PUBLISHED 05/24/2007
How'd you get started with running?
I have no illusions about running. I hate running. If I could feel as good as I felt at 30 without running, I wouldn't do it, but that's not the way it works! So - no pain, no gain.
Do you remember what made you lace 'em up for the first time?
I remember exactly how I started. I was grumbling about my tailor - I thought he started shrinking my clothes. And then, on my 44th birthday, one of my kids was hanging on my back, and someone was about to take a picture. Before he took the picture, he told me to such my stomach in, and I said, "No way am I gonna suck it up!" And then I saw the picture, and I realized, "It ain't the tailor; it ain't the laundry; it ain't the cleaners."
But why running? Why not join a gym, play tennis. . .
I'm pragmatic, and fairly honest with myself, so I knew I had to exercise. But my life and my career is filled with logistics - yesterday, for example, I was running around trying to find nun's costumes for my new movie -- and I tried to think of something I could do without getting a locker, getting a tennis court. . . and I thought, "Boom - running." The other half of what I do is sedentary - writing, editing.
Morning runner or evening runner?
I realized I had to do this in a way so that I couldn't find an excuse not to do it. Our minds are not our friends when they realize we have work to do - they're our enemies. But I realized that nobody in the movie business was going to give me an interview at 6 o'clock in the morning; all the show-business people go to bed very late. That's why I started running early in the morning, and I discovered a whole new world. This was 30 years ago.
Do you remember your very first run - or how far you made it?
I started right by the Carnegie Deli on 7th Avenue and 55th Street. Something else I wasn't going to do was run out and get a lot of equipment - I didn't want to intimidate myself. So I just had regular sneakers on, and I made it to 59th Street by Columbus Circle. And little by little by little, I got better. I didn't really get it all put together until I could run around the lower loop in Central Park.
So that was it - you're now "a runner"?
Well. . . the runners in Central Park had a code; they wouldn't speak to me the first times, but after they saw me there a number of times they'd all give me this runner's sign when they went past. They'd say "Hiyed". . . "Hiyed". . . . "Hiyed." And finally I worked it up so I could run all the way around the reservoir, and at the northwest corner I saw a black guy - the first black guy I'd seen running in the park - and I said, "Hiyed," and he said, "How'd you know my name? My name's Ed!" We both sat there howling. . . everybody else in the park had been assuming I - the only other black guy in the Park - was Ed!
Has your running been pretty consistent since you started?
I've taken some time off a couple of times. Once I had to have orthopedic surgery on my knee because a little piece of bone came off. One Sunday I was running clockwise around the Park, and something happened. I couldn't walk forward, but for some reason I could walk backward, so I got to Central Park West and was walking home backwards, and there was a guy sitting on a park bench smoking a joint. He looked at me, he looked at his joint, and then he looked at me again. . . I could see the wheels turning: "What is this guy doing?"
Did you get yourself tricked out with a bunch of new gear to get yourself suited up?
No - I didn't want to intimidate myself. I just wore an old jacket, two pairs of sweatpants, some old Converse sneakers, and a cap pulled down over my head.
Did you get any strange looks?
When I was still starting out I had a couple of incidents. I used to come out of the Park onto 7th Avenue, and I'd pretend I was crossing the finish line of the New York City Marathon and then try to race the lights for the few blocks I had to get home. I was coming down 7th Avenue and at 56th Street the light changed and I started running across. On the other side of the street I see this black junkie facing me. He's coming across the street - they'd been doing construction on a hotel by the west side of the street - and this guy's coming toward me, and I fancy myself a pretty tough guy, but this guy looks horrible - snot's coming out of his nose - and I'm coming right toward him, and when I move, he moves, and I'm thinking "Okay - come right for me!" And at the last second, I realized that I was running toward a giant mirror they were installing for the hotel.
