New Flyer Profile: Kate C

Kate C

Most of us run for a lot of the same reasons: to feel fit, look better, to be part of the team, and especially because we just do better on the days we can fit in a run. Then there are the reasons that vary from runner to runner. For me as a full-time mum (I’m English and could never be a “mom”), running is a break from the responsibility of motherhood. I first realized this two weeks after my second child was born, in January 2009. I’d always jogged a bit, but that spring running became more important to me. It was the only time I wasn’t a mum. For half an hour I could forget I even had a two-year-old and a baby at home. I got fitter, joined a London running club, and got sucked into the world of racing and marathons. I think every race I ran that year was a PR.

Then in 2010 one of my brothers, who is not a runner, decided to enter a trail marathon. I couldn’t let him do something tougher than I had done, so I entered too. Despite running the last 17 miles of it with a sprained ankle (it’s ok, I still beat my brother), I was a convert to trail running. Why would you want to run somewhere you wouldn’t go for a walk? Muddy calves and pretty trails made a run all the better. My home in south-west London was on the doorstep of Richmond Park’s 3.7 square miles of hills, woods, mud, bracken and deer.

Richmond Park Brook

If I ventured off the main trails I would sometimes run without seeing anyone else at all. Some weekends I was lucky enough to run on the nearby South or North Downs, chains of beautiful rolling chalk hills that got pushed up when the Alps formed.

The Seven Cliffs that Mark the End of the South Downs Path

Another pregnancy followed in 2011 and I was glad to be able to run right through the months of relentless nausea and vomiting to the day my daughter arrived. During that time when I felt that my body had been taken over completely, running let me know that I was still me.

Meanwhile in day-to-day life, my oldest son started at an amazing local public school, I couldn’t walk to the store without bumping into people I knew and the kids could crawl through a hole in the backyard fence to play with their friends next door. When I put my rose-tinted glasses on now, I see was living in fairytale land.

And then to New York. I was off to bed one evening in July 2012 when my husband called from a business trip to say he had to move out here immediately. I was not exactly thrilled. I spent the next five months alone with a baby and two kids waiting for my green card, and in that time I worried about how we would cope without a backyard, about how my son would cope in a big city public school (happily the school is fantastic) -- and about how I would cope swapping the trails I loved for Central Park. The running paths there were so clearly defined as to seem sterile, and running the 6-mile loop required so little awareness as to seem mindless. And it was so busy. I was used to peace.

I joined the Dashing Whippets, a great group, but running with them in the evenings entailed the cost and hassle of a sitter. Then one of the Whippets, Elizabeth Miller, introduced me to the Flyers and Francine’s amazing 6am running group. I had never tried speedwork so early in the morning before, and did not even believe it possible before breakfast, but I gave it a go. Everyone there was so cheery, even in terrible weather, and I started to look forward to the early morning chatting and not just to the run. I knew I’d found my club, and switched teams.

Francesco Presutti and Elizabeth Miller -- Friends from the Flyers 6AM Running Group

It is thanks to the Flyers I have learned that, while loops of Central Park might be tough if I was running them all solo, the best thing about the park and what makes it a great place to run are, of course, the other runners.

Francine’s group does not kowtow to a mere polar vortex, and the consistent pre-breakfast training over this past winter allowed me to meet half marathon and 5K targets that I had set back in 2009. Later this year I hope to be lining up on the Verrazano Bridge with my 9+1 place, and I cannot wait to run around the five boroughs. Next year however I think I may run fewer NYRR races and try to see more of the trails outside the city. I ran the North Face Endurance Challenge 50K on Bear Mountain last May which was the best running day I’ve ever had, and my long-term running ambitions now lie in enjoying trail running and maybe ultra trail running rather than in trying to improve on my road times.

Crossing the Finish Line With Both Of My Boys
At The Bear Mountain 50K

I’m still a full-time mum; the kids are now 2, 5 and 7. I love being with them each day and I’m lucky that it’s an option for me, but I couldn’t do it if I didn’t have running. Running is the only thing I have that’s for me. And I know that as long as I’m a runner in New York City, I’ll be running with the New York Flyers. Thank you for having me on the team.

-Kate C.