FARTHER

i was talking to the other kids last night at drinks.
that a lot of times the reason why i/we stop running is not because our bodies give out, but more because we mentally give up.
or the ipod goes dead.
or we get bored.
so this morning before i came to work i decided to extend my run.
started in soho then looped around west village
continued all the way down the hudson river
to the merril lynch towers and back.
farther.
felt good.

AN ODE TO BRIDGES

i did manage to get over and back the williamsburg last sunday.

huff huff huff up and then maniacal clatter of legs one after the other calves ligaments hamstrings clockwork tumbling down. it wasnt as hard as i thought it would be because the incline up is actually pretty gentle and the slope down is fun.

i realize im sounding like a soft-boiled emotional egg saying this but there is something about the physical construct of bridges that touches me and makes me feel in awe.

often times cycling back and forth the williamsburg bridge this summer, when i speed under the huge web of grey beams spanning over i strain my neck to look up, watch beam after beam loom and disappear.

my legs click into autopilot circles, the lactic pain is building but somehow distant as these beams go by and both manhattan and brooklyn flicker from static buildings to blurring sprawls of land. its all mesmerizing.

i used to be obsessed with imagining about how the first bridge conceptually evolved in someone's head. i mean. when u think about it. it must've been something rather romantically and irrationally resplendent.

i like to believe it began with someone thinking, i am here but i want to go there. over this colossal body of water. (impossible.) i want to walk on water. (impossible.) i am going to build something more than a billion times bigger than myself so that i can make this world a bit smaller. (also impossible, but i will do it.) and so bridges were built. first one, then another, then a thousand others.

i think my children will grow up with a seriously warped sense of reality because these are the kind of stories i am very likely to tell them instead of ones that are factually true. anyway. how did i get here.

yes. i like to cycle and run over bridges.

YOSHIMI BATTLES THE PINK ROBOTS

is a song i used to listen all the time in my final year at georgetown when i went running along the potomac river.

these were taken in brooklyn gardens during the cherry blossom festival.

a group of us had been running earlier and paulina and i were so amused with the number of americans doing taichi on the grass. and after sometime of squinting at them in silence, we felt compelled to "represent" and lead the masses with our version 4.0 of crouching tiger hidden dragon.

i miss the sun. i like spring - running or biking as the days stretch out longer and longer. so much potential. the energy humming in the air, an undercurrent mmmmmmmm. molecules reverberating. everything calls, come play.

fall makes me sad. 7 years and im still not used to days getting shorter, to wool and big buttons and mitten gloves. people confront the cold with, "ah refreshing!" and to me its more like, "ah depressing." where goes the sun?

the challenge im setting myself this year is that im not going to let the cold stop me from running. come hell, fire or ice water i am going to run outside. even if this means i OD on layering and end up resembling one maniacal human marshmallow sprinting down soho, yes that's right, catch me if u can.

ok we'll see.

THE UPCOMING WILLIAMSBURG BRIDGE CHALLENGE, PENGUINS AND OTHER THINGS

i felt better and ran wed, thurs, fri morning.

on friday i tried running withough my ipod because i left my nano at the office.
i thought i would give up sooner, having no pain distraction, but i surprisingly ran even longer as i was unaware of time passing.

i ran towards wall street, weaving in and out of the oncoming traffic of corporate penguins pottering towards work.

i am amused.

i wonder what each of them are thinking.
i wonder if they have stories like mine, loves like mine, places they left behind to be here - but all different ofcourse, because these things are theirs not mine.

i think about how in the next half an hour, i will hop into the shower, and put on my own penguin suit - though because i work in advertising i am given the perogative to dress up like a dolphin or seahorse if i so desire.

but we all do pretty much the same thing.

not running today because rob has decided to do what he calls the "williamsburg challenge" tomorrow sunday and i decided to join him. what both us amateur runners will be challenging each other is to run across the williamsburg bridge and back.

small feat to most but i think it will be quite challenging for us, ok me.

will report back.

SHARK!

when i was about 5 or 6 my parents enrolled me into swimming class at the country club.
each lesson was a 2 hour affair which took place twice a week.

they were led by a dark leathery man in a wetsuit called vincent, whose patience and life-saving skills, a gaggle of splashing 6 to 8 year olds felt unremmitingly compelled to test.

towards the end of every lesson uncle vincent made us work on building our stamina by making us do laps to and fro the length of the olympic pool. They started with 10, and then 20. By the time I was 8, I was doing 30-40 frogger style pulls across the perfectly rectangular pond at the end of every class.

the problem with laps is that repetition makes them boring. so over time i developed tactics that made the experience of doing something so goddamn monotonous more fun and interesting.

i began swimming with my eyes shut. and in the darkness of my sealed lids, id imagine myself being chased by a great white. the thought was deliciously thrilling. as simultaneous shoots of panic and lactic acid made me clock my laps in less time. arms legs thrashing in desperate attempt to flee an invisible phantom.

the great white chased me for another 2 more years and then i quit swimming lessons with uncle vincent altogether.

swimming repetitive laps and running isnt that different. u are essentially doing the same thing. keeping your limbs moving in a uniform sequence.

alot of people complain running is boring. as is swimming.

unlike other sports these activities do not entail your mind and body to constantly react to, defend or attack external agents. its persistently monotonous and maybe because of that, it allows those who do it to be more introspective or in my case of my 8 year old self, more creative and imaginative.

BICYCLE MUSINGS

fall has finally seeped in and my body rejects the change.
not thrilled.
throat hurts.
been popping tylenols like tic tacs.
my head feels heavy and warm
but im freezing and my fingertips are like icicles ticking away on these alphabet tiles.
i ran before work last friday.
hibernated on saturday until late afternoon.
spent the rest of sunday cycling around williamsburg art galleries with 2 other friends.
the_ex and rob.
i now realize how comfortable i have gotten with running and biking with rob.
only when a 3rd person enters our tandem, do i realize that there was a nice little equilibrium to start with which has now been wobbled.
i like that there is no social-babysitting between rob and i
that i dont feel like i have to make conversation with him.
that we can go for long periods of time without talking to each other.
each plugged into our own ipods at times -
but we are still beside each other doing the same thing.

HELLO HAMSTER

i quit my gym membership 4 months ago.

it finally occured to me that i do enough hamster wheeling at work to jump on an elliptical or running machine after 8 to physically replicate the same action.

it was the start of summer when i threw in the nubbly gym towel. but now that fall is here and the thought of running in the nipping cold seems less and less appealing, i may need to reconsider this hamster thing. fuck.