Northeast Runner

New York: Marathon City, U.S.A.

2008-11-03T20:41:00.006-05:00

The return overnight to standard time had bought my fellow runners and me an extra hour of sleep, but it still was dark at 5 a.m. when I and dozens of others shuffled from all directions to converge in Midtown Manhattan at Bryant Park and the New York Public Library, where a line of buses was waiting to take us to the starting line of the 2008 NYC Marathon in Staten Island.

We each carried our race-issued clear plastic bags, some (like mine) jammed full with everything we were traveling with, others with the bare essentials — Body Glide, Power Bar, toilet paper, Gatorade, Bandaids. Our numbers pinned to our chest. Our race chips secured to our running shoes.

I hadn't even felt this nervous on my wedding day. The excitement was comparable to that moment before the opening curtain in high school musicals years ago — almost showtime. I ate an apple and watched the darkened city pass by outside the bus windows, down Manhattan, through the Brooklyn-Battery tunnel, along the expressway. A Biblical passage on a billboard caught my eye: "Acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy path."

My journey to the greatest marathon in the world (and officially the biggest) began two years ago when I figured I'd give it a shot and signed up for a membership in the New York Road Runners club. To secure guaranteed entry, I ran nine city races in 2007, about evenly split between half marathons and shorter races in Central Park.

Then, this summer, the hard part began. The training. It would be embarrassing to reveal how poorly I trained, so I'll merely provide an excuse: I commute about two hours to work each day in Manhattan and another two hours back home to New Haven, Conn. Most weeks I live for the weekend.

This weekend, I got a cheap hotel room and stayed overnight Friday. My wife, Liz, met me in the city on Saturday. Before she arrived, I snuck in a final pre-race run — an easy three-miler down Broadway to Union Square and back up. I went back for seconds at the race-sponsored pasta dinner at the Tavern on the Green in Central Park, and we got to bed early so I could rest up.

By the time I made it to Staten Island, I was ready to race. Unfortuntely, the race wouldn't start for another four hours, and I spent most of those four hours struggling to stay warm. We were all in the same boat, shivering in chilly anticipation, split among three pre-race "villages" in the shadow of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

It could have been unbearable. Instead, it was exhilarating. I strolled the grounds, grabbed some coffee and a bagel, checked out the so-called competition. The stickers on their bags revealed a sort of United Nations of runners, from England and France and Brazil and New Zealand and Japan and on and on. All different types. All praying their legs would carry them 26.2 miles to the finish line in Central Park.

I wasn't sure what my legs would do when I finally made it to the starting line. But when the race got under way at 9:40 a.m. and the speakers on the bridge began blaring Sinatra's "New York, New York," I felt overwhelmed by the moment. It occurred to me that there are few things more glorious than reaching the top of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge on a cool November morning with the sun rising over Atlantic Ocean to the right and the skyline of Manhattan rising above New York Harbor to the left.

A much less glorious sight is the uninhibited male runners who hadn't adequately prepare their bladders for such an occasion and choose to solve their sudden problem by exposing themselves to the harbor and aiming over the edge of the bridge. Not cool.

The marathon hits all five boroughs, though most of the race takes place in Brooklyn and Manhattan. And much of the first eight miles is a straightaway along Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn, where it's hard to feel discouraged with so many people cheering along the sidelines. Bands seem to be set up every quarter mile, from rock bands to gospel groups to string quartets, not to mention the bagpipers of Queens. There were fewer bands in Manhattan, but many more people. And the more people, the more the NYC Marathon feels like the world-class sporting event it is, but a sporting event in which anyone can participate, from the world's fastest men and women to the lowliest amateur.

And the luckiest of runners have familiar faces to encourage them forward. I'm greatful for my friend Sara, a resident of the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, who was out taking pictures around mile 11. The picture she snapped of me probably was the best I could hope for, because I became less and less photogenic as the race wore on.

Of course, the face that brought me the greatest boost was that of Liz, who I knew was waiting for me at 72nd Avenue in Manhattan, around mile 17. I swooped in and surprised her with a kiss before doing a spin maneuver to point me back on track.

