I was a complete [censored] not to organise a meet with at least one, if not
all the loonies from New York & Atlanta. The problem was I was an invited
guest on an organised business trip and thought I wouldn't get any time to
run on my own. When I found out I could get the Sunday morning to myself,
twas too late to do owt about it.
So I now have an excuse to go back and race in the US, hopefully guided by
Charlie, Donovan, lance, gym.g and whoever else cares to come and laugh at
my accent and gait, or to hit me for annoying them on r.r :-P
In any case, all the girls I saw were babes and all the men were quite
average (seems Charlie and lance are the exception which prove the rule) so
I'll be back ASAP :-D
=============
Saturday 8:30am we flew out from Paris Charles De Gaule for the flight
to JFK,. Uneventful 7h30 flight except that I didn't sleep at all, thank
heavens they had multiple in-flight movies. Watched 4 in a row (I'm
reserving Brad Pitt for when I come out of the closet OK? Until then
Angelina Jolie will have to do).
We arrived at the hotel (corner of W52nd and Broadway) at around noon local
time then headed straight out for lunch in Little Italy. BTW I will try to
find the restaurant name so you can all avoid the oversalted, nondescript
food and the idle, rude, pea-brained-jerk waiters in this one. I knew we
should have had a Wendy's.
It turned out we hit the middle of San Gennaro's day fair and parade so that
was fun. We then walked half of Manhattan searching for 4Gbyte iPod Nanos
before dinner at Gallagher's ,then back to the hotel which was mercifully
right next door.
Newt morning the organisers had planned for us to go to Baptist church in
Harlem but I felt a little better than expected so jumped ship and set off
for central park.
There weren't many runners around me in the park to begin with because I'd
headed immediately east (wrong way) towards the Pond and rink after entering
the south-west corner. Having run out of park to the east, I headed back
vaguely north until I hit the zoo entrance.
Thinking it was some kind of no through road, I cut back west and
I met a guy who was just finishing his workout, drenched in sweat but
with a broad, glowing grin, obviously very pleased with his session and
wanting to share it. He lifted his arm in salute and hollered
"Have a good one", and I certainly did. Thanks whoever you were for setting
the mood :-)
Ran a very easy pace to take in the atmosphere and finally find the main
running loop, on the road, where a biathlon was also taking place. One girl
had scuffed her (otherwise delicious) thigh quite nastily in a fall from her
bike. Ouch.
I never saw such a concentration of runners outside of a race as on that
road. All shapes, sizes, ages and classes were present, and I'm only talking
about the personal sound equipment.
I finally got fed up of the road so headed east again on footpaths until I
arrived at the south pump station on the reservoir, where I found my first
and only frisbee players of the day.
Did twice round the reservoir in 14'35 and 14'33 (around 9'13/mi I guess,
counting the diverted bit near the north pump station) at steady 70%HR.
As Donovan guessed, my easy pace meant I had no problems with traffic,
of which there wasn't enough to be a handicap anyway (about 9:30am)
The view from North end of the reservoir, with a gorgeous morning sun on the
buildings, was pure magic. I'm glad to have been there after they replaced
the old chain link fence by the lower classic one, even though that meant I
didn't get the full "Marathon Man" deal :-P
Headed back towards the hotel and passed the finishing zone of the biathlon
as they were winding up the prize giving ceremony. Then got a bit lost but
stumbled on a bag drop and a table manned (so to speak) by two girls with
sports drinks and stuff, seemingly set up by NYRR(?) for people doing long
runs or something?
Nice idea in any case, seems like there's a lot more encouragement for
runners in the US than here.
It all made me wish I was staying (a lot) longer.
The next day there were 6 of us from the study group up for the run and they
wanted to do the whole park, so we ended up doing a figure-8 in 1:30
including the Lake, the Ramble, the Belvedere, a half loop of the Reservoir,
the Pool, the Great hill, Harlem Meer, a quick accidental tour of the
Conservatory Garden, MET, zoo before exiting onto 5th Av at E69th
and finishing along 59th street.
I reckon I could do all my runs in that place for a year and never get bored
of it. Wonderful.
That evening we flew out of Newark for Raleigh/Durham NC and I didn't get a
chance to run on American soil again (well, except for racing to the
"sanitary facilities" when I'd left it a bit late while playing pool). Pity
cos there must be some brilliant trails to run on in NC. Maybe another
time...