By Tracy Zwick

Recently, in an article about Upper West Side running clubs, I mentioned how intimidating running felt to me a couple of years ago when I decided to run the NYC Marathon.

To my friends and family, it seemed an odd choice. I was going through a divorce, facing an empty nest, leaving my job, and moving, and I had never run a race in my life. I’d always thought 26.2 miles was bananas. I still do.

When I did run the NYC Marathon, it was a disaster. I’d trained alone, I didn’t properly hydrate during the race, and I beat myself up afterwards for not meeting a ludicrously ambitious finish-time goal.

But I kept running. And the people closest to me kept cheering me on. They didn’t see me as weak because of that initial flop. They saw me as strong, which I was. I found a running group I liked and made some new friends that aren’t so new anymore. I improved.

Last December, I ran my third marathon, this one in California, and I ran it fast enough to qualify for next year’s prestigious Boston Marathon. There’s some esoteric terminology in the world of running, and one acronym that carries particular reverence is the “BQ” – the Boston Marathon Qualifying Time.

Boston’s the hardest marathon to get into because of its demanding qualifying standards. Unlike New York and other races, which allow runners to enter via a lottery or general registration, as a charity fundraiser, or after running enough smaller races, Boston largely requires proof of speed and grit and performance. For the most part, Boston aspirants must have run a recent qualifying marathon in a dauntingly fast time to earn a spot on the starting line.

I’ll be on that starting line in Boston next April. But before then I’ll be on Staten Island to start my third TCS NYC Marathon this November 3rd. I’ve got nothing left to prove, so I’ll just be soaking up the energy and joy and vibe and love that permeate a city on a marathon Sunday. Come out to watch and cheer and have the best, most inspiring day of your life. As my family’s favorite coach, Chris Bennett of Nike Run Club, says: “Be a part of it, not apart from it.”

Though I belong to a running group, I still do the vast majority of my runs alone. I write during runs; I think during runs; I listen to music or coaching or the sounds of the city or nature. I watch the world. In the last few years I’ve started running with friends too; some from my pre-running life, but most I’ve met while running with groups.

I still don’t fully understand what drove me to run marathons at this level. I know this though: there are moments that test us, and moments when we test ourselves to see what we can bear, what we can handle, whether we can keep moving forward.

Perhaps I needed to figure out who and where I was in a difficult moment, and take some control over it. Whatever stirred me to run marathons seems to be passing, and I’ll be retiring after Boston and one last NYC run. I don’t feel a need to run them anymore. But I’ll keep running, and I’ll keep my running friends, for as long as I can.

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