Weeks Fifty-Four through Fifty-Seven of Paddy Runs for Boston
Yes, I realize how shameful it is to let a whole month go by without updating the blog, but in my defense…did you read the Choose Your Own Adventure post I wrote for Paige and Richard? That thing was thirty-seven pages long! Like most endeavors I undertake, it entailed a lot more time, thought, and energy than I’d anticipated.
Though I’ve been away from the keyboard, I have been running regularly over these past four weeks though and it feels good to be in a rhythm. After the Pikes Peak Marathon, I went into a slump. With no big events to train for, it was hard to motivate myself to go out and run. It’s disgraceful to admit that, since working off my debts to the Paddy Runs donors should be ample motivation, but it’s true. I needed a little time away. I feel like I’m back in the groove now and promise to run off my obligations as quickly as possible.
On November 23rd, I traveled up to the Bronx to run the Pete McArdle 15k, a rugged, nine-mile ramble through Van Cortlandt Park. This was my fourth time running the event and the weather has always been terrible, which, perversely, I enjoy. Slogging through mud, ice, torrents of chilling rain, and winds gusting up to 45 mph, makes you feel like a hard-core, unstoppable warrior. This year, it was disappointingly pleasant. The sun was out, the winds were down, and temperatures were in the 50’s. I went out too fast, but found some energy over the last three miles. The favorable conditions helped me to a personal best: 1 hour, 4 Minutes, 8 Seconds. My friend Celeste ran, too. Her goal was to finish in an hour and a half and she made it, skating under the wire with a minute to spare. It was a homecoming of sorts for her. Back when she ran cross-country for Dwight Morrow High School, she used to compete here on the Park’s venerable Tortoise and Hare trail.
A few days later, I was in San Diego for another leg of the ReEntry tour. With miles of waterfront, a mild climate, and one of America’s most beautiful public parks, San Diego is a runner’s paradise. I went nuts while I was there, running over twenty-eight miles in three days.
The first chance I got, I headed straight for Balboa Park, a 1,200-acre rectangle of public land that’s home to the city’s world-renowned zoo as well as sixteen museums, more than a dozen unique gardens, one of the country’s most prestigious regional theatres, outdoor performance spaces, dog runs, a velodrome, and miles of trails and paths. It’s the second-oldest city park in America, and would be the first but for the fact that in 1835 when the land was originally set aside for public use, California was still part of the Spanish Empire.
I started out on the park’s bridle path, which dropped down into Cabrillo Canyon and paralleled the highway for a bit. It wound back up the hill on the Park’s north side, where the sweet odor of eucalyptus floated in the mist. It was an overcast, rainy day, very un-Californian, even for winter. I turned south again and ran past the Lawn Bowling courts down to the Cabrillo Bridge, a narrow span built for the Panama-California Exposition of 1915. Staged to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal, construction for the Exposition completely transformed the park, right down to its very name. What had been known as City Park, was renamed to honor Vasco Núñez de Balboa, the first European explorer to cross the Isthmus of Panama and lay eyes on the Pacific Ocean. In addition to the name change, the park was extensively landscaped and crowned with a colony of lavishly decorated Spanish Baroque buildings and a formal promenade lined with fountains and foliage. Everything was designed to uphold the highest standards of taste and visual appeal. Visitors could enjoy cultural and educational exhibits that included, oddly, an ostrich farm. There were concerts, lectures, military parades, and even the Liberty Bell was sent out and put on display. During its two year run, the fair attracted close to 4 million visitors, including notables such as Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft.
I ran through an imposing arched gateway and passed the California Building, flagship of the 1915 Exhibition. With its adjoining 200-foot bell tower and baroque design, the domed building is easily mistaken for a church, but actually houses an anthropological museum. From there, I made a quick diversion onto the grounds of the Old Globe Theatre, where I’d once seen Paddy Runs donor Celeste Ciulla ham it up one night as Lucetta in Two Gentlemen of Verona and break hearts the next as Hamlet’s foredoomed mother Gertrude.
The original Old Globe was built as part of the California Pacific International Exposition of 1935, another grand fair that took place in the park. The 1935 Exposition had all the usual scientific and cultural attractions, but also featured a nudist colony, which drew controversy, not only for its frank display of human anatomy, but also because the so-called “nudists” were really just actors. These nudists-for-hire cavorted around the Zoro garden performing quasi-religious rituals that were both wholly bogus and indubitably titillating. The exhibit outraged moral conservatives of course, but also prompted an official protest from several groups of authentic nudists.
Across the road from the Globe sits the Alcazar, a beautiful formal garden that, even on this December day, was dripping with purple and pink flowers. Two Paddy Runs donors, Jeff Bender and Christine Whalen, found the place so beautiful that they chose to be married here.
From there, I continued down the Prado, the main drag of both expositions and still the Park’s focal point. If I had an estate on Fantasy Island, it would probably look like the Prado. Lined with museums that look like churches and palaces and impeccably landscaped with fountains, palm trees and flowering shrubs, you can’t help but feel like a king when you stroll down the broad avenue. The mission-style buildings with names such as the House of Charm and the House of Hospitality transport you to another time and place. At the far end of the Prado I made a left turn and headed down into Florida Canyon. The trails were muddy and wet but I ran the length of the canyon before heading back up to the Prado. A left turn took me past the Spreckles Organ Pavilion, built for the 1915 Exposition with funds donated by John D. Spreckles, a local businessman and civic booster. The pavilion seats 2,500 and free concerts are given every Sunday by San Diego’s official civic Organist.
The next day, my castmates and I went up to Mission Beach. This was the California of TV, with girls in bikinis playing volleyball and dudes on surfboards. I did a few miles around Mission bay, then went north into Pacific Beach. My turn-around point was the tip of Crystal Pier where a Christmas Tree glowed like a lighthouse in the twilight.
I couldn’t seem to get enough of San Diego. My last day there, I woke up at 6:30am and squeezed in one last run before flying home.