has rolled around and here it's March already and I'm just getting this blog going. It's not that I have been inactive — I would say I'm as active as ever, having completed a 5K, a 5 miler and a 10 miler in variable weather (mostly cold) plus I won an award at the Flyers' annual Awards Gala. A couple of notable training runs complete the picture.

Unfortunately, I must admit my fitness level is somewhat diminished from what it was last year at this point and I can only blame the weather for part of that. A loaded schedule of a variety of activities is also partly to blame, and — dare I say — getting on in age has taken it's toll, if only a little bit.

But I'm moving along with determination to keeping the fun part going and working to keep my racing accomplishments at as high a level as I can. With that said, welcome to my 2017 Running Blog (with the occasional other interesting stuff). Enjoy and by all means let me know what you think and tell me what you're up to.

A Run and a Visit to the New York Botanical Garden

October 15th (and a reprise on the 27th) — A Run and a Visit to the New York Botanical Garden

A note on our visits to the New York Botanical Garden
This report is actually a conflation of two visits to the NYBG: Susan and I ran from her place up to the NYBG on October 15th and she took photos of many of the museum exhibits and in the Conservatory. About 2 weeks later my wife Joy and I took the train up and we visited many of the same places in the NYBG (the Library/Museum and the Conservatory) and of course we all enjoyed the beautiful landscapes of the place. The feature that brought us there both times was the exhibition of the world-renowned artist Dale Chihuly's glassworks (see ). The album of photos I put together (here) shows the best of both visits. Enjoy!
y running partner Susan and I had planned for a trip to the New York Botanical Garden (aka the NYBG) at the beginning of October, but that run got hijacked by Oktoberfest. It turns out that Radegast, our favorite German Biergarten in Williamsburg, was planning their yearly Oktoberfest celebration with a live German Band the same day. Since that was not a movable date, we went there and the NYBG was put on hold.

But we couldn't wait too long since the NYBG was hosting an , whose glass works were shown both in the museum, and in natural the surroundings in the NYBG Conservatory and all about the grounds — and this exhibition would close at the end of October. This showing had received rave reviews and was a must-see event among the cognoscenti. I however, was not among those particular cognoscenti and I didn't discover the exhibit and who Chihuly was and what he did till I got there. But Susan knew it all.

But the show turned out to be so excellent that I went again with my wife Joy on the last day of the exhibit. How's that for cutting it close!

Taking the Train –

On my 2nd visit, Joy and I just took the train and brought our own food and didn't need to worry about maps or food or anything else. Not that we don't enjoy those complications. But if you really want to get there the easy way, take the train!

Running There –

The maps show the route we took to get there. Why two maps? Well, the left one was the idealized route which would bring us directly onto Webster Avenue on the west side of the Metro North tracks. The map on the right shows our actual route. We went "off course" that way because I wanted to run through both St. Mary's Park and Crotona Park since I always like to go through parks rather than streets even if — as in this case — it results in a longer route. But Susan and her iPhone kept me moving towards our original goal and we ended up on Webster Avenue where it crosses Fordham Road.

You might ask why we wanted to be on Webster, which is west of the tracks, while the NYBG is east of the tracks. Ah, that is because one of our favorite eating places, the , is on Webster Avenue at the corner of Bedford Park Boulevard, just across the tracks from the NYBG entrance. As Susan says, the Webster Cafe has good food for low prices, whereas the Cafe inside the NYGB has fancy food for high prices. We were hungry when we got there and we enjoyed lots of good food (at very modest prices). Our run turned out to be around 8½ miles, just about what we wanted. If we had skipped the parks and followed the idealized route we would have saved maybe a mile, so that was no big deal. Besides, we enjoyed the parks, and the run, and the brunch.

The New York Botanical Garden
Featuring an Exhibition of the Glassworks of Dale Chihuly

e usually enter the Botanical Garden at the Mosholu Entrance which is across Southern Boulevard from the train station between Bedford Park Boulevard and the Mosholu Parkway. The main entrance is about ½ miles south along Southern Boulevard and we occasionally enter there if we are coming up through Crotona Park.

The Library / Museum

The first stop we made was to the Library / Museum which is just up the hill towards the east (left) after you pass through the entrance. Many of Chihuly's museum works were on exhibit there and some short videos were running showing Chihuly at his workshop explaining his methods. Unfortunately, these videos were only shown on weekends so on the second visit with my wife, we missed them.

Many of the museum pieces were outgrowths of glass blowers' typical work in shaping bowls, cups, etc. He took those forms and turned them into art, as you can see in the photo on the right, a beautiful still-life. At some point he moved on to abstract works, and works which mimicked natural forms (trees, plants, birds, etc.)

We spent the good part of an hour here and almost without exception the works were things of beauty.

The Conservatory

We then walked over to the Conservatory (basically a huge greenhouse, consisting of interconnecting sections which form a giant rectangular loop), which is off to the southwest. Take the first paved path to the right from the road down the hill from the Library. This path will swing around a hill and you will soon see the conservatory. This time it was enhanced by a huge yellow Chihuly "bush" (or was it a "tree"?) in front of the entrance.

Once inside, we circled around with the flow of visitors. On our first visit (a Sunday) it was very crowded but luckily on the 2nd visit (a Friday), it was much less so. On our way around inside the structure, we saw many Chihuly works mixed with the natural flora. Remember to come back in the Spring when the Chihuly works will be gone to be replaced by a gazillion Orchids.

As we made the rounds, we found Chihuly works in both expected and unexpected places. They were all beautiful and seemed to fit in perfectly with the context. We kept asking ourselves, "How did he do that?".

When we were about half way around we went outside where there is a garden with pools (with goldfish). This outdoor space is entirely surrounded by the Conservatory. We then popped back in to continue our route around inside the structure.

Each section features a different type of flora (desert, rain forest, etc.) and in each case, Chihuly's objects matched and complemented the surrounding natural plant life. The two photos (left and right above) illustrate two such sections.

Around and About the Botanical Garden

Although the two buildings we explored (Library/Museum and Conservatory) had a concentration of both natural and Chihuly "wonders", it's important to remember that they constitute only a few percent of the Garden's acreage. Once you start walking the grounds, you will want to explore every path or trail you come upon, but alas, that would be a herculean task.

On the two visits we went similar ways and ended up checking out the area near the main gate which had the obligatory cafe and gift shop. But I never cease to marvel at this combination of a manicured garden mixed with vast woodland of "old growth" forest along the meandering Bronx River. Throw in the Chihuly works and you add a bit of humor and human-made beauty. It's easy to forget you are within a major city.

The two photos here illustrate this variety: on the left a Chihuly construction which takes a placid pool and gives it some energy and wonder. On the right, is a beautiful landscape which is typical of the Garden.

The left photo says "Hey, look what I've got: a group of beautiful red glass constructs that was put together this year, enhancing that pool. So what have you got?" The right photo answers "Well, let's see, I have some gneiss that goes back about a billion years, some conifers whose ancestors go back about 200 million, and that beautiful Kentucky blue grass from the last century!" Sounds like a win-win.

What I don't show (because on the first visit we didn't take any photos and on the 2nd visit we didn't go there) are the sights along the trails in the woodland. But here's a photo I took in April, 2016 on a visit to the NYBG before the trees came into leaf: . This is actually part of an album of that visit which features the 2016 Orchid Show, so if you have a few minutes you can click through that album to see what the Garden looks like in early Spring, plus, of course, the orchids. (Click on the left pointing arrow in the far upper left to get to the album page.)

