Long Island is not far from the city. A quick hop into the Bronx, cross over the East River, pay a toll on a bridge called the Throgs Neck and you're there. It's especially quick at quarter to six on a Sunday morning, the designated time of race day departure and also about the only time roads in and out of Long Island are traffic-free.

The first advice you'll get when looking for an apartment, and you'll get a lot of it, is to decide where you want to live. Concentrate on an area, conserve your energy (you'll need it) in looking in that three block radius then dig, dig, dig. And don't be afraid to tell brokers exactly what you need. Which is great advice, but how do you decide where you want to live and what you need?

I've got my first triathlon of the season coming up. This one. It's a sprint distance, which means short. Called sprint because I think they're meant to be done fast, at high speeds rather than at endurance, make yourself last speeds. I'm not sure I have more than one speed, but I'm not sweating it. At least not since I rented a wetsuit, which feels more like a fatsuit or a sweat-your-ass-off suit. When I tried it on then peeled it off, it was too damp to hand to the clerk. "You don't want to touch that," I said and carried it to the register myself.

I want to love running, but it's so hard to love something that doesn't love you back. Ever. Okay, once in a while, but not nearly enough. Especially when it loves all the other runners in Central Park and I have to watch them basking in the rays of its love.

Like the woman in bright yellow tube socks and stylish spandex (there is such a thing) cheering on fellow runners sprinting to the end of their morning run, the sprinters flushed and smiling, not doubled over, bright red and exhausted.

Like the lanky woman with a high kick and red-dotted soles cruising up hills as if they were downhills, a gaze focused and intent, and a pursed mouth, meaning she wasn't the least out of breath, or she was actually a machine that doesn't require oxygen.

Like the tall blonde boy, a body my mother would call skin and bones, who takes all six miles of the park in ten strides or less.

Like the Asian boy in loose pants and a white v-neck with a shoulder bag scurrying uphill past me as if to get to class.

Like the wheezing man practically walking up the hill past the boat house who I actually cruised past, and he passed me later.