The laptop was in an oversized running vest with my work clothes and shoes.
I had finished work late and was cutting it close for the first Al Goldstein Summer Speed Series 5K. A friend and I got off the subway at Eastern Parkway and started the 1.3-mile jog to bib pickup. The vest was heavy. I was already sweating.
This was not a serious race for me. I had run the Brooklyn Half in 1:20:44 two weeks earlier and planned to pace my friend. The little 5K in Prospect Park mattered for a different reason.
The same race a year earlier had been my first one back.
I ran 21:06 that first time. A 6:47 pace felt epic. It had taken about a year of consistent, slow running to lose 30 pounds and get fit enough to want to race again. The 5K felt like it almost killed me. I was thrilled.
This time, even running late with half my office on my back, I felt comfortable. I knew people. Club members waved and gave me high fives while we jogged toward the start. We stopped at a memorial service for members and family who had died, then got onto the line.
We finished in a little over 23 minutes. My friend placed second in her age group. I got the shakeout run I needed.
The useful part came afterward, when I added up the year.
I had lost another 10 pounds and gotten off blood pressure medication. My half marathon had gone from 1:32 to under 1:21. I had qualified for the Duathlon World Championships and won two small-town 5Ks. I had also made a couple dozen new friends.
The friends were not a footnote to the race times. They were the reason running felt right again.
Middle-school running in Indiana had given me a team and a safe place during a tough childhood. For years afterward I kept running but never really found that same thing. New York did not feel like an easy running city when I first moved here. PPTC changed that.
There had been camping trips, rain, snow, sleet, Easter eggs, birthday parties, and going-away parties. There were weekend runs and Monday meetings. Running had become a central part of how I planned my days again.
I sent the recap to more than a thousand people on the club forum. Then I finished it by telling two faster teammates that they were both going down at the next race.
The laptop survived. The trash talk did too.