Unfortunately, that was the last point in the race in which I felt any real confidence. By the time I crossed the bridge into Bronx and passed the 20-mile marker, muscle cramps had creeped into both legs above the knee in places I had never felt cramps before, and I ached over every inch of my body. Even so, I wasn't alone in my agony. Others were pausing along the route to catch their breath and stretch out, and I did the same.

In the final six miles of the race I stoped four times to stretch my legs and work the cramps out of my muscles. But by the time I had made it back into Manhattan, running down Fifth Avenue, circling Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem, I knew I was close enough that I'd make it to the finish, even if I had to walk the whole way. Somehow I powered up the hill to the entrance into Central Park at 90th Street with a guy dressed as Marilyn Monroe running at my back.

I saw Liz on the sidelines again, in the park, and reached out my hand this time. I cursed the parks' rolling hills and stopped one last time when the cramps returned about a mile and a half from the finish line. But in the end, the pain didn't matter. Everyone was feeling it at that point. We were all in it together, and we all got a boost from the enormous crowd cheering at the big right turn onto 59th street at the southeast corner of the park.

In spite of the pain, I couldn't help but grit my teeth and smile for that last mile. Other runners raised their arms to get the crowd to cheer. I gave a few pumps with my right fist — an almost involuntary gesture, intended both to rally the crowd and to say, yes, I did it, thank you.

I crossed the finish line, stopped running and began hobbling forward like my fellow marathonists. Each of us were given medals for completing the race. The sight of the medals was enough to make it sink in that I, somehow, had completed what I had set out to accomplish two years ago, and emotion overcame me again.

It takes 20 minutes or more for a marathon runner's blood circulation to return to normal after a race, which is why staying upright is essential. They corralled us up the pathway to our baggage, forcing us to keep moving. And after I got my bag, I had to double back along Central Park West to meet Liz at Columbus Circle.

As I got close, my eyes scanned the crowd, desperately searching for that familar face. And then, there she was, jogging toward me with an expression of joy on her face and tears in her eyes. People who have run marathons many times may not feel so overwhelmed at the sight of their husbands or wives after the race, but forgive me if my heart leapt at that moment.

We hugged, overjoyed. Liz snapped a picture of me wrapped in my space blanket. And I began recounting for her the story of my ordeal, as we ducked into the subway station on our way back to Connecticut.

Keepin' All 5 Boroughs in Stitches

2008-11-02T18:50:00.002-05:00

Two years of my life culminated today in my completion of the NYC Marathon: from the day in December 2006 that I turned in my New York Road Runners application, through nine city races in 2007 to a roller coaster 2008 that made marathon training an uphill battle to this morning, when I and some 39,000 others crossed the glorious Verrazano-Narrows bridge on our 26.2 mile trek to the finish line in Central Park.

My optimistic goal had been 3 hours and 30 minutes, with 4 hours as my more realistic goal. I came in at 3 hours and 42 minutes, a time I could feel good about.

I'll write a more comlete summation tomorrow. For now, I'll just that it was at times euphoric, at other times brutal, and occasionally both euphoric and brutal. Very easily the most fun I've had while being in excruciating pain (more fun during the first half, and more excruciating during the final 10 miles).

Here's to You, Fat Boy

2008-10-28T10:09:00.006-04:00

This may not be a revelatory admission, but I'm not afraid to announce without reservation and without shame that I am a Simon Pegg fan.

"Shawn of the Dead" is a horror comedy classic, and "Hot Fuzz" is a heck of a lot of fun. I haven't yet sought out his latest, "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People," but considering that I'm mere days away from running my first marathon, it was about time I checked out "Run, Fat Boy, Run."

The movie itself is mediocre and Pegg is easily the best thing in it. But it also has enough running references to keep pavement pounders delighted — from the opening scene, with Pegg as a women's clothing store security guard chasing down a bra thief, to the climactic London Marathon, in which Pegg faces, quite literally, "the wall."

I've never seen Hank Azaria with his shirt off, and let me tell you, it was quite intimidating. Who knew Moe on "The Simpsons" was ripped?

So it's reassuring to see Pegg (the movie's title character) struggle with his crash training — only three weeks' worth!!! — and prance around awkwardly in tight shorts that seem more suited to a swimming meet.

While lamenting to a friend how Azaria has stolen his woman, Pegg adds, "And he runs marathons."

"Why?" the friend asks.

"Exactly."

