This Weekend in Pittsburgh We #RunForBoston

On Sunday, I'll Be Running

I've taken my last run and my training is complete. 

When I get home tonight I'll pack my romance novels and my running shoes, and tomorrow morning I'm off to Pittsburgh for race weekend. I'll be spending the weekend with my parents and, much to my delight and excitement, my sister, who decided to drive in for the weekend with my niece and nephew.

Since I'm pretty much always training for something, I've already decided what race will be next, but more on that next week. 

Today, I'm thinking about Sunday, and I'm thinking about the past six months of running to prepare for this day. 

I don't think it's dramatic to say that training for this race saved my sanity. I didn't realize or anticipate how hard our transition from Manhattan to the suburbs would be, and through the complications and the anxiety and the turmoil that comes with moving and owning a house, running was my constant. 

Running was what I did when I didn't know what else to do. It was the thing I could do when I missed the city so much that it was hard to breathe. It was the thing I could do when I felt like our new house would never feel like home. It was the thing I could do when I needed to be reminded that I was still me, no matter where I was living. 

Nothing ever seemed quite as bad, and I never felt quite as sad, when my running shoes were hitting the pavement in that familiar staccato rhythm. Running untangled the knots that seemed to be permanent fixtures in my stomach, and it transported me to another place. A happy place.

Tomorrow morning is the six month anniversary of our move. And as I board the plane that will take me to the race I will take a minute to give thanks. 

To be grateful that our life in the city is no longer a painful memory, but something that I can look back on and smile. To be grateful that our house is now a home. To be grateful for the friends we have made and the neighborhood that we enjoy.

To be grateful for this sport that I love so fiercely, that gives me the clarity I need when I feel like I am floundering in darkness.

I am many things. I am a wife, a sister, a daughter and a friend. I am a lawyer and a writer. I am a homeowner and a brand new suburban resident. But even as I am all of these things, most of all I am a runner.

And this coming Sunday, as the sun rises over the city of Pittsburgh and the starting gun goes off, I will be running.

#OnYourRun Contest...Top Five Finalist

Four days from now, I will have hopefully crossed the finished line of the Pittsburgh Half Marathon for the second time.

One of the really fun things about this race is how involved the entire city gets in the months before the starting gun, and on race day. Pittsburghers really love their sports, and the marathon is no exception.

Two weeks ago, University of Pittsburgh Health Plans - the sponsor of the half marathon - started a contest called #OnYourRun. The rules were pretty simple. Take a picture of something you see on your run and post it on Instagram with the hashtag #OnYourRun. They would choose what they thought were the best five pictures, and let the public vote on them.

Since I started blogging over a year ago, I have also become a bit of a photographer. I keep my phone in hand all the time and snap picture everywhere I go. And since I love taking random shots of the scenery while I run, the contest was the perfect fit.

So, I entered the picture above. 

The scene is a park down the street from my house that I run past all the time. The day after the Boston Marathon bombings, I set out for my morning run still shaken, confused and heartbroken over the events of the previous day. In the middle of my second mile, I passed by the park, and saw the flag flying at half staff, like all the other flags around the country. And in the quiet stillness of daybreak, I took the picture and then stood a minute longer, thinking of Boston and of running. And then I continued on, comforted somehow by this show of support in my hometown. 

Well, the picture I took made the top five, and voting is open through tomorrow night.

If you feel so inclined, click here to check out the five finalists and vote for your favorite (hopefully mine!).

My Books and Finding Order in Chaos

It was August. My wedding was in seven weeks and I had to be out of my apartment in two.

Since I was moving into David's when we got married and I would be traveling for most of the next seven weeks, I decided it would be easiest for me to move all my stuff into his apartment when my lease was up and live out of a suitcase until the wedding.

I had been moving things slowly for a couple weeks. Since I wasn't taking any furniture I decided to do it all myself. We lived twenty blocks apart after all, and I was at his apartment almost every day anyway. I just took stuff with me every time I went over, and it worked pretty well.

Until it didn't.

The third Tuesday in August started out fine, until I couldn't find the outfit I decided on for work. I rifled through my closet and drawers, but it was nowhere. In a flash, I knew what had happened.

It was in the bag of stuff I took to David's the night before.

A panic I was unaware had been simmering just under the surface started to rise.

I looked wildly around my chaotic room at shelves still half full, and piles of clothes and books waiting to be packed. My eyes fell on a stack of wedding presents in the corner, and I thought about similar such stacks in David's apartment, at my in-laws' in the Bronx, at my parents' in Pittsburgh.

My chest got tight, and my breath hitched.

Still in my underwear, I grabbed a massive rolling duffel and started throwing books in by the handful. When my entire collection - three hundred in all - was packed and I reached back to close the zipper, I saw the clock. If I didn't leave in two minutes, I would be seriously late for work.

I picked up the phone and called in sick, got dressed, and rolled that duffel straight out the door.

I hefted the bag into the first cab I saw and gave the driver David's address. David was already gone, so I let myself in and started unpacking.

When the bag was empty, I had books stacked all over the floor, but nowhere to put them. All the shelves were full.

Breathing hard with crazy eyes, I proceeded to take David's stuff off of every single shelf in the apartment, stack it all under the coffee table, and line up my books.

I figured David probably wouldn't be too pleased with my solo redecorating, and I spent the rest of the day preparing for a fight and figuring out how to explain that I needed all the shelves for myself and he had to find somewhere else for his stuff.

When I heard his key in the door later that night I forced myself to wait him out.

He walked in, saw the shelves and looked at me. I tensed, spoiling for the fight, expecting the explosion.

"So what's on TV tonight?" he asked.

Deck Demo, Weekend 2

Now, I ask you, isn't he the cutest thing you have ever seen?

Countdown

7 days until Pittsburgh.

9 days until the race.

Ready or not, here I come.