Time to go home

Although we took rather different modalities to get to the NYBG, going home was an easy decision: walk across the street and get on the train and it's 20 minutes to Grand Central. And of course, we all almost fell asleep on the ride.

Now, What you've been waiting for: the Complete Photo Album for this Post

Photo Album: October 2017 – The New York Botanical Garden Chihuly Exibition
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The Great American Solar Eclipse of 2017

Note: this is an excerpt from the complete account with numerous pictures on the web site, available here:
.

o make a long story short, I went to Portland, Oregon a few days before the eclipse and stayed a week. My daughter Susan and I made plans and changed them a few time and finally ended up in central Oregon where we camped out on a cattle ranch near Mitchell, Oregon with a car full of food and tents and everything we could think of. We thought this was the best place from both the standpoint of the location (on the path of totality) and the weather forecast. We wanted clear skies above all else.

On August 21st, Eclipse Day, around 9:30 we brought our stuff out to our chosen spot, set things up and relaxed and waited with our eclipse glasses (and sunscreen) on. Other eclipse viewers were likewise scattered around the areas in ones, twos, and occasionally larger groups. Totality was due to start at 10:21 and last just over two minutes, so as the time got closer everyone started to get a bit edgy. The light was funny, the shadows were funny, the animals were upset, and it got cold. As the moon gradually approached the bottom-left edge of the sun where it would completely cover it, it got darker and darker and suddenly it was night!

The last uncovered part of the sun seemed to explode in a flash of light (The "Diamond Ring") and then there it was, totality! Off came the eclipse glasses and there was the moon, the blackest black I had ever seen (much blacker than the rest of the sky) and the corona surrounding the sun, the whitest white I had ever seen. And the crowds, the crowds flipped out! Photos do not do justice to this incredible dynamic range.

People around us gasped or screamed or clapped, or were struck completely dumb! The most common scream was "O My God", and this was not the OMG when you see that perfect outfit in a store window and you say "I gotta have that". This was an OMG of awe, or even fear. This was the primal scream of our inner cave man breaking through the many layers of culture and civilization we are wrapped in. I kid you not, this was the most unique and wonderful experience I had ever, ever seen in my 70 plus years.

And the corona was not static — it was alive, it glistened, it sparkled! It extended irregularly in all direction from the sun and at a minimum stretched two or three times the sun's diameter into space. We didn't have the fancy equipment that would show the details of the corona or the bursts of eruptions from the sun's surface, but what we saw with our eyes was totally awesome.

Totality ended as it had begun with the "Diamond Ring", this time, where the moon had first started nibbling away at the sun almost 80 minutes before. Susan shouted "It's Back!" and the glasses went back on. We sat there stunned and speechless, disappointed by how quickly the totality had come and gone. After a while we put the scattered pieces of our minds back together and reluctantly gathered up our stuff.

We quickly agreed that we would head back to Portland and try to beat the traffic. After about 4 hours of relatively traffic-free driving we had indeed beaten the post-eclipse traffic and we were home again. And all we could say about what we had experienced that morning was We will be there at the next eclipse on April 8th, 2024, COME HELL OR HIGH WATER! Once in a lifetime is not enough!

For a complete account of this marvelous trip see this:
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May - September — The Long Hot (and sometimes not-so-Hot) Summer

RaceDate Time Pace 70+ Location
Mothers Day 5K May 14 30:12 9:44 2nd Roosevelt Island
VCTC 5K XC #1 May 25 34:54 11:15 1st Van Cortlandt Park
Memorial Day 5K May 29 30:20 9:47 3rd Roosevelt Island
VCTC 5K XC #2 Jun 8 33:01 10:39 2nd Van Cortlandt Park
Philharmonic in the Park – June 14, 2017
Running of Balls 5KJun 18 29:36 9:32 2nd Roosevelt Island
VCTC 5K XC #3 Jun 22 33:02 10:12 2nd Van Cortlandt Park
Achilles 4 Miler Jun 25 40:50 10:13 2nd Central Park
Firecracker 5K Jul 4 30:14 9:45 1st Governor's Island
VCTC 5K XC #5 Jul 20 34:29 11:07 1st Van Cortlandt Park
Ice Cream 5K Jul 29 30:35 9:51 1st Roosevelt Island
VCTC 5K XC #6 Aug 3 33:21 10:42 3rd Van Cortlandt Park
Club Team 5 Miler Aug 5 50:31 10:06 Central Park
Governor's Is. 5K Aug 12 31:03 10:00 1st Governor's Island
The Great American Solar Eclipse of August 21, 2017
Labor Day 5K Sep 04 30:14 9:45 2nd Roosevelt Island
Shoe4Africa 5K Sep 7 30:56 9:58 1st Riverside Park
NY Flyers Palisades Run – September 10th, 2017
Squirrel Stampede Sep 24 30:55 9:58 2nd Roosevelt Island
uring the period when the weather turned warmer and the Spring actually started to feel like Spring, and we started to hope that Summer would not be far behind, I got lazy with my blogging, and not till the Eclipse (see the next post above) did I realize I have to put this material together.

But it was still many more months after I had written up the Eclipse post and even the story of Chihuly at the NY Botanical Garden (see second post above) that I went back to work on this missing period. The first thing I did was fill out the table (right) of all my running activities plus a few non-running items.

I took one look at the table and I said "Yikes", that's a lot of races — 16 in 19 weeks! I think maybe that's too many races!

So then I stated looking at the finishing times to see if there was a pattern: was I getting faster (or slower) during these 19 weeks? I had to separate the different locations since the course on Roosevelt Island is flat on paved paths, and the course in Van Cortland Park is hilly on a rough dirt path (it's a cross country course), and as for Central Park or Governor's Island, there were not enough races to really detect a pattern.

Well, my Roosevelt times were 30:12, 30:20, 29:36, 30:35, 30:14, and 30:55 – pretty consistent. My VC times were 34:54, 33:01, 33:02, 34:29, and 33:21 – a bit more variable. But I recall there were several very hot and humid nights in VC Park (The VCTC races start at 7:00).

What I didn't try to keep track of was all the minutia of my running: stretching, easy runs, long runs, etc. etc. But I would say that when the time comes around for all these potential summer races in 2018, I should shoot more for quality rather then quantity.

Enough said!

The NYCRuns Prospect Park 5K

April 22th — The NYCRuns Prospect Park 5K

 went into this race with not-a-little skepticism. I had a fall and made a mess of my knee a bit over a week ago and had done practically no running since. My right pectorals were also sore from the fall, probably getting a "jolt" through my right arm. So you might say expectations were not high. But nevertheless I wanted to do my best and who knows how it would go.

I trudged over to get the Q train at Union Square at 6:20 and it was a bit chilly. I had decided I would wear a long sleeve top over a light undershirt, and tights. Temperatures were about 50° when I left the house, so I wore my heavier jacket.

I got to the Prospect Park subway station, a bit too early. But the baggage check and bib pickup was up on Center Drive so I got a good warm up doing a jog/walk. The route was actually a comparatively easy one for Prospect Park (see map) with most of the long hill on the East Drive cut, but it was a bit of a walk to get from packet pickup/baggage area to the start.