But somehow, he makes it to the starting line after learning a secret technique: "You put one leg in front of the other over and over again really fast."

Lots of good music in the movie, too, and my favorite scene was a montage synced to the tune of "Keep on Running" by the Spencer Davis Group, which has to be one of the coolest songs about running that's not really about running.

I won't give away the ending, other than to say that Pegg's marathon "PR" is terrible, yet somehow uplifting. At one point during the race, when he can barely go any further, he asks his friend how long until the finish. The response: "It's a little, tiny nine miles." Not encouraging.

That very likely will be me this Sunday at the NYC Marathon. I don't feel much more prepared than he does. But hopefully I won't have to bash through an imaginary brick wall.

The Taperless Taper

2008-10-21T12:38:00.003-04:00

Anyone who has run a marathon or fantasized about running a marathon or knows anything about running a marathon is aware of The Taper. It's that three-week period, give or take a week, after your longest training run. It's the period when you taper off the miles to let your body rest for the big race. This also leaves your body craving extra miles, and many people develop mysterious aches and pains that make them second-guess their fitness for the race.

That's all well and good, but I have no such problem because my training has been decidedly half-assed to begin with. So now that I've finally hit the taper stage, resting up for the NYC Marathon on Nov. 2, it seems like I should be running more, not less.

I mean, I never ran more than 30 miles in any week of my training. And I only ran 20 miles once, and that wasn't really a full run, since I kinda walked the last few miles. And I've been skipping too many mid-week tempo runs. So if I followed my initial, overly optimistic training program, for the final three weeks I'd actually increase my mileage.

Of course, that won't happen. I'll probably just run as much as I have been running, which has been embarrassingly little, though I'll start cutting my long runs shorter.

I figure I'm just about fit enough not to collapse at mile 13 as I cross the Pulaski Bridge from Brooklyn into Queens, and from there, I'll just have to summon up enough fortitude and power gels to keep moving forward into the Bronx and finally Manhattan.

Still, I got my final burst of panic this morning when I checked the race Web site and saw the countdown clock had dropped below 12 days. Yikes!

Marathon Mental Game

2008-09-30T12:37:00.003-04:00

Let's say marathon running is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration.

Add another 15 to 20 percent: the mental game.

It's hard enough training your body to withstand the ordeal of running 26.2 miles. It may very well be harder to train your mind to withstand three, four, five hours of upright movement. When I first starting distance running, this was my biggest hurdle. I couldn't figure how anyone could run even an hour and not get bored and give up. My longest runs wound up being little more than four or five miles.

But I found that steady practice allows a runner to push those boundaries, both mind and body. Five miles becomes eight miles, and suddenly eight miles seems normal. And then becomes 10 miles, then 12 miles. Soon four or five miles seems too short, not even worth lacing the shoes for. A runner gets used to the longer miles.

Somehow I'm now able to run 14 miles straight, and another few miles after that while hobbling along, and pausing for breath all too frequently. And an hour is a bare minimum. Lately I've been pushing two hours at a time, though still not confidently. It struck me last Sunday that my mental training hadn't even begun. How was I supposed to get through the NYC Marathon in three and a half hours (my overly optimistic goal) or four or five hours (my more realistic target, at this point) if I could barely stay focused for two hours?

On my Sunday run, I ignored my pace for the most part, other than to make sure I wasn't going too fast, and kept my mind focused on mental endurance. It helps to get the body into a zone, kick the legs and arms into autopilot, so that running becomes almost like a trance state. Hard to pull off, but it helped me shore up this other facet of my training.

In fact, after two and a half hours, I think my mind was still in shape to keep going a while longer. Unfortunately, my legs — in particular my ankle — wouldn't allow it. I pooped out at 16 miles, walking much of the last couple miles.

The mental game is on. Now back to getting the body in gear.

Legs Don't Fail Me Now

2008-09-16T12:50:00.004-04:00

Only seven weeks left to the NYC Marathon, and I still feel a few steps behind in my training. But my mind is catching up, and the legs seem to be obeying.

My training schedule is practically out the window, or at least I've given up all hope of adhering to it strictly. Instead, I've taken heart in my mileage and consistency improvements. Three training runs last week, including a West Haven 14-miler, after the solid 14-miler in Salem, Mass.

