Oddly, I just realized I can tie all these thoughts together because of a common theme — New York City. Read on.

Last week, a young New York City school teacher who clocked the fastest time at the Nike Women’s Marathon in San Francisco, wasn’t initially recognized as the winner because she wasn’t seeded among the elites. Now, though, she’s being recognized as A Winner. Not THE winner; A winner. Wow. How dumb is Nike?

As some of you know, I’m training for the New York Marathon which is 9 days away. Tomorrow I’ll run 8 miles and after that, nothing longer than 4 or 5 miles, which feels like cheating. But that’s called tapering. I’ll also try to sleep a lot and eat well.

But back to tomorrow — I’ll probably listen to my favorite band, The OLD 97s on my iPod when I run. Yes, Rhett Miller’s lyrics can be sad and angry over lost love, but the music itself is uptempo and rockin’.

Really, this is all a segue to tell you how I ran across a great NPR Fresh Air interview with lead singer Rhett Miller from July, where he sings songs and talks about life, including his suicide attempt at age 14 and also fleeing his New York City apartment Sept. 11 because it was 100 yards from Ground Zero. Thought I’d share this with ya’ll, since research has shown that listening to music can improve athletic performance.