Prospect Park 5K
  Split
Mile 1 9:20
Mile 2 8:55
Mile 3 9:39
last .1 0:55
Finish 28:49
Pace 9:17
The 10K went off first — they started further up the East Drive where the hill peaks. They had by far the majority of runners. We took off about 15 minutes later and I got a good start from near the front of the pack. I pushed it but had no idea how fast a pace I could hold. I ran a 9:20 the first mile and then an 8:55 (which I didn't see on my watch when I pushed the split button) on the rolling net downhill of the west side. I fell off a bit on the last mostly flat third mile around the lakes at the south end of the park, but I realized that this was turning out well. Maybe those runless days since my fall, rather than lowering my fitness level, actually gave me a good rest.

The splits in the table speak for themselves. But I couldn't add them up in my head while I was running — and I didn't even see the 8:55 for my 2nd mile — so when I got near the finish and saw the clock at 28 minutes with the seconds moving up through the 40s, I was surprised, to say the least. I gave it that extra push you never know you'll have, and finished with an official time of 28:49. This was better than all but three of the 15 5K races I did last year, and those three were only a few seconds faster! And when I got home I found I had finshed first in the 70+ age group!

Not. Bad. At. All!

I put together some conclusions that others might profit from. This includes some non-running activities I did leading up to the race. Come to think of it, practically all my activities leading up to the race were non-running.

Lessons learned:

April 17th — The Boston Marathon Comes and Goes for Another Year

he Boston Marathon was run on Monday this week. I thought about going up to watch, but there were just too many things I had to do and none of my close friends were running. I go back a long way with the Boston Marathon. From watching it with my father around 1950, to hearing an announcement that Johnny Kelly the younger just won it (the first American for over a decade) while listening to a Red Sox game in 1957, to being pissed off, and I mean really pissed off, at the pictures in the New York Times of Katherine Switzer being asaulted — there is no other word for it — by Jock Semple, the race director in 1967. To put it mildly I can see those pictures in my memory even today, and I am STILL. PISSED. OFF. But that's a long story that's been told many times, so we'll leave it at that.

I remember walking up to Central Park sometime in the late 1970s and unexpectedly saw Bill Rogers run past me (not 50' away) to go on to win in the New York City Marathon. He went on to win four Bostons and four New Yorks

My first Boston, at age 50, was in 1993 and my father (age 88) proudly watched me run by, some 40+ years after he had taken me to watch the race. My last Boston (of 6) was in 2014 at age 71 — a do-over after my forced DNF in the traumatic and tragic 2013 race. That's a 21 year span, not bad.

Switzer did it again this year at age 70, a 50 year span after her first and most famous one in 1967. We have all come a long, long way baby.

Did I miss going up to watch this year? Sure.

April 13th — Ouch! I Make an Unexpected Hard Landing on the Sidewalk

n Thursday the 13th I met Melissa for a run along the East River promenade and thence over the pedestrian bridge for a pleasant run to Randall's (not "Randel's") Island. Melissa was starting to get back into shape after being on the disabled list, and I was still recovering from the previous weekend's trip to Washington for the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler.

We had not run more than a few minutes when my foot scrapped on a miniscule uneven patch of the sidewalk and wham! down I went. I instinctively caught myself with my hands but my right knee took it hard just below the kneecap. There was a bloody patch about 1" by 2" there and some scraped spots on the palms of both hands.

Luckily no bones were broken and my muscles were all still working. I knew I should keep running or my old pal inflammation would stiffen up the surrounding muscles. So we soldiered on and I rinsed the dirt off using the water fountain on the Randall's Island side of the bridge. And we proceeded to have a reasonably nice run. The knee "stung" and my pace was a bit tentative and unbalanced but we got through it.

I took the Q train home and I could see the patch on my knee looked very bloody. Thankfully it was not dripping, just oozing ever so slightly. The other passengers seemed to ignore the spectacle entirely — hey! this is New York City.

At home I washed it (it hurt), put some triple-antibiotic on it and got on with life. That night I slept with a little pain in the knee, but unexpectedly, also some pain in the right rib cage. But there was no black-and-blue there and I'm quite sure that part of my torso never hit the ground.

The next day by a coincidence of scheduling, Joe, the massage guy, came for a session. He found a little stiffness and lack of flexibility here and there but nothing extraordinary. He said the right rib cage soreness was probably indicative of a slight strain in one of the muscles there, probably due so some sudden twisting or stretching during my fall. He also said getting back to running after the fall was exactly the right thing to do.

When he had finished, I felt a definite improvement in just walking around. I seems there was a fair amount of stiffness in my legs which I hadn't noticed until Joe chased it away.

Lessons learned:

A week later — an update:
 
It's been a week since my fall and due to weather, a busy schedule and some nagging soreness on the right side, I've done no running whatsoever. The knee is fine (but I still have an ugly scab) but the pain on the right side is still bothersome. It's not just the rib cage as I originally experienced, but a slightly wider area. I'm thinking the fall and especially landing on my hands (as well as the knee, of course) may have propagated a "Jolt" up the arm to the affected area. I have an old injury — a torn rotator cuff — on that side from about a decade ago. I never feel any pain from the area and except for throwing (I "throw like a girl" ) it has no affect on my activities. But who knows, maybe that old rotator cuff is acting up.

Tonight (Thursday) I'll meet Melissa again and we'll do another similar run, but without the fall, I promise. And this Saturday (the 22nd) I will run the NYCRuns Prospect Park 5K coming off this injury and a week's loss of training, so I expect to do fine [a joke, a joke!].

A Trip to Washington DC for the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler

April 1st-3rd – A Trip to Washigton DC for the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler

y first Cherry Blossom 10 Miler was in 1990 when there were a couple of thousand runners and a very informal organization. I don't remember if the starter said "go" or there was a horn, but it was typical of the good old days. This year there were over 17,000 participants and like a lot of races nowadays it was highly sponsored, well marketed and well organized. There were a number of corrals (something unheard of in 1990), and I think the announcer said that my corral had it's own sponsor — "The Orange Corral, sponsored by so-and-so, will be starting in two minutes". But you know what? I loved the race in 1990, and I still love it today although my pace has slowed about 3 minutes a mile. Ouch!

For the last several years my friend and running partner Susan and I had registered as a "group" so in the lottery we would both get in or both lose out. You have to apply for the lottery in December, so you do it on "spec", hoping you'll be ready and able to run the race. I was a bit undertrained when April came around, but Susan had sustained a knee injury about 3 weeks before. But she soldiered on and figured she'd just do the best she could.

Besides, we don't go only for the race — there's lots of sights and scenes in Washington, including good (but affordable) restaurants, museums, historic sights and even the ballet at the Kennedy Center (yes we went: The Little Mermaid, sad but beautifully done). And we always try to do it on the cheap: Bolt Bus ($35 round Trip) and staying in the HI Washington Hostel ($43 per night).

Saturday

e took the 7:30 Bolt Bus and got to Washington around noon. We then took the "" bus to the Hostel ($1), dropped off our stuff and tried (but failed) to get dinner reservations at , a favorite of ours (we tried again on Sunday night and got in with no waiting — everyone had left town!). So we walked to pick up our race packets at the (a beautiful structure inside and out) which was the race head quarters.

From there we walked down to the Mall and checked out the , new to me and quite lovely — but not a match for our own NY Botanical Garden in the Bronx.

We then trudged back up the hill to one our favorite restaurants: , a must for you if you should visit Washington. To quote from their website: "The name Busboys and Poets refers to American poet Langston Hughes, who worked as a busboy at the Wardman Park Hotel in the 1920s, prior to gaining recognition as a poet." It is more than an eating place, it is a performance space and venue for many progressive happenings and is devoted the ideal of an egalitarian and inclusive community.