This time, I packed a couple gels so that I didn't collapse halfway through. My schedule called for an 18-miler, which would have been unthinkable without some prepackaged energy boosts. I still finished four miles short of the goal but felt good in the 14, stopping only a couple times for water.

The West Haven route has become one of my favorites, even though the back seven never fails to stump me, whether because of heat, sun, wind, rain, hills or the stench coming from the water treatment facility around mile 11. Otherwise, it's a mostly flat route that reaches the beaches near the Milford town line around mile 7 and then follows the shore.

I plan to use this as the base route for my longer training runs, which are supposed to hit 20 miles in two weeks. My standard West Haven route is 14 miles, but I can tack on several more simply by taking a few extra turns on the tail end, in particular kicking out onto Long Wharf along the New Haven Harbor. And I've found a water fountain at 9.5 miles, which will come in handy.

Even so, 26.2 miles is a daunting thought. We'll see how I feel about it in two weeks.

Road Trip: Salem, Mass.

2008-09-10T12:54:00.003-04:00

The Boston area is a little bit beyond this Northeast runner's typical training grounds, but on a mini vacation in Salem, Mass., I took advantage of the tranquil waterfront and mostly flat landscape to sneak in a 14-miler that looped through Peabody, Danvers and Beverly before ending back at the Clipper Ship Inn.

Salem's early claim to fame was as one of the principal ports of colonial days. Founded in 1626, the harbor was ideally protected by the peninsulas of Marblehead and Salem Neck, and the shipping business thrived, possibly making for America's first millionaire, a Salem tycoon named Derby. But as ships were built bigger and bigger, Salem's harbor became too shallow to handle the traffic, which shifted primarily to Boston in the early 1800s.

Salem also is known as the birthplace of Nathaniel Hawthorne's whose 1851 novel "The House of Seven Gables" was named after a residence in Salem, now a popular tourist site. But the city today is perhaps most famous for its infamous witch trials of 1692, which ended in the death of 20 innocent "witches," including one by pressing — a most unfortunate end, if ever there was one.

As for running routes, traffic is hardly a problem, and many pedestrian pathways along the waterfront make for pleasant runs. Shorter runs in the historic older part of Salem will take you back in time. Venture into the more residential and commercial neighborhoods to the west for a longer run, which easily could include multiple water crossings. And north of Salem is Beverly, which offers more hills and more hustle and bustle, but also some of the best views of the ocean in the area, along Lothrop Street.

Here's my route, starting at the Clipper Ship Inn and heading south for a clockwise loop around the area:

New Haven Road Race Turns 31

2008-09-02T12:14:00.004-04:00

The annual Labor Day jaunt around New Haven is one of the preeminent races in the Northeast. Only eight years younger than the NYC Marathon, the 20k New Haven Road Race also doubles as the national championship race in that distance and draws plenty of big-name runners each year.

And on a local level, it's just a great way to see the city in all its variety, from the boutique shops on Broadway to the harbor waterfront along Long Wharf to the sidewalk Spanish of the Fair Haven neighborhood to the quiet woods of East Rock Park.

Monday was the 31st running of the race, featuring a special tribute to Ryan Shay, the young distance runner who died in the Olympic trials last November in Central Park. His father, Joe, said a few words before this race, thanking the running community for its support. Ryan was a past participant in the New Haven race, and his wife won the women's competition last year.

Then with the crack of the gun, the runners were off. The course goes through just about every neighborhood in the city, and in addition to the official water stops, many residents set up their own unofficial stations to pass water to the runners and cheer them on. The route is mostly flat, with some gentle ups and downs, which makes for a fast course. World records have been set here.

The sun, however, is the great equalizer, and turning up East Street somewhere around mile eight, it was tempting to reach an arm out toward the men standing outside the corner bar with their beers and hope they'd hand off a bottle — liquid defeat.

But just as the twists and turns and heat and sore feet start to wear a runner down, suddenly the route turns into the shaded East Rock Park. A short uphill gives way to a longer descent, providing a burst of confidence that culminates in a left turn across the Mill River past a band of bagpipers and toward the final straightaway down Whitney Avenue.

Finally the finish line appears in the middle of the New Haven Green, and post-race refreshments range from bananas and bagels to little ice cream cups. And as a final reward, perhaps knowing what temptations had been resisted along the way, a beer distributor has a van set up serving runners free cups of a deep-amber brew. Beer never tasted so good.

