Challenges accepted

 The weekend plans had been in the works for months. Six of my running friends and I had signed up for a spring half marathon featuring two challenging loops of NYC’s Central Park. 

It was an anticipated outing that had everything: a stellar event in the Big Apple, local accommodations, and ample time to masquerade as a "Lady Who Lunches."

It was not without its challenges.

I’m not going to lie. At first, this outing felt like a whim. It began as a text message excitedly posted to a group chat about the potential of a women-only racing weekend right when the trees’ most colorful fineries would be on showy display. Not only did the original poster offer up free accommodations at other people’s houses, proffering not only the hope of such generosity but also the cross-fingered belief that free, on-street parking would materialize with the same miraculousness, none of us thought there was anything wrong. 

So before anyone could say – “WAIT! Shouldn’t we ask the homeowners before we volunteer their abodes?” –  all seven of us had circled the date on our calendars, paid our registration fees, and counted ourselves in.”

It had other challenges, too. And not the hidden downsides of such a beautiful race setting, like climbing hills and fighting pollen, and feeling queasy from fresh mounds of literal horseshit wafting over the other scents in the air, that of vanilla bakeries and ebbing cherry blossoms.

The biggest challenge for me was that I hadn’t consulted the calendar. 

Turns out the kid who made me a mom was coming home from college that weekend … and she would only be around for a few days before she had to turn right back around to begin her summer classes.

I didn’t want to bail on the race … but I wanted to bail on the race.

So I asked my friends if I could invite my daughter to tag along for the weekend … that is…  if I was able to convince the second-year co-ed to drop any plans for lounging around the house, catching up on sleep so she could hang with a gaggle of middle-aged women trying to outrun offers from the AARP.

Turns out a free trip to NYC is very attractive to a girl of her age, and hanging out with mature-minded women who enjoy sightseeing and restaurants and quietly noting celebrity sightings was a pleasurable alternative to doing her own laundry in my absence at home.

Any misgivings I might have had about foisting my newly adult daughter on my more mature friends melted away the moment I noticed she felt more comfortable with them socially than I ever did with her friends. 

As we toured the city, we touched on everything there is to delight and vex a person in conversation, creating hundreds if not thousands of chances to excite or enrage based on a generational divide. As we ran in circles, and she circled the runners waiting for us to finish, we realized we had some of the same thoughts, some of them ginning up outrage:

"Why were there so many men running a women’s only race?  Why did the announcers only seem to acknowledge the males of the species for cheering on their mothers and sisters and wives? Did they not see any of the women out there supporting other women?"

“I want to ask that man with the medal around his neck why he ran this race,” she asked without a hint of malice. “But I’m just going to assume he ran it in honor or someone he loved who couldn’t.”