Interview #1: New York Nightly News with Chuck Scarborough

Last night, my world record breaking self appeared on New York Nightly News with Chuck Scarborough. It was a crazy experience! The show was from 7:00pm-8:00pm, but I wasn’t going to be on until the last ten minutes, so I didn’t have to get there until 7pm. When I arrived, I was shown to the greenroom, told that the makeup room was next door, and that someone would come get me when it was time to go on. No more instructions than that! I’m a big girl though, so I got a little makeup touchup (really just a little powder on top of what I had put on that morning for work) and settled in to wait. There were a few other guests (some politicians and the Met curator), so I chatted with them and their assistants in the meantime. Oops – guess I should have brought some friends to round out my own entourage!

I was the last one on, so I was just hanging out in the greenroom when a frazzled assistant came in. “Oops, we forgot to get you sooner! You’re on in 30 seconds… good thing you’re a marathon runner!” We dashed down the hall and I was led into the studio, where they were already counting down the seconds till we came back from commercial. I sat on the office chair with extra booster (am I really that short?) and the sound guy shoved a mic at me to snake up my tank top. Meanwhile, Chuck Scarborough just kept reading his lines to prepare. With ten seconds to go, it became clear that no one was going to give me any instructions, so I asked, “do I look at you or at the camera?” No response… and then we were live. Here we go!

Toughest questions in there to answer: “Do you inspire other young people?” Now, how am I supposed to answer that off the cuff? “Oh, yes… my peers bow down to me!” I tried to answer as best as I could without coming off as condescending, but really, that’s a tough one.

The other hard one: “Would you do it all over again?” I was a little confused by that question – didn’t know if he meant did I want to run the states a second time, or if he meant that if I could go back in time was it worth the investment. I kind of flubbed the answer to that one, in part because I didn’t understand but in part because it hit a little too close to home with its similarity to the question everyone is asking: “What are you going to do now?”

Fortunately, I just came across an awesome quote from The Rev, as featured in the Marathon Maniacs newsletter:
“Maybe it is time to launch a new “club” myself: “Rev’s Rehabilitation Center for MarathonManiacism.” This 25-week-long program, no patch or gum involved, will be simple: we will have, on consecutive weekends, organized runs of 25, then 24, then 23 miles, etc., one each week until we’ll be able on week 25 to jog one mile… and… Stop! No Gatorade even. And we can show up at work on Monday walking without a limp! Fluidly! Someday folks, you’ll thank me. Meanwhile, anybody seen this new marathon in Wyomissing, Pa. on June 13th? It looks pretty cool…”

The funny thing is, the 1/2 Sauer 1/2 Kraut Marathon he’s discussing is actually one I’m seriously considering. My friend Lauri is driving there from New Jersey on race morning and driving back after, so it wouldn’t be a huge commitment and I’d still have Saturday to hang out in New York and go out. Meanwhile, the race director owns a brewery and is providing beers along the way, while his wife is a professional chef and is catering the finish with all kinds of German food. That sounds like reason enough for me to run a marathon!

So here is my request from all of you: tell me what my answer should be when asked what I’m going to do now. I really have no idea, and it seems there are more interviews on the horizon – just got a note from the Penn State University Student Radio station that they want to have me on as a guest on their morning show! Cool stuff. Hopefully I can go into this next one a little more prepared 🙂