So, we had a long bus ride from New York, did quite a bit of walking, picked up our race packets, visited the Botanic Garden and enjoyed an excellent meal at a unique restaurant — AND — we had a 10 Mile Race to run early the next morning. The best thing to do would be to get back to the Hostel and to retire early to bed, yes?

No! Susan had bought tickets to a ballet () at the Kennedy Center, way out on the west side of town and it started at 8:00 that night and we didn't know how to get there. So we got back to the Hostel, changed into our going-to-the-Kennedy-Center clothes and waited for a bus. It didn't come for 10 - 15 minutes, so we gave up and took a cab. Hey it's like a vacation, it's OK to take a cab!

We greatly enjoyed the whole experience, even though it's a dark tale. It was brilliantly danced by the troupe and although I thought I would fall asleep and was tempted to go home (and to bed) at the intermission, we stayed till the end and enjoyed the beautiful ending. We "ran today's race" from New York to the Kennedy Center and finished very satisfied (and took another cab home). Would we could do it again Sunday in the 10 miler!

Sunday Morning

 Cherry Blossom 
10 Miler
Mile Split
1 10:41
2 10:21
3 10:21
4 10:21
5 10:25
6 10:22
7 10:17
8 10:20
9 10:08
10 9:59
Finish 1:43:15
Pace 10:20
 met Susan about 6:45 in the kitchen/dining room. Breakfast was not officially served till 7:00 but we could at least get some coffee which is available at all hours. John, the manager of the kitchen, was setting up. We had chatted with him on Saturday and he knew us from previous years and had actually fetched some food for us (an apple and a muffin).

The elites didn't start till 7:30, so we back-of-the packers had plenty of time. My corral didn't start till about 7:45 and Susan planned to get at the very back of the pack, so her cut off to get down to the race start was 8:00 or something like that. I said good bye and started out about 7:20 and made it down in plenty of time to squeeze into the Orange corral. This group was expected to run somewhere in the 10 to 11 minutes per mile range so I was in the right place. (I looked up my 1990 race results and I had run that race at a 7:25 pace. Wow! What a difference 27 years can make!) I knew I was undertrained but I wanted to do as well as I could anyway. I recalled the Cherry Tree race in Prospect Park in mid February where I really died in the last 3 miles, and hoped that that would not happen here. Besides this was a flat course as opposed to Prospect Park which is very far from flat.

I got a good start (the wave starts work well) and ran cautiously the first mile and then picked it up a bit. It turns out my first mile was my slowest, no doubt due to the crowds, but my last mile was the fastest. Check the splits in the table on the right.

Two things surprised me in a very positive way: I never felt like I was running out of steam as the miles went by, and my right forefoot never felt numb. This latter was very welcome since I have lived with this problem for over 5 years and had learned just to put up with it.

The course was lovely, but the few cherry blossoms we encountered looked past their prime. The weather also cooperated with temperatures in the 40°s at the start and in the 50°s at the finish. And there were no howling winds like last year. And although we tried to forget politics for the weekend in this "seat of the government", we all got a chuckle from one hand lettered sign: "You run better than the government".

I had some strength left the last mile or two, and pushed as much as I could and they were the fastest two miles for the race. The finish line photo on the right certainly shows this.

Cherry Blossom 10 Miler
  Split Pace
1st Third 34:51 10:27
2nd Third 34:33 10:22
3rd Third 33:53 10:10
Finish 1:43:15 10:20
Cherry Tree 10 Miler
  Split Pace
1st Third 32:59 9:53
2nd Third 34:15 10:20
3rd Third 36:13 10:53
Finish 1:43:28 10:21
Well, how did I do compared to the Feb. 19th in Prospect Park? The two tables (on the left, this race, on the right, that race) tell the story very well. Although the finishing times were close, the splits show a dramatically different story: in the Prospect Park race I had strongly positive splits (getting slower: 9:53, 10:20, 10:53) and this race I had negative splits (getting faster: 10:27, 10:22, 10:20). I was very happy with that and it encouraged me to train a bit more, especially by doing longer weekly runs to get some increased endurance and further improve my times.

I climbed the hill back to the Hostel and after cleaning up and recovering a bit, I met up with Susan and we had a bite to eat and planned for our afternoon: we would visit the new African American Museum.

Sunday Afternoon

he new African American Museum in Washington opened in late September 2016. The attendance was so overwhelming that they had to introduce "timed entry passes" which you could get on-line for future dates. At the time when we registered for the Cherry Blossom and received our lottery acceptances (December 12th), they were "sold out" for every day till March and their web site said they would not be opening it up for April, May and June till "to be announced".

Susan and I agreed we should really try for these passes and decided the afternoon of race day would be the best. So we checked the web site every day and finally in late December they announced the passes would be available on-line starting on January 4th. So we both logged in at 9:00 on January 4th and agreed who ever got through first would text the other. We figured since this was the first weekend of the new batch of timed entries and the weekend of the Cherry Blossom Festival to boot, that the demand would be high. Well, I won our own little lottery and I got two passes for us for 2:45 on April 2nd, race day.

Now, back to race day, we were a little "itchy" when afternoon came around so we went down to check out the National Gallery (just a bit east of the African American Museum) first. There were interesting archival photos and period furniture but we managed to lose each other and cell reception was poor. Well, all's well that ends well, and we did find each other and walked along the mall in the warm sunny April afternoon and got to our destination about 15 minutes early. A line was already forming up for the next "wave start", so I asked a security guard if we should get in the line (thinking it might be the 2:30 wave) but she just let us skip the line and go right in. And there we were.

The building which is shown above, although it appears to be rather large, is actually much larger. When we went in and looked at the guide pamphlet, we saw that there were three floors below ground level showing the history of the Black experience in North America from the beginning of the slave trade in the 16th century up to the present. And the three floors above showed African American art and artifice. So we figured we'd take the elevator down and check out the history first, and then explore the upper floors.

Well, it didn't work out that way. First off there were large crowds everywhere and we took our time and looked carefully at everything. We knew we may not make it back here for some time. As for the narrative shown in the history floors, which included historical articles, quotations from early leaders, both African and American, they showed every detail of that terrible period.

The narrative took us step by painful step from the start of the slave trade in the mid 16th century, where European traders found there was more profit in shipping a human cargo of slaves to North and South America than engaging in the trading of goods, though the colonization of the New World and the establishment of the U.S. — which at the time was highly dependent on slave labor in both the southern and northern states — through numerous slave uprising, which were brutally suppressed, through the abolitionists movement in the 18th and 19th centuries which fostered the "Underground Railroad", through the Civil War, the "Jim Crow" period, the "Great Migration", the Civil Rights Act and and up though the present day.

I'm sorry but I can't verbalize all I saw — it was just too powerful and moving. We were shaken. When we got back to the ground floor it was almost 5:00 and we had to leave. We vowed we would come back to visit what we had missed. If you go, try to pick a time when there would be less crowds and allow plenty of time. You may need two visits since you'll need time to digest what you've seen, which I'm sill doing.

Monday

e had tickets for the 12:00 noon Bolt bus back to New York City. So over breakfast, we figured we needed to leave the Hostel by 11:00 or at the latest 11:15 to make the bus. That would give us a couple of hours to check out the west end of the mall, in particular the Vietnam War Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial and some adjacent areas. Monday was by far the nicest day, weather-wise, so we both went up, packed our stuff up and met in the lobby for a nice Sunday morning walk. We walked down and along the beautiful row houses along the west side of Lafayette Square (which were saved from development by none other that First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy in 1962 among others — see ), past the White House and down 17th Street to the Mall just west of the Washington Monument. It was totally cleaned up and you would never know there were 17,000+ runners here just one day before.

