Home and Back Again

Dedicated to Bennett Shotwell - November 28, 1937 - February 23, 2012 - RIP

Last weekend I was in New Jersey, so this week’s missive is a two-fer.  The purpose of the visit was to spend the weekend with my father to celebrate his 80^th birthday.  I am lucky that my father is still alive and it was a wonderful weekend.  The festivities included going into Manhattan with my brother, Sam, to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  By coincidence my niece, Julia, was in Manhattan for a geography conference, so we had a mini-family reunion.  My father made some great food and I ate a bit too heartily.

The highlight for me was listening to my father discuss his art; sharing his insights into composition, technique and inspiration.  Professionally, my father spent his whole career designing curtains and bedspreads.  But at his core, he is an artist.  He and my mother raised five children in a cold, drafty, 4500 square foot Dutch Colonial in Montclair.  As I move through the adventures of life with my own family, I realize how difficult that was and feel more respect and love for the man.  My father had an impressive career and has a legacy of rooms full of artwork to prove it.  

I did manage to squeeze in a run, though.  Two and a half miles, as the crow flies, from my father’s house, atop the first Watchung Ridge sits the Eagle Rock Reservation.  The people of Essex County dedicated a memorial there to the fire fighters and police officers who gave their last full measure of devotion in the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001.

From that vantage point the view afforded is spectacular.  About 20 miles to the east lies the Manhattan skyline.  The Hudson River offers a buffer between the docks of Weehawken and Hoboken (birthplace of Frank Sinatra and where I proposed to my wife).  This is the area where, on January 15, 2009, Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger III safely landed the Airbus A320 he was piloting.  From where I stood I could see the new Freedom Tower.

I ran past parks I used to visit in my youth and the houses of old friends.  Altogether I covered 12 miles, climbing the Watchung Ridge three times.  As I ran past my old middle and high schools, two things occurred to me.  One is how little things have changed in the 25 + years since I lived at home and also how much smaller the area appears.  

I need no souvenir of my visit, save for the muscle memory of traversing the First Mountain three times.  There’s a sadness from the leaving; going away from the home I once knew, the place I call my home town.  It was a respite, a break from the routine; to honor a milestone, to feel the family, to breathe the heritage.  

Yesterday I ran 22.25 miles in 2:45; about 7:25 / mile pace.  It was a brutal run.  Bent over and gasping afterwards I grunted that I don’t know where the energy is going to come from to run four more miles.  One of the purposes of the long run is to prepare your body to run for the eventual race time.  So, time on your feet is the key.  

In other news, today was the March edition of the Rocky Mountain Road Runners Trophy Series; a three mile race around Crown Hill Park.  There was a stiff wind out of the west.  I covered the course in 18:06 with the following splits – 6:11, 6:01, 5:54.