Running with a Police Escort Read online

  What kind of late twentysomething breaks a bone attempting to relive some naive dream to be a fucking roller derby girl?

  I do. Me. This one right here. I’m that kind of girl.

  So I should have known better than to just assume that going from the comfort of a temperature-controlled gym to the brave outdoors would be an easy transition.

  For one thing, temperature is not the only thing controlled when you’re running inside on a treadmill. Your pace is, too: there is a belt that maintains a predetermined speed which means you maintain a predetermined speed. Maintaining the exact same speed over a long distance is hard, yo. Most runners aim for and admire other runners who have negative splits, meaning runners who successfully get faster with each mile. Me, though, I have great respect for the pacers. Those runners who sometimes carry signs on wooden sticks with the expected finish time so those in the pack know who to keep up with if they are looking to finish a half or full marathon in a certain time. Those pacers are hard-core and have the ability to keep a steady and constant pace for the duration of an entire race. They are like the human equivalent of a treadmill.

  All those weeks on the treadmill, I never paid any attention to the data. I ran when my Couch to 5K app told me I should run, and I walked when it told me I should walk, and I stopped when the daily program stopped.

  Outside, though, I not only had the Couch to 5K app, I had the option of using other apps, too. Ones that utilize GPS to track distance and pace in a real-world context and not just the drumming of a belt around a loop.

  Running through that crisp air that hovered between the briskness of winter and the warm of seasons to come, I ran around my neighborhood, up and down the streets, following the natural curve of the Cuyahoga. My body was challenged as it adapted to the new environment around me. I had to watch for cars and approach intersections with caution. About halfway through that initial outdoor run, I paused briefly on the sidewalk and a passing white car honked. When I looked up, the driver was giving me a thumbs-up sign.

  That was my first introduction to the supportive community that is running.

  At the end of my run I checked the app on my phone that had been tracking my distance and speed to see how long it had taken me to run that first full mile.

  Sixteen minutes.

  Being a new runner, I didn’t think anything of it. Okay, so it took me sixteen minutes to run a mile. It’s certainly faster than the twenty-plus it took me to walk it in high school.

  Not being a runner, not coming from a running family, and not having any previous exposure to the sport, I didn’t really know what made one fast or slow. I didn’t know that things like 5- and 6-minute miles existed in mortal men but even if I had, I don’t know if it would have made any difference in my positive attitude towards my own speed. I was still so enraptured with the idea that I was running that how fast or slow I was running didn’t really seem to matter. Without anyone else to compare my own progress to, I just did my own thing.

  But I soon realized that if I was going to keep doing my own thing then I really needed to do it in a pair of appropriate shoes. The very basic pair of athletic shoes I had purchased years ago at a big-box store got the job done up until this point, but if I was serious about this and going to be a serious runner and do serious runner things then I needed a serious pair of shoes.

  Running as an activity is pretty inexpensive. While special gear exists and exists in abundance—heart rate monitors, GPS watches, pouches or arm sleeves for your phone, etc.—none of it is necessary to be a runner. You can buy fancy patterned running tights and celebrity-endorsed athletic tops, but you can just as easily be a successful runner wearing a pair of shorts you found on the cheap and a ratty tee shirt you pulled out of your closet.

  Know what’s not inexpensive? Decent running shoes.

  But if you’re a serious runner and want to do serious runner things, decent running shoes are a necessity. Wearing the wrong pair of shoes can lead to injury, which can lead to your running career ending before it even begins. While dropping a couple hundred dollars on a pair of shoes that you’ll inevitably need to replace every few months (depending on how often you run) might seem overly expensive, that couple hundred is way cheaper than any hospital bills that may pop up after a serious running injury.

  When I started, I naively thought all running shoes were created equal. Alas, they are not, mostly because not all runners and feet are created equal. Not all stores that sell running shoes are created equal either.

  Over lunch with my friend Staci one weekend, I was talking about a need for new running shoes when she mentioned she used to work at a specialty running store. “They’ll look at your feet and find you a pair of shoes that fits the way you run.” Big-box athletic stores, she explained, won’t do that. In terms of selling general sports equipment, they are good at their job. But when it comes to something as individual and intimate as running shoes, they are a bit out of their depth because it isn’t their sole focus. Specialty running stores specialize in merchandise specifically for runners and their employees are trained in helping runners find the right running shoe. The kind of running shoe that will minimize risk of injury and work with my feet, not against them.

  True to Staci’s word, my old shoes got a thorough examination as the employee at Cleveland Running Company looked at the wear and tear pattern my running stride had left behind. Then my feet got an equally detailed analysis, as the sales clerk looked at the arch and other things completely unseen to my naked eye. From underneath the bench she pulled a metal measurement device out and measured my foot.

  After taking it all in, she went to the wall of shoes and pulled a pair down and handed them to me. I tried on the first pair and flexed my feet a little, adjusting to the fit. My idea of shoes for any sort of sport was a heavy, solid thing. These were so light and airy, they felt like slippers. There was no way I could possibly run in these, which is what I told her when she asked how they fit.

