It’s about time.
So much of my life revolves around it.
(Isn’t that true for all of us?)
Yes, it is, but when I’m competing in Ironman, I have to worry about the midnight cutoff. As a high school teacher, I have to worry about the first bell of the day. I have to be at work five days a week by 7:30 a.m., so everything else is arranged around that one point in my day.
(You can’t come in late?)
There are students waiting for me outside my classroom.
(What if you hit traffic?)
I call the school office and let them know, “I’m stuck in traffic. I will be there shortly.”
(There’s no “15-minute rule”?)
Nope. It developed in the 1970s on college campuses. It has never been a policy in any high school I have ever worked in … but students quote it to teachers all the time.
(So, when do you daven if you are late?)
If I get to work late, then I daven on my break. Otherwise I daven before I teach my first class.
If I want to run before work, I have to reverse engineer the sequence of events from “end to start.”
(Don’t you mean start to finish?)
To be at work at 7:30 a.m. means I have to leave my parents’ house at 7:20 am., which means I have to be in the shower at 7:15 a.m., which means I have to finish the run by 7:10 a.m…
(You shower in just 5 minutes?)
Triathlon has taught me to change clothing very quickly.
(What if you are late getting to your parents?)
At 5 a.m. in the morning? Tuesday is 60 minutes of run intervals. Round and round the local middle school I go.
(Not around a track?)
There’s a track, but it is poorly lit at 6 a.m. in January. The school building is well-lit … and surprisingly, exactly a quarter of a mile in circumference.
Or…
If I swim, there’s the Glenpointe pool, which opens at 5:15 a.m.
I have to leave my house at 5 a.m. to be in the water at 5:15 and I have to be back in my car by 6:40 a.m., to be at work at 7:30 a.m..
(What if you go for a swim at Brighton Beach before work?)
Once again, I have to reverse engineer the sequence of events from “end to start.”
To be at work at 7:30 a.m. means I have to leave the beach at 6:20a.m., which means changing in the car at 6:18 a.m., and shower at 6:15 a.m. which means out of the water at 6:10 a.m.
(Where is there a shower at Brighton Beach?)
There’s one on the boardwalk.
(You don’t…)
No, I shower with my swim trunks on and I change in my car. There are always extra towels and goggles in my trunk for anyone who wants to join me for a swim in the Atlantic. The traffic from Brooklyn to White Plains is a finicky thing, so for a 60-minute drive, I leave an extra 10 minutes for traffic.
(Where is the traffic?)
On the Whitestone Bridge or the Van Wyck or the streets of Brooklyn.
(Brooklyn street traffic?)
If I get stuck behind a garbage truck as I leave the beach, I’m not going anywhere. Not forward, not back until they are done.
(Wait.)
Yes?
(What is a “Van Wyck?”)
The Van Wyck Expressway AKA Interstate 678 takes me from JFK Airport at the bottom of Queens to the Whitestone Bridge that takes me over the water and deposits me on the Hutchinson River Parkway, in the Bronx.
(So, Van Wyck was the builder of the expressway or the founder of the village that was paved over to make the expressway?)
Neither actually. Robert Anderson Van Wyck was a 19th-century mayor of New York City.
(So?)
He is best known for the creation of the Interborough Rapid Transit, or as my grandfather called it, the IRT subway. He…
(Who?)
…Van Wyck was the first mayor of NYC after the five boroughs were consolidated into one city. (New York City wasn’t always the five boroughs?)
During the American Revolution, Manhattan was a tiny port that didn’t extend past 14th Street.
There were a few mansions and many farms on the north end of the island.
(But didn’t the British chase Washington and his army out of New York in the Battle of New York?)
The “Battle of New York” was when Tony Stark and the Avengers defeated Loki and his army. You are referring to the New York and New Jersey campaigns of 1776.
Yes, Washington’s Army fought in the Battle of Long Island during that campaign, but that took place in what is today, Brooklyn. Most of the five boroughs were farms.
(How did New York City go from looking like the suburbs to becoming the urban metropolis of over eight million people?)
It’s about time…
David Roher is a USAT certified triathlon and marathon coach. He is a multi-Ironman finisher and veteran special education teacher. He is on Instagram @David Roher140.6. He can be reached at [email protected]
