My favorite day in NYC has for years been marathon Sunday. I’ve stood on Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn around miles 7-8 with one or both daughters, cheering on runners we knew and many we didn’t know. I usually run back and forth from my apartment to Fourth Avenue a few times throughout the day, watching the lead runners, then runners I know in various later starting waves. I get emotional when I see the leaders, and I get emotional when I see the struggling runners. It’s emotional watching people and knowing that for many of them, the NYC marathon is a dream come true, and we get to witness it and be a part of it by cheering them on. It’s also NYC at its best—kind, rowdy, and funny, and I love being in the middle of that. Last year I decided I would try to run this year, as it’s the last year both daughters would still at home, as my older daughter is a senior in high school.

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I knew going in that I would not particularly enjoy the experience, as I don’t like running, but do it because it’s good for me. But I think it’s good for my kids to see me pushing myself through things I want to quit. And I was right—after about mile 10, I was ready for the whole thing to be over. I started with lots of positive mantras about how “every mile is a gift,” but was honestly pretty grumpy and over it by around the half way point.  My family was fantastic—my husband and two daughters waved giant signs (including those giant-head photo signs) and my brother flew up from Florida to surprise me on the course. This experience was probably a one and done for me, but I said I would do it and I did it. So that’s a win.

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And now that I’m rolling up on four years after the decision to change my drinking, I was reflecting on how the last four years have looked compared to the four before that just in terms of my physical activity. From 2016-2020 I did no races or competitions of any kind. In the last four years, I’ve done a few each year. None of them have been even remotely impressive in terms of speed, but all of them have created the kind of special memories—usually with a friend or family member—that the four years prior lacked. I did a handful of 5K races with my younger daughter, a 5K obstacle course race with my younger daughter, a costumed Halloween 5K with my entire family and my seventy something parents, a 10-mile race with a friend, two 13 mile obstacle course races with my husband, two half Ironman triathlon relay races with my father and older brother, and now the marathon. I didn’t quit drinking in order to run races, of course, but not drinking freed up a lot of time and energy, broke my old routines, and inspired me to try new things again.

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When people ask what it’s like not drinking, they often want to know whether I sleep better and whether I lost weight. I do sleep better, and I lost a bit of weight. But I never know quite how to capture that everything is different—my relationship to the world and to myself is just better. Somehow more honest, more authentic, and more captivating. A new world of possibilities opened up, and my exuberance over that fact affects my relationship to everyone and everything around me. As I’m writing this, I’m also thinking ahead to telling a story I tried to keep secret for years, and doing it publicly even though I was once the most public-speaking phobic person I knew. So yes, a little weight loss and better sleep are great, but they don’t begin to capture it.