Who Needs a Starting Line, Anyway?

Race cancellations were inevitable and yet I didn’t modify my training regimen until that day had come and gone.

Pre-pandemic I signed up for a half-marathon that would wind through Brooklyn and spit runners out on the boardwalk at Coney Island to finish. I fall victim to these types of race registrations time and time again. I know I’m not alone in favoring races for the mere fact that running certain routes in the city would be life-threatening or at the very safest, life-damaging, without a couple of road closures.

When I finally settled into quarantine and competition as we knew it was off the table, I was determined not to get fatigued by repeating the same routes over and over. To avoid overdoing “out and back” routes, I started to rent electric scooters that I’d take to new edges of Brooklyn, then run home. Landmarks that I once avoided because of crowds, like the Brooklyn Bridge or the piers along the East River, I incorporated into my runs more frequently. Paying closer attention not to mileage, but to masks and messages written in sidewalk chalk or in apartment windows thanking essential workers.

Along with what I learned from the news, running became a form of information-getting in the pandemic. The residents on my block in Bed-Stuy self-isolated like the rest of the city, but we never did get the hang of the seven o’clock celebrations for front-line workers. I masked-up and found those pieces of the pandemic elsewhere. Facts and fuel to continue social distancing.

Then in May, I packed up and drove to Colorado to stay with family and stretch my legs.

When I arrived in Colorado’s western slope, the panoramic views were a warm welcome. With the red rock monuments to the south and the towering, grey Bookcliffs to the north, the trails make themselves seen by bikers, runners and hikers that trace their spines like single-file tourists entering the subway turnstile.

In the transition into trail running after pounding the pavement all spring, I was prepared to be slower. I gained about 4,500 feet in elevation in Colorado, which I carried in my chest at first. Although I happily left behind the humidity and the newfound layers of sweat that masks will make.

Here, I truly ran alone. Trialing new trails for short morning miles that trace the basin of the Colorado National Monument and returning to old favorites in the McInnis Canyons that offer up panoramic views in exchange for never-ending uphill climbs.

It’s true that we can’t control much these days. But I’m feeling lucky to have running as a mainstay through the pandemic. And, more than that, a new, non-race-related reason to challenge myself. Who needs a starting line, anyway?