We had both seen this area numerous time but it's always an inspiration to visit. The Lincoln Memorial seen over the reflecting pool is just a marvel. I love that picture above with the clouds streaking up at an angle from the Memorial with the building and clouds reflected in the pool. We split up on the way back but this relatively long walk for a small number of objectives was well worth it.

We both managed to get everything down from our rooms, checked out and took a few minutes to relax. Then we left the Hostel and got the "Circulator" bus on time at 11:20. Unfortunately it didn't stay on time and we were held up by a construction project about half way to the station. So we got out of the bus with our luggage and walked the rest of the way to Union Station and got there with about 10 minutes to spare. And since we both had "Group A" tickets, we were first on the bus. About 4 and a half hours later we were in New York, and I was home about 45 minutes after that. It was a wonderful weekend!

A Farewell Party for Bob Cowin and the Photo-Mosaic

March 23rd – The Farewell Party for Bob Cowin and the Photo-Mosaic

elissa had let me know about the Farewell party for Bob Cowin about a week ahead and we agreed to meet at Treadwell Park on First Avenue at 62rd Street. But when I got there the place was empty, so I asked a waiter where was the Bob Cowin Party. He looked it up and said "Oh, that moved to West 72nd Street to some place called the ". I was very lucky he knew or I would not have gotten there. I didn't know whom to call and if they were in a bar, they would never hear my call anyway. So I scrambled up to 67th to get the crosstown bus and texted Melissa. She didn't know either and said she would meet me at the new place but was not sure when she might get there.

When I finally got there about a half hour later, there sure was a party going on. The back room was packed to the gills. Must have been at least 100 persons there. And not just Flyers: also folks from his cycling club and motorcycle club and who know what else.

Things were pretty chaotic but I did meet up wth Melissa (and Heidi and Sarah – see the first title picture above – and too many more to remember). There were a great number of photos taken by Linda C. (see the Flyers album ) and I met folks I had not seen in years, and some I had never seen before. But I had a doctor's appointment Friday norning so around 9:00 I convinced Melissa to walk up to 79th Street with me and take the crosstown bus, drop her off, and eventually take the 2nd Avenue Q train home (I love rhe Q train!). But I got waylaid at where I had a bite to eat (at the Party it was all beer). But against my better judgement I also had just one margarita (you can't go to Canyon Road and not have a margarita).

Meanwhile back at the party, something very special happened. Naomi R. had created a photo-mosaic of Bob's Camera using thousands of Bob's pictures from the Flyers' archives and some software to make the mosaic from the myriad of tiny photos. See the Flyer's web page I put together () for the whole story, which is pretty amazing. The 2nd Title picture above shows part of the mosaic zoomed in to see the tiny picture tiles. And the photo on the right end of the 1st title picture shows Ed trying to find himself in the mosaic. To see what I'm talking about, look at the digital copy of the photo-mosaic below.

Like everyone else, I tried to find myself in the mosaic. Bob had been taking pictures for the Flyers since 2005 so I was sure to be in plenty of them. So I made a scratch copy of Naomi's creation and scaled it down to about half the original size, which was 12000 x 9600 pixels — yes the original digital picture was 12 THOUSAND pixels wide. When I found myself in one of the tiny pictures, I put a yellow box around that "tile". The copy you see below is actually my scratch copy with the yellow boxes. Zoom in on the image below either clicking on the image or clicking on the "full screen" button (which is probably easier to work with). See if you can find me — here's a clue: if you squint, you can just make out the yellow boxes on the unzoomed image. I think I found 12 of me plus a couple of others but I may have missed some. But one is a picture of me sitting down at the Flyers' cheering station at the 2014 Boston Marathon ().

That was my very last Boston Marathon — see my report here: — so that's a memorable shot.

Now if you are a Flyer look for yourself; it's fun. Gotta run ....

Sample Window for searching tiles
Click the image to zoom in. then use the scroll bars.
or click on the full screen button at the lower right corner of the image (this: ).

A 5K Race Followed by a Run to the Orchid Show

March 12th – A 5K Race in Riverside Park followed by a Run to the Orchid Show at the New York Botanical Garden

n Sunday the 12th I did a "Double". It was a frigid cold day (single digit wind-chills) compounded by the change to Daylight Saving Time (which means I had to wake up at what the day before would have been 5:30 AM). But the pictures above show that it was a very good, frigid cold day.

The Frozen Penguin 5K in Riverside Park

Let's start with the 5K. NYCRuns called this race the "Frozen Penguin 5K". Yes, they like to give funny names to their races. But this was not funny. I think it was the coldest day of the winter (so far) and the temperatures during the race were between 19° and 21°. The hardest part was not running the race, but getting ready before the start and getting out of there after the finish. When I took off my wind-breaker pants, I could barely untie and then retie my running shoes. But I wanted to do better in the race than I had about a month ago in the same place (see ) when I was underdressed before the race (="freezing") but considerably overdressed during the race. This time my under/over dressing was about right. But that means when I took off my two outer layers just before the start and got into the cold crowd waiting for the horn — with everyone jumping up and down freezing — it was pretty bad.

But I did warm up in about a mile and I was determined to hold my pace and break 30 minutes. I felt I was better prepared, fitness-wise (I had been doing weekly tempo runs) and I certainly was dressed about right. The route was the same and when I turned and ran the last 50 yards or so to the finish line I could see the clock just broke 30 minutes before I crossed the line (note the clock in the finish line photo above). I was hoping I had still met my goal due to the usual start delay, but didn't find out for sure till I got home late in the afternoon and checked my results. YES! My finish time was 30 minutes flat and that was good enough for me. And what is more I was the first in the 70+ age group (out of 3) by a wide margin.

So, I went home, took a shower and a nap, right? WRONG!

I went up to Broadway and into the 110th Street #1 train station. I was heading up to Highbridge Park at 155th Street to meet my friend Susan. We were planning to run to the Orchid Show at the New York Botanical Garden via the Old Croton Aqueduct (aka the "OCA") through Highbridge Park, then over the High Bridge to the Bronx and thence to the Orchid Show.

One problem! In my excitement after doing a good 5K under adverse conditions and looking forward to a nice easy recovery run to a great destination, I had gotten into the downtown side of the subway station. Duh! Well 2 minutes getting across Broadway through moving traffic and another subway toll on my Metro Card later, I was in the right spot and in about 5 minutes the train came (the uptown train! hurrah!) and 20 minutes later I got out at Broadway and 157th, and walked the several blocks to 155th and St. Nicholas.

The plan was that Susan would run some miles in Central Park and then up along St. Nicholas and meet me at the Dunkin Donuts at the corner of 155th Street, right by the entrance to the OCA in Highbridge Park. We figured the Dunkin Donuts would be warm and have a bathroom and we could get some hot coffee and a bite to eat should we so desire. Well I was a couple of minutes early so I got a coffee and was sipping it when in walks Susan, EXACTLY at 10:30 and ZERO minutes late!! (She told me "Put that in").

But to her great credit, she had not run just "some" mile in Central Park, she had run down to Columbus Circle and joined the Flyers Little Red Lighthouse LTR (which runs along the Hudson River bike path from 72nd St. to the LRL under the GWB — confused by all the acronyms? So Google them already). She broke from the group at 155th Street and made her way to our rendezvous with surgical precision and split second timing!

