The Time Standard

Back in college, I had a math professor and there was a power outage in Maine. I went to stay with my sister in Boston. This was also the weekend of the NYC Marathon, I thought about running it that year, but it just did not work out with my schedule. When the power outage was over, and I returned to school from my sisters home in Boston, he asked me in front of the entire class if I had run NYC. He knew that I did not run the NYC Marathon, and I was very upset over that not being the marathon for me that year with my schedule. Being chastised publicly, and humiliated over not running a particular marathon is very wrong, not worth a year in court, but very wrong. Even without a year in court, they were never to directly speak to me without an attorney ever again, because that is how life works when you humiliate someone; there is a consequence. Not worth the lawsuit, but certainly an attorney away, like that proff would have to write my lawyer a letter and then I may not feel willing to read it myself; one of those situations. I have no shame in sharing that story, I wish I could have finished that semester virtually or could have switched out of their class the last month; wish I did not want to kill myself over that class and that race. I should have taken that class with a better school anyway, it was not even the real version of the topic requirement I needed for my grad program, chastised for a worthless class I would have tested out of somewhere normal; never lower your standard.

The reason I had to do all those standardized tests, is because those classes were not hard enough, which is why I was so excited for grad school so I could learn harder things, freely be as smart as I am. Absolutely could not wait to stop taking baby classes, and be in it with all the hard stuff. The reason I started college in the tenth grade, and did five classes every summer of highschool, there was a reason for all the work that I put into my studies. Evidently, I wanted a teacher with a more correct demeanor. I hopped over to my cool aunt, to fix it so I would not die inside and out; I felt beyond helpless, and like it was the end of the world. I truly felt that teacher ruined my entire life and future, everything that I ever worked for; after that day in class when I was chastised, whilst all I ever did was study my brains out. So, I dropped his class after that day with the NYC Marathon issue, and took a yoga class with someone I knew would give me an A and four credits. I took the real version of his class at a good school here in NY, and had perfect scores on almost everything, not one conversation with the professor nor my classmates; it was a 4.0 semester. That is how I found out that not everyone respects professional athletes, but it made me more flexible and do what I really needed to accomplish in real life. Graph paper and neat handwriting make me happy and so do neuroplasticity research studies.

I want the general public to realize it’s not always the race, a lot of people respect time standards that you could run anywhere in the world, any race in any location. You can run very fast anywhere, and that is meeting the standard of time and demands respect. That professor is an example of someone who should feel 26.2 miles is pretty far, even without a time standard for someone my age; I started so young for my sport in my teens, my god. Who are they? I don’t even know if I’ll ever run NYC or the Olympic Trials, I think I’ll run the time I want to and then just teach and find a less strenuous passion. All I care about is the time I run, not the race. I’m not the glam marathon runner, I’ll go for a time in the middle of nowhere anyday.

Do they think to no avail, can I run the race that I actually want to? Like I just run around aimlessly everyday for years, for no reason; it’ll never work out, just pointless. I feel like I could wait another three years to debut in the marathon as of now, and it would still be young in reality. You know, I am always jealous when people ‘debut’ in the marathon, I wish that I felt like I was debuting in the marathon when I started ten years ago... Perhaps, it is never too late to debut in something you have already been doing efficiently for a long time. It could be time to ‘renew my vows’ with marathon running, to keep it spicy. Was I robbed of debuting? Do you still have your marathon card? Only time will tell, but sometimes people are mean and you just have to give them the cold shoulder.

My old cross country coach, Oscar B Jensen (OBJ), is the one who started me at an early age to have the mindset that running is a black and white sport, meaning you either run a time standard or you fail. Who cares which event you run the time in? My coach would put people in races or cut them based on the fact of the time they ran, he added up the minutes on paper and put all of us side by side. Ironically, he never wanted us to run with a stopwatch, it’s funny. Nothing changes in any running event, at any age, it is the time standard. Everyone could run the same time in a race, technically, the point is you run the time or you do not; even if you do not run the time, you can do better next time.

