One of my favorite things to do, during these most intense months of training, is tell non-runners the distances I’ve got slated for the weekend. Every Friday I march into my boss’s office under the ruse of “one last thing before you wrap it up for the week…” but she knows that inevitably I’m going to tell her my total miles for the week (45.5) and my weekend plan (9 tempo plus 19 mile long run). The best reaction I got this week, though, was from my 92 year-old Nana, when I told her on Saturday I was running 19 miles the next day. She said, with a dubious tremor to her voice, “Wow, that’s far, but I guess you have to do it if you really want to run a marathon.” In other words, I love you, you crazy kid, but I don’t think this is the best idea you’ve ever had.
And so, the Long Run. After yesterday’s jerky and somewhat painful tempo run, I was ready to take these 19 miles and have fun with them. Kind of like a pleasure cruise, but on foot, and with Gatorade instead of a white wine spritzer. I plotted my course accordingly. Depart from my usual corner in Sunnyside, trek over my usual bridge (the 59th Street Bridge for those of you who just arrived at Pigtails), and across town to the west side rec path, where I hung a left. My route, which I couldn’t wait to execute, would take me all the way around the tip of Manhattan and hook me back up along the east side, until I arrived back at my bridge and took a right to head home over the East River.
It was so cool! Truly, it was a tour of the city’s lower perimeter. I’d already seen the goods down to Chambers Street, but before I’d always stuck to the bike path. This time I moved over to the pedestrian promenades right on the river, and was rewarded with cool breezes, a sparkling river, and views of tennis courts, dog runs and playgrounds, not to mention New Jersey looking surprisingly appealing on the opposite shore. BY the time I hit the heart of the Financial District, it got a little hairy due to ongoing Ground Zero construction, but I was quickly through the worst of it and was soon heading past the Ellis Island and Staten Island Ferry Terminals, towards the bridges of lower Manhattan. I spotted one of the public art installations of The Waterfalls (verdict: eh), and passed a little posse of Chinatown citizens doing morning calisthenics together. Oh, and I passed scores of runners. Everyone was out, and while normally I like the solitude of a long run, today I found their presence encouraging and liked to imagine we were all out prepping for the big show on November 2nd, working towards our common-yet-individual goal.
Once I passed the bridges, I was breaking new ground — I’d never run this far before along the rec paths. Like the good lemming I hardly ever am, I decided to put my faith in the runner in front of me and just follow him. Luckily he had on red shorts (red?!) so he was easy to follow. No worries, before I knew it I was running by my beloved track where Nike takes me for speed workouts on Wednesday evenings. (I think my heart beat a little faster as I trotted by.) Each time I did a systems check, I was relaxed, pain-free, breathing easily, not hungry and not too thirsty. (This last part was truly luck, since I had two glasses of tempranillo with dinner last night.) The hardest part of this entire run was from about 50th Street until i crested the Queensboro Bridge, because it was uphill, but apart from that I had a great time, enjoying three hours entirely to myself.
Well, except for the part where I almost got hit by a bike. Ever since I was in grad school, I’ve had a small dislike of city cyclists. Not the ones with their pant legs tied in rubber bands, wearing helmets, and not the ones decked out in padded shorts. The bikers who ride for deliveries, or on those BMX type bikes, those are the guys I don’t like. One spring evening, I was walking home along 14th Street from class (I attended NYU and lived on Avenue C and 14th Street, this was in 1996), when I felt a hand grab my ass and give it a squeeze. Next thing I know a guy zooms past me on his bicycle. I was the victim of a ride-by groping! At first I was completely freaked out and frightened but then after a few beats I was pissed, like super-pissed, and shouted a stream of ex-con caliber obscenities after him. Two weeks later, it happened again (it wasn’t even the same guy; it was like a fucking epidemic), except this time had a plan. I whirled around, starting shouting and screaming, I kicked the wheel of his bike with my foot until he toppled over, and took off running. I didn’t stop until I was in my building.
Today, thankfully no one groped me, but some jerk on his BMX type bike and wearing some ugly hockey jersey came booking over the hill at the end of the bridge. This hill is steep, and cyclists can get up a pretty good head of steam. Clearly, this guy wanted the speed, but his bike was too crappy to be controllable. He was headed right towards me (NOTE: I was in the pedestrian lane. He was NOT in the bike lane. Dickhead.) pulling on his hand break so hard I could hear the friction on his tire. So finally he gets his head out of his ass and points the bike away from me to the right of me. I cut to the left (this is all happening in the course of a few seconds), put both my arms out and push hard into his right arm to get him away from me. Luckily, luckily we didn’t collide beyond that, but now my wrist hurts. The jerk didn’t even loop back to see if I was alright. All the other people on the bridge (there were a few other runners & bikers) were scandalized on my behalf.
Clearly, that got my endorphins going, so I upped the pace (I was so mad I don’t know if I could have notrun faster!). When I finally made it home, after 3 hours, 17 minutes and 8 seconds of running, I was happy to stop but could have kept going. At no point during the workout did I feel like, when will this end? If only for those two results, I consider this a very successful long run (jerko biker be damned).
Sounds like a great run!
If it makes you feel any better, I had to leap off the road altogether earlier this week to avoid being hit by a speeding SUV. It was aiming right at me instead of moving over like all the other nice SUV drivers. I’m sure it was being driven by a distracted idiot talking on a cell phone, although since the windows were blacked out (also illegal), I couldn’t tell.
There are separate levels in Hell for aggressive drivers and bicyclists. Why don’t they ever hit each other?
Let’s add taxi cab drivers in those levels of hell, since I’ve been known to pound on the hood of taxi cabs with my fists as they roll through stop signs. Stupid, but sometimes the New Yawkah in me just has to be free.
(My wrist is only the teeniest bit sore today.)
Oh, man…it sounds like it was all fantastic up until your near-miss with the BMX jerk. If you’ve seen the pictures on my blog from my 20-miler this weekend that’s my normal running surroundings…I’d never be able to deal with city running. You’re a brave woman!
I’ve been fortunate enough to have only one run-in with a bike. It was in Central Park, a kid who was probably 16, but riding a bike meant for a 7 year old. He was in the pedestrian lane, and coming right toward me, and we did the thing where we both kept trying to go the same way to avoid each other. Finally, we got it together, and I yelled after him “stay in the bike lane!” Frustrating.
Sounds like a harrowing almost run-in with biker d***. I don’t have to put up with city bikers, just tourist bikers – not sure who’s worse.
PS – I love your descriptions of your runs through the city.
I hate sidewalk cyclists and will go out of my to steer them to the street. Having almost been nailed by restaurant delivery clowns whipping around corners I have come to the realization that I actually have the upper hand. A quick push and down them come.
Howard Cosell said it best: “DOWN GOES FRAZIER!! DOWN GOES FRAZIER!!”
I recommend running with that stick thing you use to massage your legs. If they come to close, toss it into the spokes.
rD
This run sounds AMAZING!
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