Back from a Good Run in NYC

After a lovely trip to New York, I’m back in NEOhio for the foreseeable future. Neil has a vacation freeze and I have a thesis to develop and write. We’ll be going back to New York in early August, but I’ll be hitting the roads for the rest of the summer in this neck of the country.

My computerless home life and the NYC trip have kept me blog-free for several days, but I’ve been itching to report on my New York running experience. We flew in on Friday, and walked about ten miles each day through Sunday. And we even set the land-speed record for making it from the Upper Eastside to the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge (less than 1.5 hours) by subway and foot.

But that Sunday wasn’t all about running through crowds and angering Neil by jumping on the wrong trains. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always admired the people I saw jogging through Central Park. Until recently, however, I couldn’t have run more than a quarter mile, so I could never be one of them. And until this past weekend, I never realized how many people there actually were!

I started my run at Mariel’s apartment on E. 85th and ran to the park. I wound through the paths and roads until I jogged smack into the AIDS walk where thousands of people were waiting to begin. So, I ran along the south edge of the park and then meandered through You’ve-Got-Mail-ville on the Upper Westside and through Riverside Park.

And by the time I wound back across the Westside, through the park and around the Eastside, I had run 10.15 miles like it was nothing. It’s incredible what good scenery can do for a run!

Plus, it was a fairly even run—between 8:15 and 8:25/mile across all ten—that didn’t exactly start off too peachy. Alongside being tired from the two days of vacation-pace living (well, my vacation pace; poor Neil must love it!), I had been going to bed late and waiting up early, which is my forte, for at least a week. And then my knee started aching before I even hit two miles. So, as usual, I figured I would run a few miles and head back.

The worst that could happen, I reasoned, was that I’d have to start walking or stop to rest. In Central Park. But seeing all of the people (and wanting so badly to be one of them) helped me warm up my creakedy knee, get my legs going and skip gingerly through my run.

And that run was just being a warm-up for our race across the city to get a picture of a fish on the Brooklyn Bridge (Long story short: I won the ‘fish award’ again this month at work and thought it would be cute to take a photo with the fish in a distinctly NY place… but we didn’t really go anywhere distinctly NY the whole weekend. So as time ran out, we dashed across the city to take a photo of the most New Yorky thing there is: the Brooklyn Bridge. And let’s just say, it’s not empty on a Sunday afternoon. But boy did we run long and fast! I think Neil is ready to start his distance training…).

Once my home computer is kicking again, I’ll share photos from Portland and New York… including photos from my cupcake journey. So far, Hudson: 1, New York: 0. Out of all the NYC cupcakes I’ve eaten over the years, most have been fantastic and almost all have looked beautiful. But I cannot tell a lie: the frosting at Main Street Cupcakes has to be the best. Ever. We even hit up Magnolia Bakery, but their immaculate-looking lil’ cakes just didn’t quite beat the MSC.

Granted, I’ve only had one Main Street visit (and 3.5 cupcakes), but I’ll be returning this week to do some follow-up research. It’s the least I can do.