The OCA not only goes through Highbridge Park and over High Bridge (yes, one word for the park two for the bridge) but goes up though the Bronx through the streets to Van Cortlandt Park and thence through various Westchester towns all the way to Croton. We would just follow it about a mile to the Kingsbridge Armory (yes another bridge, but not here), then along Kingsbridge Road to Webster Avenue (with a little bit on 194th) to Bedford Park Boulevard, which is just across the Metro North tracks from the Botanical Garden. For a more detailed description of our route, check out blog post from last year which has lots of photos and a couple of photo albums of a similar run I did with my friend Terry.

But we both did tough runs in frigid cold weather and even though we had just done a nice recovery run, we were HUNGRY. And the Botanical Garden only sells fancy food at high prices in their restaurant so we popped into the Webster Café, which sells good unfancy food at low prices. We loved this place. Lots of diversity, big menu and good waitresses.

After a leisurely lunch (the Orchids could wait) we packed up out stuff and headed out the door. The two guys who had been sitting across from us were also leaving. For just about the whole time in the restaurant they had been laughing at just about everything. As we walked out I said to them "We conducted a poll in the Café and you two were selected as the funniest". They laughed and without missing a step one said "Well, we conducted a poll and you two were selected as the healthiest looking". That was a fast comeback in the same good natured spirit, but was actually a nice complement since they figured by our dress and general "look" that we were runners. They asked if we had just run a marathon and, without trying to explain what exactly a marathon is, I said yes I had run about 8 miles getting here and my friend had run over 13. They were impressed and we parted ways, all of us the better for the encounter.

The New York Botanical Garden Orchid Show

I bet you thought I'd never talk about the Orchid Show, which in a way is the most important thing, since it was the destination of the whole day of running (and eating). I think I have been to the Orchid Show every year for many years, often times twice in the same year. Last year I went both on the first day of the show (Feb. 27th with Susan) and the last day (April 16th with Terry). I've also occasionally come by train (the train station is right across the street from the Botanical Garden) with my wife and other non-runners. Simply put, it's one of the most beautiful things you will ever see. I didn't take many photos on this visit but just the few that make up the collage for the title of this post will give you the idea. Certainly, of the two alternating photos at the top of this post, it's by far more pleasing to look at the orchids as compared to me crossing the finish line.

The show is held in a building which is basically a huge green house made up of numerous interconnected galleries (the ). The galeries form a circuit which takes between 30 minutes and an hour to negotiate, depending on how much time you want to spend and how crowded it is. On Sunday I would say the crowds were substantial but not insufferable. It was a cold Sunday in March and made an attractive destination for those in the know. I'll in put a small sampling of what we saw on Sunday. You can click on any of these pictures to see the full size photos:

Well all good things must come to an end and we had to watch our time since we were going to return home via Metro North — just 20 minutes to GCT — and the trains run but once an hour on weekends. So we made a quick stop at the flower shop (didn't buy anything), and walked leasurely over to the train station. The train came on time and about 15 minutes later Susan exited at 125th Street to make her way to her subway, and 5 or 10 minutes later I got off at GCT and made my way to my subway.

But one of the most unexpected things happened in a day full of (nice) surprises: as I climbed the stairs at the subway exit near my apartment, a man asked me "How did you like the Orchid Show". With not-a-little surprise, I asked him how he recognized me and he said by the sneakers I was wearing (they were Hokas). And he said I was with a young lady with the same sneakers (sorry, they were Brooks, not Hokas). Well as the song says "It's a small, small world".

Run to Indian Road Café

February 26 – Run to Indian Road Café

aturday (the 25th) I planned to do a 7-8 mile "Longish" run. A "longish" run is up to 9 or 10 miles long. Runs longer than this tend to cause problems in my right forefoot which starts with numbness, and eventually gets painful. See the Cherry Tree 10 Miler post in this blog.

Susan, my usual "partner in crime", was up in Massachusetts doing a half marathon so I asked Ed if he was interested. He was already booked to lead a Flyers run Saturday morning, but might be interested in doing something on Sunday. Initially I ruled that out, but since Saturday's weather was "iffy" and I had a bunch of other things I needed doing, I got back to Ed for a Sunday Run. He was agreeable (when I finally got through to him) and heading north to Indian Road Café seemed to be the way to go.

This restaurant, the most northern eating establishment in Manhattan (see The Last Café on the Only Road , as it calls itself), is a favorite destination of mine and since Ed had never been there he was happy to go.

So just after 10:00 AM on Sunday I met Ed together with Liz, an old mutual friend, at the Engineers' Gate (the East 90th Street entrance to Central Park) and we were off. The area was a bit confused, with a half marathon in progress and with a number of old friends stopping to say hello, but soon we headed north on the bridle path on our way. I was to set the route, and even though both of them had been over the general area numerous times, I promised to show them some areas they had never seen before.

We headed west at the top of the reservoir and thence to the north-west corner of the park. Since I wanted to show them something new in every park we went through, I showed them a little known sculpture and a virtually unknown street monument in the north woods before we left the park.

Morningside Park

The general theme of the run was to go through every park along the way and this was next. It's a nice smallish park with a rock cliff on the west side with the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Devine, and some Columbia University buildings perched high above the park. The new thing I showed them was not really new, but we stopped and examined it perhaps more closely than my friends had before. It is a sculpture showing a bear looming over a small faun (half man, half goat) who sits below with his pan pipes. Given that a faun was a magical being who lived among wild creatures, he probably did not feel threatened by the bear — he certainly doesn't look concerned as portrayed in the sculpture. I looked it up (see the Alfred Lincoln Seligman Fountain); it's a bronze sculpture by Edgar Walter given to the City in 1914 "as a gift to its children." The title picture of this post (above) shows Ed and me standing by the sculpture.

St. Nicholas Park

After a few blocks on the city streets, we entered out next park, St. Nicholas, at it's south-west corner. The west side of the park is at the top of the long north-south escarpment and we followed along the top-most path all the way to the north end. There was nothing particularly new here, but neither of my friends had been along this path, particularly the section north of the City University entrance at 135th Street & St. Nicholas Terrace. Once past the spectacular City University buildings, this path becomes more idyllic and much less traveled. But the mood was soon broken as we came upon the Hamilton Grange and we took the stairs down to St. Nicholas Avenue and started off to our next park.

Jackie Robinson Park

To get there, we went down 141st Steet one block and turned left on Edgecombe Avenue. When we got to 145th Street, we were just across from the south-west corner of Jackie Robinson Park. This is an old park, built in the early 20th Century as Colonial Park. In 1978, the park was renamed for the famous baseball player, who broke the major league color-barrier in 1947.

Unfortunately, many of the stairs and pathways have deteriorated and we could not get inside the west side of the park (the up hill side) till around 149th Street where an entrance leads down into the park from Edgecombe Avenue. We went down some stairs, turned left (north) and scrambled up to an old abandoned pathway that led north along the base of the retaining wall. Finally at the north end we had to scale a locked gate to get out of the park. Without the semi bushwhack and gate scaling, we would have been relegated to the sidewalk on Edgecombe avenue. This little traverse was new to Liz, but Ed had done it once before (with me of course). The locked gate was no barrier to us and soon we were at 155th street at the Hooper Fountain, across the street from Highbridge Park, our next goal.

Highbridge Park

Highbridge Park is almost as long as Central Park (55 blocks vs. 61 blocks) but it is very narrow. And for it's entire length it follows the crest of the escarpment that the other parks we visited have followed. The fact that these parks lie along this series of steep cliffs is not an accident. This is precisely where the terrain prevented streets from being established and prevented buildings from being built. It was not till the mid 20th Century, after all these parks had already been established, that both the technology and the economic incentives (i.e. greed) allowed streets to be blasted though and high rises to be built in these unlikely places.