  With a nod, she went back to the wall and pulled another pair of shoes down, a pair that looked much more like what I had in mind.

  I laced up the shoes and stood up, bouncing on my heels a little. Eyeing my feet closely, she asked how they felt.

  “Much better,” I answered.

  She nodded. “Good,” she said, nodding towards the door at the front of the store. “You can go outside if you want to try them out.”

  I furrowed my brow. “Outside?”

  “Sure,” she said. “You can just run up and down out on the sidewalk.”

  Still perplexed, I continued to just stand there.

  A small smile appeared. “It’s okay, I promise. You need to be able to try them out.”

  Even though she had given me the go ahead, and even though this was clearly something real runners did all the time, I pushed open the door with trepidation and stepped outside wearing the shoes. It felt so wrong to wear fancy expensive shoes I hadn’t paid for outside. And then to actually, y’know, go running in them outside.

  But run I did. The sidewalk outside was covered by an awning and I did a short jog up the block, past the other stores in the shopping strip, then turned around and came back.

  Walking back inside, I gave her a single nod and said, “I’ll take them.”

  With that single purchase, I had made a decision. Running shoes are not cheap, not by any stretch of the imagination, and by putting my money where my mouth was I had committed to seeing this through.

  I was already a runner. A real runner. But with that purchase of shoes, I now actually felt like one.

  As much as I talk about living in a very industrial section of Cleveland, I am still blessed to live in a city that takes pride in providing its residents with lots of public green spaces. The Cleveland Metroparks encompass over 20,000 acres of networked parks that include rivers, walking and biking trails, education centers, golf courses … pretty much anything and everything you could think of to fit into 20,000 acres of open public space.
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br />   From my apartment, the closest of these parks is Edgewater Beach, situated on the near West Side of the city. Bumping up against Lake Erie, the park offers magnificent views of both downtown and the coast. A multilevel park, the lower level has the actual beach and a big paved loop that is almost exactly one mile around. Near the parking lot, the loop branches off to a quarter-mile hill that takes runners and walkers up to the upper level which has its own loop that is about half a mile around.

  When I first moved to Cleveland, I had a limited view of how much this city had to offer. Technically I live downtown, although because I live on the West Side of the Cuyahoga I consider myself a West Sider. Like many cities with delineated neighborhoods, there is a fierce loyalty when it comes to the East Side versus West Side conversation amongst residents. Even now, seven years after moving back, I still feel like I need a passport to visit the east side of the city.

  My friends lived in a nearby neighborhood, Tremont, with another neighborhood, Ohio City, sandwiched between us, so, for the most part, these were the two neighborhoods I visited regularly. Rarely did I venture to the suburbs, even those on the West Side, no matter how close I was to the city limits. This meant that Edgewater Park, which is situated roughly halfway between my apartment and the city of Lakewood, was virtually unknown territory to me.

  Here’s the thing: once you run outside, it’s really hard to go back to running inside. Especially when you don’t have to. Once I started not only running outside but running in the morning, I suddenly would spend all day at my job dreading having to get on the treadmill after work. Morning running is my mojo. I not only had those endorphins with me all day long, but when I got home from work I was done for the evening. I could just decompress from the day and relax. Eventually I took advantage of the fact that the C25K program is flexible and moved my running schedule around a little bit. Instead of running twice a week after work and Friday mornings, I now was going to run Wednesday mornings before work on the treadmill and Friday and Sunday mornings outside.

  I had been running outside in my neighborhood for a couple weeks when one morning I woke up and decided I wanted to try running in the park. It was a gorgeous day and I had the whole morning ahead of me. More than anything, I wanted a change of scenery.

  After parking my car, I walked across the small parking lot and kept walking across the loop to the beach. The waves of Lake Erie lapped up against the sand and I just took a moment to breathe in the serene scene in front of me. I plugged my earbuds in, the music thumping through, and set off on a short two-mile run.

  Because it was a weekday morning and most people were at work, I pretty much had the entire park to myself except for a few retirees walking their dogs. For two miles, two turns around that main loop, I just ran and ran and ran. I didn’t have to watch for cars or worry about oncoming traffic. I didn’t have to stop at intersections and wait to make sure it was safe to cross. The retirees and I would exchange brief nods and smiles as we passed each other but other than those small exchanges, I was completely on my own and in my own head.

  It was nothing short of glorious.

  The body is an amazing machine capable of achieving so much, physically. Running indoors on the treadmill always made me feel strong because I was doing something I’d never done before, but running outdoors and having the ability and mental space to really tap in and just zone out and only focus on my run made me feel ready to conquer the world.

  I was a runner. It didn’t matter how fast—or, in my case, how slow—I went. It didn’t matter how long it took me to run those two miles because I ran those two miles.

  After that, I turned to the treadmill only out of desperation and spent all week looking forward to those outdoor runs at Edgewater. I was still making my way through the Couch to 5K app, running three times a week, my walking intervals getting shorter and shorter with each run.

  So, this one particular Friday I was up earlier than normal and found myself anxiously waiting for the initial glimmer of a pink sunrise over the downtown horizon. The air was still cool enough to require an extra layer of clothing, but as soon as it was light enough, I grabbed my gear and headed to Edgewater Park for my run.