Manhattan Rack Attack and Times Square

2008-08-29T13:42:00.004-04:00

Staring at a train station bike rack on a recent Saturday morning, I found myself in a predicament.

I had a bike and here was a bike rack, but lo and behold, I had forgotten my bike lock. To make matters worse, I was catching a train to work and didn't want to be late. What to do?

Thinking quickly — perhaps too quickly — I decided just to take the bike along with me from New Haven to Grand Central. I never had taken the bike on the train before but had seen others do it and didn't worry too much about it. The bike fit nicely in the entryway on the opposite side of the station platforms, and I was able to wedge it in so it wouldn't fall.

But a more troubling dilemma confronted me when I got to the city. I figured I'd just sneak the bike in with me at work, but the security guy at my building blocked my way. "You can't bring that in," he said. "Bikes aren't allowed." It's a policy I was aware of but didn't think they'd enforce, especially as I pleaded for leniency.

No mercy.

The result was that I spent my first hour of work in a panic over the fate of my bike, which I had to leave propped up against a bike rack on Sixth Avenue lock-less, free for anyone to snatch if they simply noticed it wasn't tethered to any permanent object. After checking in with my co-workers, I excused myself to rush down 46th Street to a bike shop and pick up a new bike lock, about $25, and preserve my treasured vehicle. It had lasted a half hour without getting stolen, so I counted myself fortunate.

The upside of this story is that after work I had some time to kill, so I decided to venture around on the bicycle, my first time doing so in the city. I still wanted to get home at a reasonable hour and therefore limited my Manhattan excursion to a short loop, which just happened to take me through Times Square.

The excitement of biking down Broadway on a Saturday evening with the giant digital advertisements flashing and tourists shuffling around in every direction is hard to express. It's impossible to kick into high gear in that traffic, yet there is a feeling of speed and intensity when passing through that famous crossroads on a bike rather than strolling on foot. Almost made my absentmindedness worth the extra effort.

Face Full of Dirt Part 2

2008-08-22T13:21:00.002-04:00

It has been an abysmal week or two for my marathon training. Missed days. Shortened runs. Slow paces. And one wild Monday night spent checking out a band at the Bowery Ballroom, which, though terribly fun, set my body back a few days.

Then there is the pesky root-and-rock-covered path in New Haven's East Rock park that attacked me again on Thursday. Head over heals again. Scraped up my knee again, this time enough that I had to take off my T-shirt to soak up the blood.

It's such a great route through the woods along the Mill River, but I might have to give it a pass for a while until I figure out what's going wrong. The knee can't take another spill like that, and I'm running out of T-shirts.

Breaking the Rules: The Lance Armstrong Program

2008-08-14T12:10:00.008-04:00

I never imagined marathon training would be a bed of roses, but I also had hoped the will to compete and the potential shame of failing would cure me of my training irregularities.

Not quite.

The way things are going, I'm gonna have to defend myself by saying I'm in the Lance Armstrong program. Which might not sound like a bad program — if you're training for a bicycle race through the mountains of France. But Armstrong was notoriously ill-prepared when he ran his first marathon, the NYC in 2006. I was perched at 90th Street and Central Park for that race and saw him come around the bend, looking haggard with salty sweat caked on his face but still moving along.

Armstrong came in just under three hours, which was quite a feat considering that after the race his ex-wife revealed that his longest training run hadn't even been the distance of a half marathon and he hadn't really stuck to the program.

But a guy like Lance can pull off something like that. A mere mortal like myself keeps going over in my mind the list of missteps:

• Consistency is lacking. I've missed a few scheduled runs, including a long run and a tempo. Will I be able to keep up with more intense workouts down the stretch?

• They say you should get an extra minute of sleep for every mile you run a week. By that measure, I should be getting an extra 20-30 minutes a night. But with my crazy work schedule, I typically end up missing sleep rather than getting more.

• To be honest, I still haven't done any research on marathon nutrition. I've heard a runner needs more calories. And a well-balanced diet, high in carbohydrates and protein. It's the finer points that leave me puzzled. Were the two slices of pepperoni pizza I had for dinner on Tuesday a boost to or drag on my energy level? How much ice cream is allowed per week? Per day? Does a half bag of potato chips contain any health benefits? If I have an extra piece of fruit for breakfast, will it matter that I had to skip lunch?

