the five mile Turkey Trot this week, I figured I should do more than my default four miles, so I did my seven mile Nyack to Piermont run. While I was running the lightbulb went off in my head. I'll keep track of my progress getting ready for the marathon via this blog, and everything else happening in and around me in the course of the year, and when it's all said and done . . . can you guess where I'm going? If you guessed solo show you're right.

By the way, I did not see my friend Mindy as I watched the runners go by. Even after six miles the runners tended to be clumped together, I waited until about an hour and a half after the start and then gave up. Even an hour later there were still people trickling by outside . . . some walkers . . . so this could be an interesting year. And I think it's only fitting that my debut marathon would be in Philly since it's where I saw the light . . . had my rebirth . . . um . . . my moment of clarity . . . any other cliches I can toss in there?

This is gonna be fun . . . if it doesn't kill me!