Blog Posts

There’s a smile on my face in almost every photo of me competing in Sunday’s New York City Triathlon. Which is kind of miraculous, as the race was neither painless, nor easy. In the moments just after my finish, there beneath a canopy of leaves just above Central Park’s Sheep’s Meadow, I said to Chris,…

“Hello this is an automated message from the Accenture Triathlon Alerting System. Your athlete Benjamin Wagner has finished the race at 2 hours 43 minutes 27 seconds.”

In exactly forty-eight hours, I’m diving into the Hudson River, and paddling like hell. Sunday morning is my sixth Nautica New York City Triathlon. My wave — the most sizeable demographic, 35-40 males, and hence the last — begins the 1500 meter (about one mile) swim at 98th Street at 8:15. From the transition on…

Rolling Stone Editor Sid Holt broke my heart. I was twenty-four-years-old. I’d moved to New York City just a few months prior with two goals: to snag a record deal, and write for Rolling Stone magazine. I wasn’t much for networking. Still, I knew well enough to canvas the Syracuse University Alumni Center for names.…

My first pair was purple. I purchased my first pair of Converse All Stars for twenty bucks at Connelly’s Discount Clothes in Wayne, Pennsylvania. I was fifteen-years-old, and had recently formed my first band, Neoteric Youth. The fact that my father had played three years of high school basketball in the exact same archless, black…

Amtrak 2295 is running fifteen minutes late. Outside, the sun is dipping behind a bank of billowing storm clouds. Inside, the air is cool and dry. I lean back in my seat, rapping my arms around my t-shirted chest to keep warm. All around me, passengers prattle into their cell phones, revealing slivers of their…