  My plan was an easy two miles, which was twice around the main big loop at the park. Two easy, peasy miles. With the bright rays of sun bouncing off the surface of Lake Erie, I cued up my running playlist on my phone and off I went.

  As I came up to the crest of the loop on my second lap I realized I didn’t want to stop. I felt like I was flying, as if wings had sprouted from the blades of my shoulders, carrying me back and forth across the park. Instead of being tired, my legs felt strong and powerful, calves ready for more work.

  So I just kept right on running, going one more whole lap plus just a little bit extra for good measure.

  Cruising to a stop, I caught my breath and pulled out my cell phone to check the distance on my app. Immediately I texted my sister: I just ran 3.1 miles! Do you know what that means?

  Her response was almost instantaneous: You just ran a 5K!

  Two months ago I wasn’t a runner. Hell, two months ago I don’t even know if I could have run, but here I was running 3.1 miles. Not only running 3.1 miles, but running 3.1 spontaneous, unplanned miles.

  In that moment, endorphins and pride coursing through my body, it was decided:

  I was going to sign up for a race.

  3

  Hills Like White Elephants

  Living in Cleveland not only means I get to call THE BEST CITY IN THE ENTIRE WORLD my home, but it also means living in a rich and illustrious city with a history lesson around every corner. Including the story of Jeptha Homer Wade.

  Originally from New York, industrialist and philanthropist Jeptha Homer Wade made his money as a telegraph pioneer in the 1850s, overseeing the construction of thousands of lines of communication all across the Midwest. By 1856, after a series of acquisitions and consolidations of smaller companies, these lines morphed into the Western Union Telegraph Company, and Wade, the company’s first general agent, eventually becoming president of Western Union in 1866.

  Telegraphy was sort of like the nineteenth century version of texting, in that it was a long-distance, text-based form of communication different from, say, the telephone. Before this, friends and family had to communicate via letters, delivered by hand (or boat, or horse, or some other antiquated mode of transportation that we would scoff at using seriously now). Mail delivery services could take weeks just to go one way, then the same time for a response, and that’s if traveling conditions were ideal.

  These days, single people are ready to move on if their latest Tinder swipe doesn’t respond back within a matter of minutes, so just imagine trying to date that way.

  (Then again, I’m a ripe old thirty-five-year-old who is already settled and Tinder intimidates the hell out of me, so dating by letters doesn’t sound too shabby after all. If nothing else, if I didn’t like the response, or didn’t get one, I could just pretend it got lost or something.)

  Needless to say, the introduction of a faster transatlantic mode of communication was a Big Fucking Deal and ol’ Jeptha Homer Wade was in on the ground floor.

  Around the same time as Western Union’s launch, Wade and his family settled in Cleveland, opting to live in a mansion along the city’s famous Euclid Avenue.

  Running northeast through the downtown district, the lavish Euclid Avenue was internationally known as the home of distinguished residents during the late nineteenth and into the early twentieth century. The elm-lined street, with its opulent mansions and extravagant gardens, attracted enlightened and illustrious men of the era, including John D. Rockefeller and John Hay, personal secretary to Abraham Lincoln. So posh were its denizens, that it was often compared to Paris’s Avenue des Champs-Elyséés.

  Jeptha Homer Wade was among this avenue’s inhabitants and owned a substantial piece of land on the east side of the city. In 1872, sensing an opportunity, he began to convert that land
into a public park. Ten years later, he offered seventy-five acres to the city, with the understanding that any further development would keep the land in use as a public park that would always be open to the public.

  This gift, along with the small herd of white-tailed American deer that came with it, became the inauspicious beginnings of Cleveland’s first zoo.

  As the city grew in size and scope, the area surrounding Wade Park branched out, eventually becoming the city’s focal point for cultural facilities. This meant that when the Cleveland Museum of Art opened in 1916 and the city wanted to take advantage of the lush green space of Wade Park to enhance the museum’s exterior ambiance, the city decided to relocate the zoo from its East Side location to its current location on the West Side.

  Today, the zoo’s over 2,000 animals make their home inside the perimeters of a 185-acre park situated on the south West Side of the city. Part of the larger urban metroparks, the zoo is located in a valley visible from the freeways rising high above. Homes along the neighboring streets have open views to peer down into the animal homestead. Full of green grass, walking paths, and a wide variety of animals to view, the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo is a substantial entertainment attraction within the city, garnering over one million visitors a year.

  Growing up in the suburbs of Northeast Ohio there was inevitably that one warm day in May towards the end of every school year when my classmates and I all were all piled into a big, bright yellow school bus and driven up to the big, bright city for a field trip.

  I loved going on field trips as a kid, mostly because it was the one day a year my mom let me pack something other than a boring sandwich for lunch. Field trips meant Lunchables, and whenever I had one coming up my mom took me to the store and let me pick out whatever variety of Lunchables I wanted. I gazed at the neon yellow packaging with stars in my eyes, completely overwhelmed by the sheer number of options available to me under the fluorescent lights of the refrigerated section of the grocery store.