Every once in awhile someone does something in NYC that makes for an awesome new running route. Of course, in order to fully appreciate it at a speed you want to run at, you have to get your ass out there at an ungodly hour.
I bet it was like that with The Gates. But I didn't run then, and it was in Manhattan so I didn't spend a lot of time identifying with the project. I liked it and all, but I didn't own it.

Much more than I am a New Yorker, I am a Brooklynite, which is an arbitrary distinction to people who don't live here. But when someone throws up 4 large waterfalls along the river and I can see them all from Brooklyn I am pleased as punch.
Pretty much, if I never had to leave this side of the river I'd be thrilled.

I saw the one by the Manhattan Bridge when they were testing it last Thursday; I was riding the D train and there it was. People have been bitching and moaning that they were underwhelmed by these since before they even knew what they were.
Quite frankly, these people suck.

Mostly public art projects, whether they are privately or partially publicly funded, only need to serve one purpose: to make us stop and think and reconsider the place where we live. Sure, lots of buses of German tourists joined me for my tour yesterday, but there was no way they could get the whole experience. Seeing places I see everyday, completely transformed by something as arbitrary as falling water created by engineering was magical. And it highlighted everything sublime in the city.

The other day I was idly sitting on g-chat and my friend said "Do you want to do the 100 push up challenge?"

To which I responded, "Er, um, all right, okay, but what is it?"

Oh, she explained, you have 6 weeks to do 100 push ups and it's all based on what you can do now. Of course, to her, this seemed so easy, having busted out 21 consecutive push ups just minutes earlier.

She told me to do the initial test.
I did. I got in my perceived perfect push up form. I lowered myself to the ground. FLOP.
Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

We got back to chatting about how I was the weakest person on earth, and she finally just questioned me. How could I possibly be doing all of my tricky yoga moves and not be able to do a push up?

Simple, I told her, I am an idiot. I never learned how to do one. That's right -- there is a push up learning curve.

Or at least there is for me. I'm up to 11, just a day later.

Old habits die hard. Actually, I am pretty convinced they don't die at all. I saw the most amazing combination of all of my bad habits over the weekend, when I went to help my friend move apartments in Baltimore and then hopped over to DC to visit my aunt and uncle.

I have always had a thing against meals. I actually go to a nutritionist now to make me stop doing things like eating Oreos for lunch. Lunch is the worst time for me. I always want to eat a bag of chips and call it a day. Enter Lauren's move. A day to hang out, eat Tings and Oreos and tortilla chips without salsa, and drink iced tea while watching a bunch of people run up and down the stairs while I "watched the stuff."
To give myself some credit, I did ferry it up to the landing. And some of it fell on me while I tried to drag it out of the pod.
The good news is, I did go for a run that morning. The bad news is, it was in Baltimore, pretty hilly, and already 1000% humidity when I started out.

I went over to DC to see my family and did this other thing I do: forgot to mention to them that I was vegan. People think this has something to do with embarassment or shame or some other weird crap. Quite frankly, I think it's more related to my own narcissistic tendency to beleive that everyone can read my mind. Also, I talk about it all the time here, and it's been completely assimilated into the consciousness of every person I talk to for more than 15 minutes per month. Plus, there are all those people who read my Facebook status updates.
But, them, well, I never told.
So they took me to a steakhouse for dinner.
Quite frankly, to non-vegans this may seem like the ohmygawdworstpossiblesituationever, but it's really not. They usually have a good selection of veggies at these places. But then all you get for dinner is veggies and wine and some dry multi-grain bread.
The good news is, I ran while I was there. The bad news is, my aunt and uncle live at the top of a hill and it was 1001% humidity when I started.

Oh, the 2 hours of running I crammed into this morning is the longest I've gone since the 15 miler in March.

96* out. Right now.

Wah, my legs hurt.

I've been sort of lax in the exercising department and then something clicked and I realized that I needed to get back in the game.
Oh, I remember what the clicking sound was, it was my semester grinding to a screeching halt.

Presented with an immense amount of free time, I've been doing things like running for an hour, then yoga for an hour, then walking for three. My tan is great, but my legs are begging me to start walking on my hands.
Wait, then I will be tan and toned. This is a good plan.

(My real plan, actually, is to get back to the library and work on the myriad of tasks that will confront me next year ahead of time. Crazy.)

"Music is the freight train on which God travels."
~Passing Strange

I ran the inaugural New York City Half in 2006. It was a long season of halfs, I think it was my 6th since that March, and I was growing weary. I ran the Chicago Distance Classic just two weeks prior, came in with a scathingly bad time, and just didn't feel like trying. Lord only knows why I signed up to run two of these suckers so close together, but we all know I have a habit of making bad half marathon-related decisions.

I took my place in the back. I don't mean my usual 10:00 mm pace back. I mean the back. Like the end. Like if there had been a slower pace corral, I would have taken it, but New York Roadrunners stops them at 11:00 mm. Soon, I found myself surround by a lot of really effing insecure people.
See, in order not to get swept at one of these races, you need to finish in 3 hours. To me, that wasn't a problem. I had set the bar low and was keeping it there, but I knew I could run, or even run/walk, much faster than the necessary 13:45 mm to get to the end in time.

These people didn't seem so sure. And the fact of the matter is at a mega-race you are stuck in a corral for a really long time. The worrying was getting to me. What if I couldn't finish in 3 hours? Plus, these people were getting pissed at me for even being back there with them after they found out my half PR. Of course, that isn't anything to write home about, but I think they all might have been drafting an aspirational letter if they ever got there.
Now, I have nothing against slowness. I am slow. I love back of the packers, true back of the packers who finish races on the sidewalk rather than get swept and don't get their times recorded because of the rules.
I just hate insecurity.

But that was when I met Blessed Rose. Sure, I'd seen Blessed Rose around in my many races, but I hadn't ever had the chance to talk to her. There she was, in the flesh, in all of her blessed glory, telling me about when she had to abandon ship on some race to meet her son at Tavern on the Green. Of course, I was shocked to learn anyone actually eats at that cliché and notoriously tacky hellhole, but apparently it's quite a catch.
She said it was tough, but she did it because she knew she had to. He was much more important than the race. So she stopped halfway through that one, trooped across the park, and ate lunch with him.
Damn reservations.

The night before the race, Blessed Rose went home and made her really ugly Inaugural New York City Half Marathon tee shirt totally cute by hemming the sleeves into cap sleeves. Blessings and fashion! She is my racing hero.

I ran really slowly for an hour yesterday, coming in with an 11:25mm pace. I'm accepting slowly but surely that I need to run this slow. I mean, I know I can run faster. I have run faster. But it's not serving my purpose lately.
Plus, I just got accepted into the NYC Half Marathon. Almost matching my best time, here I come!