No Longer "Training"

It's over and I did it! I finished the New York City Marathon. It was an amazing experience that I haven't fully processed since I finished less than 24 hours ago, but I know that the magnitude of completing this insane race will hit me at some point.

I've lived in NYC for over six years, but seeing the city as a Marathoner is like no other view. I wanted to absorb every inch of it. I took some pictures with my phone, but I don't know how to upload them to my computer. I'll figure it out.

I must say it's weird for me to be at a point where I'm not training for the Marathon. I mean, I've been training for almost two years. I was supposed to run it last year, but due to the events surrounding my break-up, I decided to postpone it. So I've been training for this race since January 2004. Scary! It's actually quite freeing to not be training anymore. I can enjoy running again...I never liked training. It makes running not fun.

I gathered some observations along the 26.2 miles to post here:

• New York is awesome! People from every walk of life came out not only to run the race, but to cheer people on. I had written my name on my shirt in bright markers and it truly felt like the entire city knew me.

• Brooklyn is even more awesome! Brooklynites totally represented. They lined all the streets, even the obscure ones and it was a full-fledged party in downtown Brooklyn. I am so proud that I live there.

• I am so proud to be a black woman. If you haven't noticed, running isn't really a black thang. It is an African thang, but for the most part there usually aren't very many people of color running in the pack, just chugging along. I've become used to this. However, yesterday, every time I passed a group of black spectators in any borough, especially black women, I got extra love. We all knew what the extra love was about, no explanations were necessary. We knew without knowing that I needed the extra support and that my running was bigger than me for that moment. We communicated through the louder cheers and the bigger "thank you" smiles. I LOVED that part of the Marathon.

• This city is mad diverse in its architecture.

• I have been born and raised in the world of theatre. Even as my career path has moved away from the stage, I'm still connected to it. In theatre, saying "Good Luck!" is the worst possible thing you could do. It creates bad luck. You are supposed to say "Break a leg!" That is really ingrained in my psyche. So yesterday, when everyone was saying "good luck," I wanted to say "Stop! You're jinxing me!" But on the other hand, telling a bunch of runners "break a leg" isn't really appropriate. So I decided to suck up my superstition for one day.

So now I'm on to my next thing: my leave of absence. I'm going on disability for the rest of the year to fully deal with all the mental health issues I've been having without fear of losing my job. More on that later...