NYC Marathon Team spot Check In: Ben Leese

1. Tell us a little bit about how you came to be involved with NBR. What was your first run? How long have you been involved?

I've been a runner forever but was running on my own when we moved to Broooklyn in 2009. After a few months of my NY lonely boy routine my wife pointed out that there was a large group who met outside our window every Saturday and that I should probably go and get involved. That was the Bridge Run (we lived on South 4th at the time), and things went from there. So on and off it's been well over a decade for me and NBR's always been what I was originally looking for: a low pressure community with a surfeit of runners at every level to get inspired by (even if it's predominantly been over Strava recently).

2. How is marathon training going? Are there any specific workouts that are really moving things along for you? Tell the world a good NBR long run story.

Terribly! I've always gotten most of my miles in when I was commuting home at night and even though I've been lucky enough to stay employed through the pandemic I haven't commuted at all. With that crutch gone and everything else that's been happening I've found it very hard to find time for running, and when I did restart to run regularly over the early summer, I picked up my first injuries in almost a decade. All of that being said, I've finally started to get some respectable miles in and am hoping that I'm turning the corner. I've also been stoking the embers with little side-challenges to remind myself just what a privilege it can be to even be able to run. We did a road trip through New Hampshire and the Adirondacks a few weeks ago and I negotiated hall-passes to run up Mt. Marcy and Mt. Washington, and a few weeks before that I finagled a few days in the Gunks to run some of my favorite trails.

I have an ultra coming up in a couple of weeks and won't do any marathon specific workouts before then. Just longish strength runs, likely followed by a thorough humbling at the race and then a quick pivot to marathon training for a few weeks.

There are no good long run stories. But I still have all the DnA run announcements on file somewhere....

3. Which NBR runs are you attending regularly to train? Are there any NBR members who inspire you to train hard(er)?

When I'm able to join it's typically Just South and Saturday long runs. I typically find something to admire and be inspired by in most everyone I know who's found a way to make running or sport of some other kind a regular part of their life. As I'm stepping up to the masters level that certainly includes Gregg, Wataru, Alex and Shawn Young, but I'm also super impressed by some of the younger runners on the team (am I old enough to call them the next generation?!), who are methodically chasing down really impressive time goals. And doing track workouts, which are awful.

4. What does it mean to be chosen by your peers for a coveted NBR marathon team spot? What does it mean to you to be running the 50th anniversary NYC Marathon?

It's an amazing honor. I know part of the goal was to shoot for a good masters team performance and I'm hoping I can hold up my end of that. My first true road marathon was the Brooklyn marathon in 2012 which I entered because a bunch of NBRiors told me to - they were signing up at the last minute after Sandy nixed NYCM and thought I could do ok as I'd been accompanying them on a lot of their training runs. That went well and tied road marathoning and NBR together in my mind, so it somehow feels "right" that it's NBR who have offered me the opportunity to take part in this extraordinary event. I'm very grateful.

5. What do you plan on eating post-marathon? What about the night before?
It's a little odd but I'm rarely that hungry after a marathon. Generally I just want to have a beer and go to bed. The night before it'll probably be pasta (original, I know), and a bottle of pedialite.

6. What inspires and motivates you to run this year's NYC marathon?

This period has been so unnerving that I'm hesitant to predict what November is going to feel like. But there's at least one scenario I like to imagine where it really feels like we are on the back-end of this pandemic and the anticipation everyone had built up and then sat on this Summer can be released in a proper celebration of New York (that doesn't get cancelled mid-BillyJoel because of lightning). The chance to participate in an event like that, to feel that sort of energy, it's incredibly motivating.

7. In your head, what animal (real or fictional) do you think you most resemble when you're running?
I'd be making up an animal answer honestly and I have this weird thing where I can't actually imagine myself running. Whenever I try, or am dreaming, I can't figure out the coordination and just settle for some sort of awkward lurch. I will confess though that I play favorite running clips in my head if I'm having a good run and feeling it, imagining the commentary is about me (favorites include the vanished-from-the-internet Solinsky sub-27 10k and Kerryn McCann's second commonwealth gold in the marathon).