As in the other parks, we started at the top (west side) of Higbridge Park and ran along the top-most path available. Other routes along the bottom of the cliffs, on both the river side and land side of the Harlem River Drive were saved for another day. And the only path along the upper side of the park for about the first mile and a half is the Old Croton Aqueduct (aka the "OCA"). This is a lovely, almost level path going from about 158th Street and Edgcombe Avenue to High Bridge itself ( BTW: "Highbridge", one word, is used for the park and "High Bridge", two words, is used for the bridge) and since the OCA and the bridge have been described many time by myself and others, I won't go into it here.

Getting from the OCA to the Northern Section of the Park

Now to keep going along the upper-most path we had to get past the two automobile bridges that bisect the park at this point: the 1960s Alexander Hamilton Bridge (i.e I-95) and the 1896 Washington Bridge. We were at the west end of High Bridge where the OCA turns from the bridge onto the land route which we had just run along. To get past the two auto bridges we had to 1) use a path (almost a bushwhack) through the woods up to some playing fields north of the Highbridge Tower and 2) from there follow some stairs and paths under the two automobile bridges. We has some trouble getting up to the playing fields due to some downed trees, but getting under the two bridges was easy — once you know the way (just ask me).

Now, once past the Washington Bridge we followed a lovely, rolling, paved path for over a mile, which is seldom used (we saw exactly no one) with gorgeous views over the Harlem River and certainly new to my two friends.

On to Brunch

We finished Highbridge Park where the park road we were on meets Amsterdam Avenue at 190th Street. Two blocks later we took a little known subway elevator and tunnel down to Broadway and 190th Street (no fare required) — which neither friend had seen or even heard about before.

At this point we were hungry so we elected to skip the last park — Fort Tryon Park — and run along Broadway to Isham Street (just past 207th Street). A short while later, with a slight side trip on a walkway in Inwood Hill Park, we arrived a Indian Road Café. There were some impressive views across the wetlands towards the Hudson river from outside the Café. When we went inside, it was so crowded we would have had to wait forever for a table (it was just after 12 noon) so we sat at the bar and, as Liz put it, "inhaled" our hearty brunches.

Sorry to say these directions are pretty sparse, but after all, this is just a blog post. Email me if you want more details. Suffice it to say it was a wonderful run on beautiful day and true to my promise, there were a number of places we ran that my friends had never before seen.

The Cherry Tree 10 Miler

February 19th – The Cherry Tree 10 Miler

he best way to describe and evaluate this race is to contrast it with and compare it to last year's Cherry Tree (see ). The weather was vastly better but my fitness level was diminished. The one constant was a problem of numbness and pain in my right forefoot which tends to appear after about 8 miles of hard running. It's been bothering me for about the last 5 years (during which time I ran one marathon, and 3 other marathons including the and Bostons) and is due to some nerve damage brought on by many years of running. I've reluctantly accepted it as "just one of those things" and coped with it by 1) limiting my race distances to 10 miles or under, and 2) just "sucking it up".

The Weather

The weather at the races this year and last could not have been more different. Last year the temperatures were between between 0° and 4°. The Prospect Park Track Club has always always called this "The Race for the Hard Core" and last year's race truly was. The weekend temperatures were forecast to be record-setting lows, and they were. Saturday was the coldest February 13th on record, and Sunday had a 6:00 AM Central Park temperature of -1°. I wore about 4 layers of clothes plus a wind breaker (which I took off after the 2nd loop) and I was very careful, especially for the first mile, of not stressing my cold muscles. And we sure got into the sheltered race HQ as fast as we could move after the race.

This year it was sunny with "balmy" temperatures in the 50°-60° range. Practically all the race services (baggage, Bagels, etc.) were outside and I just wore running shorts and a single long sleeve technical shirt, of which I pushed up the sleeves by the end of the first loop. After a cold winter it felt wonderful to run without layer upon layer of clothes to slow you down. Most people wore similar minimal clothes but a few, not quite believing the break in the weather, wore tights.

The Race: Not Up to Last Year's Race

Although the weather surely made this year's race easier to run — and most of my friends did better — the time splits of my own race tell a different story. Look at the two tables, The one on the left is for last year's race, and the one on the right is this year's:

2016 Cherry Tree
10 Miler
  Rank Split Pace
1st Lap 343 32:59 9:54
2nd Lap 334 33:03 9:55
3rd Lap 330 33:38 10:06
Finish 330 1:39:41 9:58
2017 Cherry Tree
10 Miler
  Rank Split Pace
1st Lap 541 32:59 9:53
2nd Lap 535 34:15 10:20
3rd Lap 560 36:13 10:53
Finish 560 1:43:28 10:21
The first thing you might notice is that this year's race had a lot more runners. I ran the first loop in the same time but this year my place was about 200 runners further back. In fact last year the total number of finishers was 419; this year it was 716, about a 71% increase. Last year's weather had a lot to do with that.

The next thing to notice was that my first loop was the same as last year. I consciously tried to hold back and maintain a 10 minute/mile pace and both years I did that very well. Then things started to change — big time. My legs felt this and my splits show it. I felt weaker going up the mile long hill at the start of the 2nd loop, and by the 3rd loop I felt weaker practically all the way around. At around mile 8 I was passed by David P., whom I know quite well and is in my age group, but I could not respond. He eventually finished 1st in the group and I finished 2nd, about 3 minutes behind.

The other thing you may not see in the numbers is that both years my right forefoot started hurting around mile 8. It certainly didn't help that that was when David P. passed me.

Shut Up and Keep Running!

You do what you have to do and I pushed the last few miles to my limit. The photo of me on the left shows I don't look too bad and in truth I was WAY ahead of the few others in my age group.

After the race I got over my disappointment — AND I got over my sore right foot AND I realized I had a "podium finish" AND was doing quite well for an old guy — AND I realized the best remedy for being less fit, is to get more fit.

I met my friend Susan after the race and we both enjoyed the hot chocolate, and we both did NOT enjoy the stale bagels. And we were both too tired to go out for lunch or to partake of the traditional post-race beer.

Now that's a serious issue!

The New York Flyers Annual Awards Gala – February 11th

February 11th: – The New York Flyers Annual Awards Gala

very year around the end of January my running club, the New York Flyers, puts on a party called the "Awards Gala". This is a dress up event at a fancy location with an open bar, good food, dancing and a program of awards given to members of the club for running achievements and for work to further the interests of the club. It's a chance to see our running friends in semi-formal attire and may be the only time we see them when they are not dressed for running. I've been going to these events for over 25 years and they are great fun. This year we gathered at the very posh "" in the financial district and you couldn't ask for a better venue.

Here's a few pictures of the group having a great time (and you will note the elegant surroundings):

If you think those look enticing, check out the complete album from the Awards Gala on the NY Flyers web site: .

In the last 6 or 8 years, I had more or less aged myself out of an award. The oldest group was the 60+ age group and with younger and faster 60 year olds entering the group as I kept moving up, I ceased to be in the running. However in the last 2 years, the awards committee recognized that the 70+ age group was beginning to be populated and in particular, Fran B., a national class 76 year old could not be ignored. So this year this group was recognized and was well represented and I was presented with the award for Male Senior Veteran Runner of the year. I did fairly well in this age group and I like to recall the awards I managed to win. This picture () from last year's blog shows some of these awards and this blog post () summarizes last year's accomplishments.

