The Mighty Hudson, 2000
A story about running, falling, and getting back up
Ever since I started this newsletter, my goal has been to share everything I know and find out about running. Up until now, this communication has always been an abstraction, a meditation, on running. Whether it’s about finding shorts or shoes or navigating scheduling, it’s been me passing on to you what I’ve learned about the topic I chose for that week.
But that’s not very personal, is it? It doesn’t tell you really what I’ve gone through, as a runner in my runs, and I’d like to share that. So in the next few weeks, I’m going to start mixing in recollections of actual runs I’ve been on. I really like the idea of not only sharing what I’ve learned but also what I’ve experienced in running, and I hope you do, too.
So here’s the first one. It takes place in Manhattan, after I’d quit my college team but before I’d really gotten used to not having a team yet. I mostly felt disoriented when I ran in those days. The run starts and returns to Columbia University, where I went to undergrad and where you’ve probably read about protesters recently.
I’ve tried to tell each detail clearly and precisely, the way I experience reality when I run. I hope you like it; let me know in the comments! And for today, remember: go run.
Into the Park
The slope at 116th st down to Riverside Park is steep, one of the steepest in Manhattan, and you have to concentrate running down it or you might fall or skid out or run right into Riverside Drive, where people should go slowly but don’t and it would be very easy to get smashed up. We were lucky and caught the light, breathing rapidly already in the cold-moist November air as we crossed the Drive and ran across brick and cobblestone to the downward stairway into the park. The giant trees closed over us, their branches moving in the wind that sweeps up from the river. The dead brown leaves that clung to them made paper-shuffling sounds as we jumped from one granite step to the other, hitting the park pavement together and increasing our pace now that we had gained level ground.
The park is never silent. Dogs strain on leashes and couples walk in soft conversation in the darkness. Some people walk alone. But there is space. In Manhattan, there are never no people, but sometimes you can find space. Some folks will tell you not to run in parks at night, but Les and I were together and anyway, we ran fast. That was our main defense, we said to each other, and we didn’t think about it too much. No one disturbed us. We ran too fast.
Gray and brown and black enveloped us as. Iron-stemmed street lamps cast soft light through the tulip curves of their glass shades, barely penetrating the humid air. To our right the Hudson River rushed by: a gigantic, silent rope of pure, cold water. Sometimes it rushes uptown, north, and sometimes it rushes downtown, south, to New York Harbor, but in the darkness we couldn’t tell; it was simply massive, and the lights of what we knew to be New Jersey were pleasantly small: Christmas lights hung across a mile-wide, empty ballroom. For long blocks the West Side Highway runs far above us on our left, then suddenly descends almost violently to meet us at the river’s edge.
The park narrows itself abruptly there, cut off by the curve of highway concrete. A stream of cars followed this curve, pinning itself to the river’s side, and we were left on a dirt footpath, packed but full of jutting rocks.*
By the River
We will run this path for several hundred yards before we find the park again. The Hudson laps and sucks greedily at the rocks just below us on our right; car headlights streak by on our left, separated by a ragged old metal barrier.
Over the traffic, over the river, I can’t hear Les’ breathing; she is just kicked up heels that appear and disappear in front of me. We’re in the run now, our heads bowed, our arms swinging evenly. We are not silent, since we never are. She tells me about her day, shouting out in front of her, over the traffic, over the river, while I listen and remember what I want to say when we can run side by side again. The person in back never talks when runners run in a line; it’s futile; no one can hear you. We concentrate on keeping our footing on the dirt path between the uneven rocks. One step after another, with the cars rushing by.
Suddenly, Les falls.
All my weight is pitched forward and in motion; I cannot stop. I fall on her heels. In my mind, the fall is slow, so slow. Slow enough for me to avoid the sharp, twisted steel highway barrier and the low, crumbling concrete wall dividing our footpath and the river. I catch her ankles, afraid that the weight of my fall and the wet barrier surface will push over the low wall and into the river. I press my knees, as they fall, into the dirt, which crumbles and gives way beneath me until they grate into piles of dirt and gravel and sand, bringing us both to a halt.
Get Up
We are on hands and knees and I open my eyes to see the black water sucking at rocks below me. The rush of cars and the weight of their displaced air surrounds me and I know we are invisible to the cars beyond the barrier. I wonder what any driver who might have seen us go down thought. That driver must be down on 76th st by now. Maybe 59th; they go so fast. Maybe not; time seems to have lengthened for me but it was probably only a few seconds between running and complete stop, complete collapse. I swallow and feel the solid droplets of water from the river’s edge slide down my throat, more substantial than mere humidity. Rain almost, but suspended in the air.
Les gets up on her knees. “Are you okay?” she asks, looking at her palms. They are scraped and cut by the rocks.
“Yes, are you?” I ask her.
“Yeah I’m fine. Let’s go.” She’s already standing up, a single, small figure irregularly illuminated by the frenetic headlights traveling only inches away. “Let’s go.” She says again. I can tell she’s annoyed that her run has been interrupted and that now she is dirty and scraped up, and I admire her because her resolution is to start again as quickly as possible. Many people misread her desire to move past annoyance as cold or snobbish, but it is neither of those things; it is purposeful and impatient.
I stand. There is a hole in my navy blue leggings at the right knee. These are my best leggings, thick enough to run in during the winter, and for a moment I’m afraid I will have to buy new ones which I can’t afford. But it’s a hole, a neat puncture, not a tear, and will not tear any more. It’s small and does not let much cold through.
We are now two figures in the flashing, insane procession of headlights. The footpath is only a few dozen more yards; then the park begins again and the highway recedes back up its incline and away from us. We look at each other and then she turns away from me, leaning forward to continue. I let her get a few feet in front of me and then I lean over, make a small hop, and run again.
*I think this has changed now, but then it was just a dirt path.
A fine piece of writing!