I Left A Part Of Me Back In New York

By: Mimi Albert

I said goodbye to New York City 8 years ago. In the cab ride to JFK, looking back over the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge, I told myself to remember that moment. To take a mental snapshot of the image of Manhattan in my rearview so I could remember the last time I saw New York City as my home.

I didn’t identify as a runner until my last 3 years in New York. It was only then, after 7 years of calling it my home, did I start to become intimately with the curvature of the city. I noticed things I never paid attention to before. The cracks in the sidewalk, the timing of the crosswalks (not that New Yorkers pay much mind to the crosswalk), the tree stumps that protrude from the soil, refusing to be bound by bricks and pavement. For the first time I explored Central Park - I mean really explored. Meandered through paths visiting the hidden and not so hidden gems of the park. I ran through the Zoo, by the duck pond, up to the reservoir and looped back around on the bridal path. I experimented with different ways to enter and leave the park, always having a plan to suit my mood. I relished in the knowing head nod to other runners who also claimed the 5:30am version of the park as their own.

It was in Riverside Park and then up by the George Washington Bridge that I learned the most about myself as a runner and as a 20 something living in a city where being comfortable felt so beyond my reach. I have distinct memories from a 2 mile section of path just north of the Harlem River Park, Dinosaur BBQ, and The Cotton Club. I once got caught in a rainstorm so bad it shorted out my headphones. Another time I was so injured as I approached the tennis courts north of 165th st that I had to stop and walk the 40 blocks home because I didn’t run with a metro card or any money for a taxi. Another time, running south from Riverbank Park Center by the Harlem Fields I inadvertently raced a man to my fastest mile ever at the time. 

After my weekend long run, I would reward my effort with a trip to the Fairway near 125th street, blocks from my apartment, to refuel. 

As I looked across the bridge on my way out of the city I knew I would be back, but I knew I wouldn’t be the same. Neither would New York. 

When I made my first trip back it was nearly 2 years after I left. I stayed with my brother in Bushwick, Brooklyn. A world away from my old neighborhood of Morningside Heights. With a new home base came new running routes. I explored Brooklyn and fell in love with Prospect Park. When I ventured into Manhattan I would start from 14th Street and make my way over to the Hudson River path. It was familiar but still different and new. I finally ran the New York City Marathon in 2016, over 4 years after I first left. The only part of the course I had run before was when you enter the park from 5th Ave and run to the finish line. Running to that finish line felt like running home. My feet knew each of those steps by heart. 

Since that 2016 NYC Marathon I’ve found my identify as a Bay Area runner. After the 2017 Boston Marathon I started working with a running coach who is still my coach. She showed me all the secret routes from Woodside to San Jose that took me 5 years to discover. The contours of Stanford’s campus are as familiar to me as the Harlem Hills of Central Park once were. I no longer ache to wake up before dawn like I once did because I am getting older and it’s harder to move in the morning, but also there is no fraternity of runners that make their way around the same magical loop each morning like they do in NYC. Or maybe there are, but the sprawl of the peninsula means more effort is required to discover that special place. But still it is plenty special. Just like varying the entrances and exits of of Central Park, running in the Bay Area is a choose your own adventure kind of experience. Want flat and a breeze? Try the Baylands. Want some gentle rolling hills with some horses to keep you company? Head over to Alpine or Portola Road. Trails more your thing? Windy Hill, Huddart, and Wunderlich will keep you busy for awhile.

My brother left Brooklyn and New York altogether a few years after I did. For 3 years the only NYC running I did was in the  2018 NYC marathon. But last year he moved back. This time to Washington Heights, across the street from my old office. Across the street from Coogan’s and The Armory. He’s within a stones throw of those tennis courts just below the GW bridge where I once had to stop in anguish. Just 1.5 miles from where I raced a man to my fastest known mile way back when. 2 miles from the Fairway where I used to treat myself after a weekend long run.

The routes I now run when I visit New York City are nearly the same as when I lived there more than 8 years ago and yet everything is different. The paths are more crowded, more developed. There’s less trash and more greenery. Fairway is now closed. Runners are wearing the latest shoes and wireless headphones. But more than anything, I’m different. I run these routes slower than I did back then. Not because I’ve gotten slower, but because I’ve gotten better. I’m older now and take my easy days easy. I don’t (usually) try to race the other runners I cross paths with. I’m not wondering what could be or who I might be with. I don’t need to think about what it would be like if I left New York because I already left. I left and yet there’s always a part of me still there. On those paths. In those memories. That snapshot of the city as I crossed the RFK bridge, looking back at all I left behind, forever emblazoned in my mind.