But I would be remiss if I didn't repeat the last comment from that post:

"When I'm just running but not racing I go easy. And many of those "easy" runs are with friends to destinations, sometimes to brunch and sometimes to a park or other lovely place.
 
Bottom line: Yes, I won a number of age group awards, I more-or-less kept my fitness level intact, but most importantly, I had fun with my running in 2016. You can't do much better than that!"

And here's hoping I can do as well and enjoy it as much this year!

Run to Radegast – January 29th

January 29th: – Run to Radegast

n a chilly Sunday morning at the end of January, I met my friend Susan at First Avenue under the Queensboro Bridge (aka the "QBB", aka the 59th Street Bridge, aka the Ed Koch Bridge). We were off to in Williamsburg, about 8 running miles away. We have run to this destination numerous times, most frequently via the QBB, Long Island City, The Pulaski Bridge then through Greenpoint to Williamsburg.

I won't spend much time describing the route in any detail since I have posted reports of this run not-a-few times. Here's a couple of reports from a couple of years ago: and . The details differ slightly but both times we got there for a thoroughly wonderful brunch. One of the best such runs was last October when Susan and I found ourselves in a raucous Octoberfest celebration overflowing with patrons (and overflowing with beer) and a live German band. But alas, that trip did not find it's way onto this blog.

It's convenient to break up the run into 3 sections: 1) crossing the QBB, 2) traversing Long Island City and 3) running through Geenpoint and Williamsburg. Aside from mentioning that it was cold crossing the bridge, I'll skip that and I'll document Long Island City and the two parts of Brooklyn with a few iconic photos, and leave it at that.

Long Island City – the East River Waterfront Greenway

Once we discovered it, we almost always choose to travel through the park along the East River in Long Island City. This is a lovely greenway consisting of land set aside when the adjacent high rise condos were built over the last 10 or 15 years and is a great example of using zoning to arrive at a win-win solution to preserving public space while allowing development. I wish more parts of New York City could follow this example.

One of the best parts of the experience is enjoying the spectacular views of Manhattan across the river. The title picture above (or click ) shows the UN with the Chryster and Empire State Building on each side.

The other picture, to the left, is the result of some recent development of Manhattan in the East 30s. It shows two buildings seeming to lean towards each other with just a little connector holding them apart. Click on the image to see it full size. Susan said it looks like they're kissing. One wonders who designed this and what was the intent. I don't think I'd like to go near these buildings out of fear they would both fall down.

Greenpoint (Franklin Street) and Williamsburg (Kent Avenue)

Once over the Pulaski Bridge into Brooklyn, we generally run first along Franklin Street in Greenpoint and then turn onto Kent Avenue in Williamsburg. With the exception of a couple of relatively undeveloped areas, both of these streets are populated by small to medium sized shops and eating (and drinking) establishments.

The picture on the left shows an interesting place. I've noticed it every time we've gone by this point. It's a little ways along on Franklin at the corner of Freeman Street (by all means click on it). With a name like "", don't you just want to go in — if you dare! I guess I'll pass.

Another one that caught our eyes (see photo right) was a new (to us) German style Brewpub with recently painted on the building at the corner of Franklin and West 15th Street, just where the road turns to the right and becomes Kent Avenue.

As I wrote on the photo caption "There's Never Too Many Beer Joints" in this neck of the woods. It wasn't open when we went by about 11:30, but we certainly put it on our list for future "checking out".

Interestingly there's a tavern just at the other end of the block, at Franklin and Meserole Avenue called which has a roof bar and was already on our list. Alas, too many pubs, and too little time!

At Last, Radegast

We ran along Kent Avenue to North 3rd Street and turned up for the final 2 blocks. Susan's iPhone said we had done 8 miles so she stopped running — she had reached her quota. I had no such quota so I gamely ran those last 2 blocks up to Berry Street to our destination: . Soon we were seated and appropriate nourishment had been served (see photo above) and once again we were just where we wanted to be.

BTW: that web site features a video of some live music in this place. Listen and watch and you'll get a real feel for this place on a Saturday afternoon. The second sequence with the German band (note especially the tuba) brings back memories of the Octoberfest celebration in which we were immersed last October.

A Couple of Cold Winter Races

January 8th & February 4th: – A Couple of Cold Winter Races

 ran two races in January and early February and they had two things in common: 1) they were both cold and 2) they were both "5s" — the first a 5 miler and the second a 5K.

January 8th: – The NYCRuns Cocoa Classic Central Park 5 Miler

he January 8th race was put on by NYCRuns and it's the first of their races that I have run taking place in Central Park. They put on a few of their races in the park every year, but mostly they do their stuff in smaller parks (such as Riverside Park) or venues out side of Manhattan (such as Roosevelt Island or Governor's Island).

It had snowed Friday night into Saturday morning before the race and the temperature stayed low through the weekend. The race organizers worked hard to make sure the roads were clear enough on Sunday morning to ensure a safe course. I was told the race people were there at 5:00 AM working with Parks Department people. I got there early (a bit after 8:00) and found the course good but not great. It was actually in better shape than the surrounding streets. Yes, the Parks Department had done a better job than the Highway Department — which of course is unfair given the huge difference in the number of miles involved.

But my main problem was the cold, not the course. The temperatures were in the low 20°s and in the time before the race I was freezing. Clearly I had gotten there too early. But once the race started things changed and I managed to wear the right number of layers running so as to maintain comfort. The old 20° rule came to mind: "While running, dress for temperatures 20° higher", in this case, if it's 20° out, dress for 40°.

The course used the "upper 5 mile loop" in the park and this meant there was a big down hill and a big up hill in mile 1, then a not-too-tough rolling course until we hit Cat Hill at mile 4. I'm used to this course and held a comfortable pace the whole way. I finished in 49:15, a 9:51 pace and I considered this good, considering the cold and the relative lack of training during the winter months. As a comparison, during the later part of 2016 I was finishing 5Ks in the 9:15 to 9:30 per mile range. Today I was first (out of two) in the 70+ age group and I was happy with that.

February 4th: – The Cocoa Classic NYCRuns Riverside Park 5 Miler

our weeks later I ran the NYCRuns Cocoa Classic in Riverside Park. Although the temperatures were a bit higher than they were in the January race (mid 20°s), they felt colder. This may have been due to wind off the Hudson, or lack of sun or maybe because I (again) got there too early. I mentioned to one of the race guys that it felt colder than the Central Park race and he thought it may have been due to moisture in the air.

Whatever the reason, I was very cold and my hands were freezing. Against my better judgment I did NOT follow the 20° rule and was overdressed for the race. In fact the finish line photo (left) and the video showed my crossing the line with my gloves off — I was holding them in my left hand. So much for freezing hands.

Here's the video: Video. I look kind of pathetic with all that stuff I'm wearing and my gloves in my hand. Note: the video shows about 10 seconds of action starting about 7 seconds before I cross the line. Then it loops back and shows the same sequence, ad infinitum. Just kill the window when you've seen enough.

My race pace was 10:03, a disappointment since this race was considerably shorter than the January 5 miler. Chalk it up to the temperature, my overdressing or maybe I had gotten even less fit over the intervening 4 weeks. This time I was 2nd in the 70+ group (out of 3) and ironically I was beaten by the man I had beaten in Central Park. And this time he ran the pace I had run in that race.

The main take-away is to pay attention to what you wear, don't get there too early and get in better shape.