Now I have to get some miles in. Less than three months to go. Eighty days till Boston. Once again I’m out of sync with the book, “Marathon Training: The Proven 100-Day Program for Success,” with daily training logs by Joe Henderson. On my own again, winging it.
My personal trainer never would’ve let me stray. But I don’t have one. In fact have never had one. How do you find your way to fitness without a personal trainer in this day and age? In upscale New York City, here are the top three professions: 1) Personal trainer; 2) Dog walker; 3) Evening entertainment consultant. There’s always work if you know where to look.
Running for Your Life: The Central Park Half-Marathon
Maybe I shouldn’t have worn the thin anklet socks. One layer long sleeve and unlined windbreaker. Thankfully there’s no wind to speak of. But plenty cold. From my “cattle” stall, the eight-plus-minute milers, I can see the CNN sign south in the pre-dawn light: 14 F. The same temperature as two years ago for the Manhattan Half, two loops of Central Park. In 2009, it did warm up to 18 F by 10 a.m., said S, a Park Slope neighbor who traveled with me to the 8 a.m. start. To the east, across the Sheep Meadow, the sun is finally rising. How freezing it must be for the young girl her voice trembling as she sings, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” S and I exchange “Good Lucks!”, she in a scarf and three layers of long sleeves and waist-hugging thermal windbreaker, setting in her earbuds, turning on her iPod, saying she’s off to her zone, and we slowly move along in the mass of 4,358 runners, it’s long past the official starting line before we pick up any pace at all, and I lope ahead because I could have stood waiting for the start in a stall for faster runners but I was enjoying S’s company, but now I’m in my zone, a 13.1-mile race in cold like I haven’t been in since I ran in North Bay, Ontario, twenty-four years ago.
Running for Your Life: A Congressional Run II
So you want to live in Park Slope department: Overheard on Seventh Avenue and Prospect Place, “Okay. I’ll pick up the poop, you park, then call me back.”
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Mapquest and Google Maps and every other free online trip detailer must be in cahoots with GPS makers because these Web services flat out do not give directions that can be followed by a reasonable person making reasonable decisions based on the breadth of useless facts and scarcity of essential information they come up with.
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Mapquest and Google Maps and every other free online trip detailer must be in cahoots with GPS makers because these Web services flat out do not give directions that can be followed by a reasonable person making reasonable decisions based on the breadth of useless facts and scarcity of essential information they come up with.
Running for Your Life: A Congressional Run
“You training it? Or perhaps running?” (My friend J’s e-mail message about a planned trip to Washington to see K and J.)
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It’s a joke, of course. Not one that makes me laugh, but intuitive of J, and the truth is, as I wrote in RFYL: Mental Landscapes, I do look at roadscapes differently when I’m driving. With M still in India, I’m alone on my way to visit K and J in their new apartment in D.C., (It is a thrill to think that I will be my daughter’s first visitor to her new life with J!) and, yes, J (my friend) I do imagine myself on the highway, running. I’m
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It’s a joke, of course. Not one that makes me laugh, but intuitive of J, and the truth is, as I wrote in RFYL: Mental Landscapes, I do look at roadscapes differently when I’m driving. With M still in India, I’m alone on my way to visit K and J in their new apartment in D.C., (It is a thrill to think that I will be my daughter’s first visitor to her new life with J!) and, yes, J (my friend) I do imagine myself on the highway, running. I’m
Running for Your Life: Boston Beckons II
Today (Jan. 11) is 1-11-11. Embedded here is the failure to label the post-twice-millennial decades (The Aughts? The Tens?), have to wait nine years, until 2020 before we enter The Twenties. Life is binary. Digital. Attention spans a blip on the screen.
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Overheard in that three-plus minutes of time when the NYC subway trains cross the Manhattan-Brooklyn bridge span, and people on their cellphones are free to talk:
Girl (excited): “Seriously I walked into the room with my drink, and they were everywhere. Snooki lookalikes. I couldn’t take a step without bumping into one.”
Pause
Girl (annoyed): Of course it was hilarious! It was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.”
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Overheard in that three-plus minutes of time when the NYC subway trains cross the Manhattan-Brooklyn bridge span, and people on their cellphones are free to talk:
Girl (excited): “Seriously I walked into the room with my drink, and they were everywhere. Snooki lookalikes. I couldn’t take a step without bumping into one.”
Pause
Girl (annoyed): Of course it was hilarious! It was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.”
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