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If you’ve kept up with me, you know that I’ve become an obnoxious runner. During what has become an incredibly trying year, this has been the second best thing that I’ve done for myself (the first has been getting engaged, duh). If you’ve followed from my 5k to my leg getting gashed up, you’ll know this wasn’t exactly the easiest race to run.
When I would run as a teenager, I never really thought that I’d run more than a 5k straight. I never really saw the practicality in doing so, but as I’ve started setting more and more goals for myself, I’m not trying to put a cap on what length I will run. After finishing my first 5k in October 2024, I knew I wanted to do a 10k, and as soon as I accidentally signed up for the NYCRuns half-marathon, I reallocated the race credits to a 10k.
I used some of those credits to do a 5k in February, where I faced off against my Ugly Flamingos co-producer Sean Barry. It doesn’t matter who won, because we both did it for ourselves. Still, I won, and I want you to know which comedian ran faster. Call me an elite athlete.
Getting to the 10k mark wasn’t easy. At the beginning of January, I tripped in the back half of a 10k run in Astoria and banged up my knee pretty bad. Almost all of my training was done throughout a bitter, cold winter. It also came as my mental health dropped to lows that I didn’t really feel like it could. Especially in the weeks leading up to the 10k, my Saturday long runs felt like a battle to get out the door. If you follow me on Instagram, you know that most of my running update Stories were detailing how down I’d been feeling.
Race morning came on Saturday, April 5. I was, yet again, not in a great place. I had slept poorly, and there were times that I thought about just eating the cost to stay in bed. I can’t help that sometimes I don’t want to do the things that I have committed to. When I left my apartment, I was not dressed for the temperature, but it wasn’t nearly as cold as I anticipated it being. I sped walk to the subway, and I rode the train down to the south side of Manhattan, and I lined up with other runners to get on a ferry to Governor’s Island.
While I didn’t mind the cold when I left at 6am, the wind coming off the water was much worse by 7am. It didn’t really let up once on Governor’s Island either. Rain was also clearly a threat, but it held off, save for a light sprinkling before the race began. I wished I’d left a little later and caught a later ferry. I was cold, tired, and bored. My headphones are old, so I tried to avoid using them until 15 minutes before race time. I didn’t anticipate that I wouldn’t really have good cell service and struggle to stream music once the race began (it was fine). Since this race was to benefit Broadway Cares, I tried to enjoy showtunes played on speakers before the race started, but at this point in my life, I can’t really do so anymore.
As we lined up to race, I started addressing my phone issues. I got the tunes to start playing as the national anthem was sung. As people started to move, I got going. Unlike my previous NYCRuns race, the road wasn’t being shared with the public. Everyone on Governor’s Island that Saturday was there to race (or watch someone racing). It was liberating to have the space to spread out. As with each race previously, I started with Kendrick Lamar’s “euphoria,” but the shuffle gave me a pretty happy mix of songs.
Even on a dreary Saturday, Governor’s Island is a great place to run. With the views of the Statue of Liberty, One World Trade, and Staten Island Ferry going by, it was easy to keep engaged and motivated. I took a few instances to film as I went, and I noticed other runners doing the same. There was also enough variation on the course that things stayed interesting, even going around twice. The truest burst of energy came when the third song that played was Turnstile’s “T.L.C.” I have this rule where if a song is under two minutes long, I have to sprint (or at least pick up the pace for it). Usually it’s nice when it’s later in a run, because it’ll give me a burst of energy to finish, but instead, I was only past mile 1. My second mile ended up being my fastest mile of the whole race.
I generally avoided checking my watch the whole time, but I kept track as I was passing the signs with the race time on them. Ultimately, my goal was to run the race in less than an hour. Going in, my best time for a 10k was 61:29. I had to shave 90 seconds off for the end. As I passed the 6 mile sign, I saw that I had a few minutes left until I got to the hour. In turn, I knew I was going to meet my goal, but the question was how much. As “Yankee and the Brave (ep. 4)” by Run the Jewels ended, I heard a song that I’d heard many times on runs, at shows, speeding down highways, alone with my headphones on, and at 26th birthday parties. “Cigarette smokes dances back in the window, and I can see the haze on the dome light.” The lines came as I was in the home stretch like a prayer.
I was prepared to let the final section be a more laidback pace, knowing I’d meet my goals. That was until “Passing Through a Screen Door” came on. The first single from The Wonder Years’ seminal 2013 album The Greatest Generation is easily one of the band’s most high energy. It’s a song about feeling lost, unsure about the path you’ve set for yourself. While you watch everyone around you seem to succeed, it’s easy to feel like you’re in a rut. The past few weeks, I’d really let everything get the best of me. I’d felt like I’d wasted so much of my 20s pursuing careers in journalism and comedy, and at 30, I’ve had little to show for it. People tell me that they have a lot of respect for the fact that I’ve become a dedicated runner, but that’s also something that very often I feel like I have nothing to show for it, other than these stats and finish times. As I crossed the finish line, I couldn’t hear what showtune was playing over the speaker, but as I was in the home stretch, I did hear the first verse’s lines:
The highway won I’m listening to traffic reports one on one Coming quietly undone I was born to run Away from anything good An escape artist’s son Sun-drenched pavement in my blood
I could hear the announcer say my name as I barreled down. I glanced at the clock as I crossed the finish line: 59:30. I was at least 30 seconds faster than my goal. My NYCRuns account tells me that my race time was 58:52. My Apple Watch told me that I ran the 10k in 58:17. Like with the 5k, I am going with the fastest time. My average pace was a 9:22/mile, which is much faster than I’m used to. When I do 10k on my own, my later miles are usually between 10 and 11 minutes, but the fact that I never got slower than 9:33 is something that I am proud of.
While running the 10k doesn’t really change much about my situation, and my mental health will likely return to where it’s been. I still feel like I’ve been riding the dopamine high from completing that race and hitting my time. I am retiring my 10k playlist, and I am beginning a new playlist to prepare for a half-marathon. God help us all.
Here is what came up as I ran the 10k:
Kendrick Lamar – euphoria
Fall Out Boy – Saturday
Turnstile – T.L.C. (TURNSTILE LOVE CONNECTION)
Japandroids – Younger Us
My Chemical Romance – Skylines and Turnstiles
Van Halen – Panama
Koyo – 51st State
The Gaslight Anthem – Little Fires (feat. Bully)
The Hold Steady – Rock Problems
The Wonder Years – Year of the Vulture
The Menzingers – Sun Hotel
The Wonder Years – My Life as Rob Gordon
Soul Glo – Jump!! (Or Get Jumped!!!)((by the future))
Koyo – Anthem
Pulling Teeth – Stonethrowers
One Step Closer – Color You
Led Zeppelin – Rock and Roll
Run the Jewels – Yankee and the Brave (ep. 4)
The Wonder Years – Passing Through a Screen Door