• I don't really drink alcohol during the week. So if I choose to over-consume on the weekends, is that really going to slow me down? (I'm mostly sober by my Monday long run.)

So many questions, and only 11 weeks until the NYC Marathon. Maybe I should take a nap.

Face Full of Dirt

2008-08-12T12:20:00.003-04:00

New Haven can be a rough city, and I'm not talking about the gunshots, crumbling neighborhoods and packs of panhandlers.

I'm talking about the giant tree roots on the trails at the base of East Rock. One of them attacked me Monday about four miles into a 10-miler and knocked me down on the puddle-covered path. I wasn't far from the waterfall at the north end and could have shouted to the summer camp kids there for help: "Help, help, camp kids, help, runner down!" Instead, I jumped up, inspected the wounds on my wrist, forearm and both knees and decided that I wasn't mortally injured and had been maintaining too good of a pace to lag now.

Unlike the trails up the hill, the trails around East Rock are flat and meandering, an ideal running route through the city park's gentle woods. And other than the roots and rocks, there aren't many obstacles, though, I admit, that playground turtle by Orange Street gives me the creeps.

New York City Opens Its Streets, Some

2008-08-08T12:31:00.003-04:00

Any runner with a will and a way will be foolish to pass up the opportunity to run in the middle of the street in Manhattan the next three Saturday mornings.

Running in the middle of the street? Wouldn't that be the definition of foolish?

Any other Saturday morning, yes. But Mayor Bloomberg and his people have wrested parts of Lafayette, Park, Fourth Avenue and 72nd Street away from motorized traffic and will give them over to runners, pedestrians, bicyclists, mimes, chalk artists, street vendors and the rest of the metro menagerie from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. Aug. 9, 16 and 23.

This means, you can complete a traffic-free run of about seven miles from the Brooklyn Bridge to Central Park on a stretch of pavement that at other times would be overrun by taxis, trucks and an array of other gas guzzlers.

This closed-street initiative follows the failure of Bloomberg's ambitious congestion pricing plan for Midtown Manhattan and parts to the south, which died at the hands of Sheldon Silver and the rest of the do-nothing Albany mafia. So creating a traffic-free route through Manhattan for a total of 18 hours in the summer (when New Yorkers desert Manhattan on weekends anyway) is kind of a sad consolation prize. But if this works out, who knows, maybe Bloomberg will find a way to close streets across the whole island, and for more than a Saturday morning.

For more information on the city's Summer Streets program, click here.

Downtown Among the Elms

2008-08-07T23:26:00.001-04:00

There are many methods for measuring the New Haven Green, but none of them have I employed. Not yet at least.

By sight, I figure the Green to be about three-fourths of a mile around (four loops for a 5k) if you were to run the full square, which involves crossing Temple Street, therefore a risk of red light. Sticking to one side or the other would avoid traffic and still offer a nice loop, a scenic alternative to the high school track or indoor treadmill.

Of the two sides of the Green, the east end is preferable. The dirt path under the elm trees feels like a proper park route, whereas the west end, with its assortment of homeless bums and pigeons, is a bit rougher and a bit too close to Yale. And as I recall, no dirt path.

I could have looped it with the Garmin or swung through on my bike and clocked the mileage or else simply plotted it on the Web. But I haven't really run the Green until this morning, when I threw a mini loop into the mix to help round out an eight-miler on the north side of town. A pleasant loop in the heart of downtown — worth adding to the roster as a lazy option for a shorter run.

The Parks of Hartford

2008-08-05T23:42:00.001-04:00

Connecticut has no big cities, despite significant population density through much of the state. It has several mid-sized cities, including New Haven, Bridgeport, Stamford and the capital, Hartford, all somewhat above the 100,000 population mark. Hartford's metro area is much larger, though the size of the city itself doesn't overwhelm.

This can be a selling point for runners. Apply a little planning to your route, and it's possible to avoid the typical pitfalls of city running — stoplights, mad motorists, construction sites, foul odors, ugly scenery, etc.

I happen to think Hartford has a much better skyline than any other city in the state, its downtown concentrated in a compact neighborhood by the Connecticut River and featuring variety of tall buildings. And it has some superb running routes as well, especially if you take advantage of two of the city's biggest parks, Keney and Riverfront.

