Tag Archives: Running

The Next Chapter.

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“Tracey. You can’t be serious.”

I laughed.  She always was such a drama-queen.

“Well Tina, yeah, I’m pretty serious.”

“But how will I know what’s going on with you?!”

“Um, we’ll talk like normal people?”

“Ugh. You know what I mean,” she said and I could hear her pouring another glass of wine.

It was Monday night and My Boyfriend was at band practice. This gave me the perfect opportunity to catch up on my reality crime TV, drink wine, and have a long overdue phone date with Tina.

Tina’s husband, Hank, was watching the baby so we’d been able to have a nice long chat. Over the course of the past hour, we’d gone through the normal topics – her son Jordan, My Boyfriend, people we knew in our hometown, her husband, her job, The Cat.

And then I’d told her about the blog.

Which was, that I was done with it.

Continue reading The Next Chapter. →

May Flowers. Part Four.

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Two days after my Mother passed, it was Mother’s Day. My Boyfriend and I were still at her house, wrapping things up. It was my last day before I was to return to NYC. As I’ve mentioned, I now have a really inappropriate habit of writing things in my head before they happen. Picturing how things will unfold and how I’ll feel about them. Since Mother’s Day was the day I was supposed to be in NYC participating in the race I’d been training for, I thought I would post a picture on Facebook and Instagram of my feet in my new running shoes with the caption being something about how I was supposed to be in NYC to run in the Mother’ Day Race, but instead I was home after saying goodbye to my own sweet Mother. And then I’d state that I was still going to run the four miles in her honor.

And that I loved her.

I thought this would be a lovely tribute. But in reality the reason I wanted to do it was more selfish. One thing I’d realized was that I’d rather everyone just find out at once, rather than have to awkwardly respond to various individual texts and messages from friends who didn’t know, them saying, “Hey!! What’s been going on? Are you getting excited for the move home?? 🙂 ”

Continue reading May Flowers. Part Four. →

Tick. Tick. Tick.

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Two years ago, I reached out to my NYC friends and asked them, “If you only had one more year left in the city – what would be the things you’d most want to do?” I received a really unique and fun list of true NYC experiences. I vowed to do one thing a month until I had gotten through the whole list.

Naturally, since then, I’d done none of them.

But now, because I only had two months left, I was galvanized to make my way through my NYC Bucketlist. I prioritized the things I wanted to do and set about each week making one thing happen.

It was a really amazing journey.

Continue reading Tick. Tick. Tick. →

The Race is On.

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“When Tracey first started running, she showed up wearing a fanny pack!” McKenzie said as she scrolled through her phone.

The salesperson looked up from where she was measuring my foot and cocked her head to the side. “Aw, that’s sweet.”

“Will you shut up?” I shot at McKenzie.

“What? You did,” she said. “Look, I took some pictures of you while you did your test run. I’ll text them to you.”

“Fine,” I said.

Continue reading The Race is On. →

Settled Enough.

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“You’re going to FORGET.”

“I’m not going to forget.”

“TRACEY. YOU WILL.”

I sighed.

It was Saturday morning and I hadn’t even had my first cup of coffee. But McKenzie was already back from a ten mile run so she was all riled up, reprimanding me on Facebook messenger for breaking my promise in March to continue to publish here and there.

It was now the middle of April. And I’d published nothing.

“You’ve been hanging around Lux too much,” I wrote. “Stop with the all-caps. It’s too early for  that.”

She ignored me. “SO MUCH has happened, how are you going to remember it all?”

“I’ve been taking notes.” And with that, I got up from my desk and set about making some coffee.

Continue reading Settled Enough. →

Casting Upgrade.

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“Happy New Year, Bitches!”

I looked at the Facebook message on my phone, placed it back on the nightstand and then rolled over, pulling a pillow over my head. It was Friday, January 2nd and I was starting the first weekend of the New Year celebrating with a nap with The Cat.

The phone pinged again and I wearily reached over to pick it up. I looked at the screen.

“When do we start running?!”

I groaned, and was about to set it aside again when:

“Helllooooooooo!”

Two seconds later:

“Tracey? McKenzie?”

“Guys??????”

I sighed in exasperation. I turned off the phone and went back to my nap. When I woke up later, there were two more Facebook messages and two threatening texts:

“TRACEY. ANSWER ME. NOW.”

“WE ARE GOING RUNNING.”

Oh god.

It was Lux.

Continue reading Casting Upgrade. →

A Farewell to Lux.

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“You can’t be serious,” Lux said. “You’re really going to see that movie?”

“Oh my god, are you kidding?!” I exclaimed. “I can’t wait! I’ve read each of the books like five times.”

McKenzie interjected, “The Fifty Shades of Grey Books? You’ve read those books five times?”

“Yes! I love them!” I said and tightened my grip on the subway pole to steady myself.

They both looked at me, somewhat horrified.

“Okay, look,” I said quickly. “I know they’re not well-written and the sex scenes are ridiculous and boring but there’s something…there’s something about the story of two fucked up people evolving and working it out.” I sighed. “I like it.”

Lux raised her eyebrows at me. “Okay.” And then she turned to McKenzie. “So, about our running group. I think we should meet at like 6:30am a few times a week.”

“That’s fine,” said McKenzie. “I’ll be running anyway.” McKenzie, who has run the NYC marathon two years in a row and always had some sort of race coming up. On Mondays when we talk about our weekends she’ll say something like, “Oh, and on Sunday I ran eleven miles.” And she’ll say it so matter of fact, not bragging at all, just like it was no big deal.

Then I’ll tell her that the only activity I’d done over the weekend was to take out the garbage.

“Tracey, can you make it uptown to us by 6:30?” Lux asked.

“Oh geez, I don’t know,” I said. “Is it even safe to be out that early?”

“What are you talking about?” Lux asked. “It’s 6:30. It’s not like it’s -”

I put my hand up. “Can we talk about this when we’ve not all had multiple drinks?”

And then they laughed.

But it was that kind of sad laughter.

Because see, we were riding the subway uptown, as we all lived there, after having drinks for Lux’s last day at the company.

Continue reading A Farewell to Lux. →

Like A Dog With A Bone.

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“What’s your idea of a great first date?”

“Geesh, I don’t know.”

“Tracey. Come on,” she replied.

I sighed to myself.

Her next IM flashed up in my inbox. “Okay, just use this template: On a first date, I enjoy discussing _____ over _____ at _____.”

“I’m busy,” I replied.

“TRACEY. COME ON.”

“DO NOT ALL-CAPS ME.”

“YOU ARE DRIVING ME CRAZY.”

“No, YOU are driving ME crazy.”

“I’m coming over.”

“Omg. Please don’t.”

No response. She was already on her way.

No doubt about it. Lux was on a mission.

Continue reading Like A Dog With A Bone. →