So my next race will be the Bournemouth marathon in October. And as that there is no time like the present, I set my training program to last for 6 month. Yes, a ridiculously long time but I have "Sub 3 hours" branded on the hindquarters of my consciousness by my 3:09 at Berlin.
I planned to buy new running shoes here, so while getting the Nike Frees 3.0 at the Nike running store I got chatting with the sales guy who gave me a few tips about running here. Hudson river path good, East River not so good.
The first run, Tuesday early afternoon:
The weather forecast said it was 82F, which I thought was about mid 20s C. I thought to my self "No problem, I was running in the 30s in Lyon for like 3 hours. Pfff what's 25C for 50 mins. I don't even need a water bottle." Ohhh how wrong was I. A couple of differences between that day and Lyon. 1. it was actually 28C, which is hot. 2. I was used to hot in Lyon. Not chilly England spring. 3. I never ran with jet lag. Apart from the mild hallucinations from dehydration it was a nice run. I started at 39th Street, passed the UN building and crossed Queensboro Bridge at 60th (the original namer of the bridge must have made typo). Saw Roosevelt Island and touched down in Queens before turning around. 54m 24s, 11.45km, 977cal.
The second run, Friday evening:
After working the day I wanted to see Central Park. Much better weather this time, 10C and drizzle. So I put on my waterproof and headed off from my hotel at 39th and Lexington. Going up to the corner of central park I took in a bit of Lexington, Park Avenue and Madison Avenue (the streets between 3rd and 5th Avenue). Then the loop of Central Park. It felt similar to Hyde Park in that you can always sense there are building near by but different in three important ways. Firstly there are many more trees so fewer open spaces. Next is that it much hillier, Hyde is almost pancake flat. Lastly is all the granite sticking out of the ground. Every time I looked around I felt like I'd see that vista before from a TV. I then stupidly though it was a good idea to run down Broadway through Time Square at about 7pm Friday evening. Well you can imagine what that was like - "bloody tourists slowing my run down"! The following picture is the San Remo hotel, it really caught my eye. 1h 8m 47s, 15.35km, 1307cal.
Last run, long Sunday morning:
The loop of Manhattan. This was the one I was most looking forward to. I went from East 39th over a bit and down 1st Avenue, then cut over to the East River path at 20th St. On a side note "East River" isn't a very inspired name for a river. The path until about the Staten Island Ferry was quite boring. Got the feeling the path was there for completeness rather than for the tourist attracting views of industrial Brooklyn. As impressively big as Williamsburg, Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges were they were a bit meeh (with a Gallic shoulder shrug). But then it got much better. I run up the Hudson river path and ran past/saw from a far: the Statue of Liberty, Freedom Tower, the Museum of Jewish Heritage, the Intrepid aircraft carrier with a space shuttle and a blackbird on it, New Jersey, etc. Made my way up to West 50th before tracking across Manhattan to Grand Central station where I finished and had a freshly made fruit smoothy from a street vendor, sublime or should I say sub-banana-carrot-&-pineapple. 1h 47m 7s, 21.58km, 1849cal.
Below is a map of New York: the blue fountain pen is where I have run and the blue biro is where I have walked as of Sunday evening.
No comments:
Post a Comment