When I was younger, I thought my mile mark was a mile, but it was a mile and a half. I would look at my legs and look at my watch and do ANYTHING to make it to that mark, in the time I wanted to run a mile. To think it was really a mile and a half, I had no idea! That is probably how so many of my teammates have run sub-4-minute-miles in their careers, our coach knew what to do to us in our teenage years. You know, I never ask those buddies what race they ran sub-4 in, I just think it’s cool they did it, even if it was on a treadmill in their house and not during track season; however, they all had cool races. I need to ask them to pace me in a marathon sometime, or we could all win a relay someday. Nevertheless, it made me a lot faster, whether I realized it or not. I do enjoy having a gps in my stopwatch, nowadays! Kids have it easy with the gps stopwatches, nowadays. My advice as an athlete is whilst running make sure to keep your shoulders back, your hands loose, and keep springing your legs.

Perspective is everything. Like, I thought my boyfriend did not want me to go skydiving, because I am a highly respected professional athlete who needs to avoid injury and risk. I would believe he would rent out the whole place, before thinking we would all intentionally drive three hours to not skydive. He would do anything, for me to not jump out of an airplane, especially during marathon season; break out the flip-phone and make the call to stop me, yelling at somebody profound. I could be wrong. Sometimes, you just need a professor who is another class of human being inside and out, with a different university. I have to tell you, my professor with the big name university whom I retook this class with sophisticatedly cultured classmates and received an A from, is indeed a woman from upstate NY. Syracuse University and OCC saved the day, letting me jump into their class, move on from that awful professor I had somewhere else. Be stubborn with your goals, and flexible with your methods.

People can get jealous of anything you have, like girls hated me for dating my boyfriend who I happened to have in college; he’s someone I should have felt like I should be dating anyway, in my pool of a person to have as a boyfriend in real life. We are both roman catholic, and bonded over our faith and spirituality, he drove me to church on Sunday mornings when I did not have a car, it’s a big deal for me to find that in a man. You save a lot of money on uber that way. It’s hard to find someone by chance in real life, who shares the same faith or lifestyle and moral values. Who else would I want to go out to dinner with? Just an alternative to staying in bed and watching tv or reading a book, would be driving around with him. The things that girls would say, even guys. I wondered if they thought it would make him like them instead, to make up horrendous gossip. When we first started dating my freshman year, my male RA was so jealous I put on a loft dress for a brunch date, they wrote me up for ‘cutting myself shaving in the shower’ and I had to pay $500 for this bullshit fine; fucking crazy. Would that have been worth a $10,000 lawsuit? My lawyer just worked it out on the phone for that one. Things make me snap and phone my attorney all the way over in Penfield sometimes, I still have the letter of that fine, and it literally says the reason is ‘cutting shaving in shower’ next to the dollar amount; my dad wishes it was something he could make a joke about like a party. It would be fun to walk into my lawyer’s office, throw a stack of papers on their desk and say ‘deal with this’ but that’s not what ever happens, I just text them or something and it’s not all that you see in a lifetime movie. Then, later on in our relationship five years later, it’s a matter of keeping the reservation with the table you requested, perhaps inviting a single to join the two of you for some wine, hope they admire my sophisticated marathon running career as an adult; some people like meeting me because of the way I run, it’s cool when that happens. I’ll admit there were times whilst I ‘boyfriend ditched’ my lady gang and they could be upset about it, but random people can be crazy jealous of a couple and it’s weird. You can only pray those random people, find a love of their own someday. In the long run, that gossip made him start working out more, now he’s in really good shape, it is so funny; I don’t care what he looks like, it would be fine if they never lifted a weight ever again. Running can be like that too, the running world can be mean. You just find people who respect standards and relationships to have in your daily life. Was it worth dating him? I don’t know, but I don’t like anyone else so I suppose spending time together is special to me.