I ran a 12-miler earlier this week starting on the west end of downtown, heading up through Keney Park, looping back down to the riverfront and then across Founders Bridge and back over Charter Oak Bridge. In about eight of those 12 miles, I was able to avoid normal city streets, and much of the run was away from traffic altogether.

And the pathways along the Connecticut River have to count among the most enjoyable running routes in Connecticut. My only complaint was that I found only one water fountain along the route, at Charter Oak Landing. It was a welcome treat at the end of my run, but I could have used it a few miles earlier.

Thoughts From a West Side Five-Miler

2008-07-31T12:03:00.003-04:00

Can't help myself sometimes, gotta make my way out to the Hudson River and the paved bicycle and pedestrian pathway that runs from Battery Park north along Manhattan's West Side as far as I can imagine. Nothing grand to say about my recent run from 46th Street south, but some stray musings:

• The waterfront park along the river is really coming along. Parts still are under construction, but more is open now than the last time I ran this route. Which means it's easier to get closer to the river's edge for views of New Jersey and the Statue of Liberty. I also stumbled across a working water fountain — runner's gold — near Pier 50. The guy who was using it muttered, "Not very cold," and wandered away, but I found it to be quite refreshing.

• New York in the summer is populated by a whole host of familiar yet hard-to-identify smells that slap you in the face and then slink into the closest alley. Someday I'll figure out the source of these mostly putrid aromas. Some guesses: rotting garbage, plant fertilizer, illegal falafel stands, pizza shop body odor, fresh fish, rotting fish, decomposing human remains, animal feces, human feces, wet cardboard shelters, flat tires, greasy burgers, common sludge...

• Only 62 days until the re-opening of the Intrepid Museum.

• Meeting people in the city can be a precarious proposition. One missed message or misinterpreted direction and you're left waiting and wondering. I was supposed to run with a friend and thought we had it all figured out, meet at 46th Street and the river. He never showed. Turned out he was waiting on the other side of some bushes on the pedestrian path, while I was street-side waiting on the bike path. We were maybe 50 feet away and didn't realize until afterward.

• Big frustration with big-city running: the Garmin GPS can't locate it's satellites among all the skyscrapers. Eventually the device picks up the signal, but it's spotty until I make it to the river. So for the first mile or so I could be running at a steady pace but my speed will seem to fluctuate between Olympic Gold Medalist and Old Granny With Her Walker.

• The river south of 46th Street is a great run. But I wonder what I'd find if I were to turn north instead...

Perseverance Wears No Raincoat

2008-07-24T12:03:00.006-04:00

My top hurdle in training for the NYC Marathon is consistency, so a hard rain is a good test of the will. The thought of running in the rain yesterday — and the desire for an extra bit of sleep — persuaded me to scrap plans for a city run yesterday, though I still did an easy six-miler in New Haven. The rain had stopped by then.

This morning, I wasn't so lucky. It had been a relatively dry summer, until a colossal storm front took hold last night and persisted into today. I'll admit, for a moment I considered bailing on my scheduled tempo run, but that would have set me back in the marathon training plan in a serious way. So I pulled on non-cotton shirt and shorts, as well as my goofy fisherman's hat, and hit the puddle-strewn sidewalk.

The route went along the West River, around the Yale Bowl and through Edgewood Park. And I actually felt better about the run this morning than any training run so far. The cooler temperature surely has something to do with it.

Some Fresh Pavement, Please

2008-07-21T16:30:00.005-04:00

Being somewhat new to New Haven politics, I don't know much about Mayor John DeStefano, not sure yet whether he's a worthwhile city leader. But I'll say this: If the guy would just fix the dang sidewalks, he'd get my vote.

I'm not even going to bother with New Haven's roads, which are bad enough — awful for bicycling and driving alike. To be sure, the sidewalks in and around Yale and downtown New Haven are in pretty good shape. No surprise there. But everywhere else they're in various stages of disrepair.

One of the worst neighborhoods is along one of my running routes. Run east on Chapel Street past Yale and Downtown and even past the Wooster Street neighborhood and across the Quinnipiac River, and as the sidewalk progressively deteriorates you can practically hear your sneakers shrieking from the increasingly treacherous terrain. In some stretches, there's more dirt and grass than concrete, as if the Earth had reclaimed the land, stolen it back from careless humans. This impression is shattered, however, by the broken glass that is everywhere along this stretch of Chapel.

