During the other eleven months, I long for my warm, hilly, sometimes rainy, summer runs. Every year I face off with the four miles straight up of Dutchman's Hill and by the end of the month I have beaten the hill more times than it has beaten me. I watch my pace increase, feel the warm damp green-laden air soothing my Brooklyn lungs, feel my body growing stronger. With the rediscovery after thirty years of a 2nd cousin who, it turns out, is also a crazy distance runner, summer running has taken on even more significance in my life.
These hills of NEPA prepared me, five years ago, for my first marathon. I didn't understand how well they prepared me until I, totally unaware, pulled off a 3:38 fall marathon, at age 45, after less than a year of serious running. Last summer, after logging July miles together, my cousin and I ran 16 or so miles of the Steamtown Marathon here in PA, resulting in a 3:33:33 for me, my fastest marathon yet.
But most important to me right now is not my level of fitness or how I might show up in the 2014 Chicago Marathon. Most important is how, each and every time I run, I find the balance I seek from juggling life, hosting an endless string of wonderful and very welcome visiting friends, raising young children who are not spending their days in school and seem to need me for nearly everything, and trying desperately not to flood the septic tank. And most important is the sheer joy of logging mile after mile in this not-Brooklyn terrain with my summer strong legs and lungs, a like-minded running buddy, a calm focus, and my undying love for this beautiful endeavor.