It's a shame, because the east end of Chapel is a good running route, even with the Ferry Street drawbridge still closed for repair. Often I just hop the curb and run in the street, hoping the cars don't use me for target practice.

Maybe someday the powers that be in the Elm City will wise up and spend a little money outside what is known as "the Yale bubble." Until then, many apologies to my sneakers.

View from the Reservoir

2008-07-17T12:35:00.005-04:00

The choice of Central Park as the cite of my first official NYC Marathon training run was less by design than out of convenience. An easy four-miler is right at hand here, and I stowed my stuff at New York Road Runners on 89th Street, which is on my way to work.

But it also felt right, walking through Engineers' Gate, imagining the day in November when I hopefully will turn into the park there from 90th street and finish the marathon's final few miles.

Waiting for my Garmin to locate its satellites, I stood at the reservoir's edge above the bust of John Purroy Mitchel, a mayor of NYC until his death in the first World War. From the railing I looked across the water to Central Park West where the residential buildings rose over the tree line reaching toward the clear blue sky. I looked down the hard-packed dirt path around the reservoir at the fellow runners and walkers.

Then I started off at an 8-minute pace, steering clear of the road in search of the less-traveled paths deeper into the park.

Week 1: Begin to Panic

2008-07-15T12:32:00.004-04:00

Having never run a marathon, I decided on a dubious approach to developing a training plan — I totally made one up from scratch on the fly.

Granted, I had an old half marathon training plan as a loose model. And I had the experience of my pal Keith as a guide. He peaked at a long run of 20 miles before resting up for race day. And I checked my plan against a couple floating around the Internet.

But I seem to have mistakenly figured only 16 weeks of training, whereas other plans suggest 18 or 20 weeks. Gulp! And is one long run of 20 miles enough preparation for the ordeal of 26.2 miles on Nov. 2? Double gulp!!

Well, it's too late to change some things. I can't go back and get in better pre-training shape. I can't go back and reverse the last few weeks of slackened physical activity. And I can't go back and add a couple weeks onto my training plan, unless I want to run the NYC Marathon two weeks late. (Which, no kidding, was roughly the scenario of a bizarre dream I had a few days ago.)

Most I can do is stick with the plan, which leaves me very little room for error. The training officially kicks off Wednesday with an easy four-miler in Central Park.

Island Train Blues

2008-06-19T12:28:00.003-04:00

If there's an easy way to get from South Ferry to Midtown Manhattan, I haven't found it yet.

Why should it matter, you ask? True, a convenient park run is only as far away as Central Park. But in the interest of variety, I gave the Hudson River route another try yesterday, this time navigating the winding park walkways deep in the heart of Battery Park City — a waterfront route, as opposed to the straightaway down West Street through the World Financial Center and Ground Zero.

The problem is that the closest subway line is the 1, which I quickly discovered stops seemingly at every block for a never-ending ride back to Midtown. I could practically run the distance faster.

The N, Q, R and W trains are a little better but not easy to reach from Battery Park City. The other option is the green line up to Grand Central. This may or may not be quicker than the 1.

Maybe someday, when these legs are faster and more durable, I can avoid the subway altogether by running the four miles down and making the return trip by foot.

Does Running in a Tie Count?

2008-06-17T12:54:00.003-04:00

The window for essential NYC Marathon training is fast approaching, and since I've been lax in my deliberate preparations, I've been keeping my morale up by considering the incidental training I squeeze in every day.

Is it fair to count the sprint I often have to make from work to the train station at the end of the day?

It's only about three-fourths of a mile from my building on Sixth Avenue to Grand Central. A brisk walk will get me there in little more than 10 minutes. But if I'm running late, look out fellow pedestrians! There I go, sometimes still sporting a tie, swinging my bag to my side, making a beeline through Midtown.

In a pinch, I can make it there in seven minutes, which necessitates an extreme workout, my heart racing as I leap onto the train between the closing doors. I've even started wearing sneakers to work so my feet don't get pavement-mangled in my dress shoes during the workaday jog.

Surely this is better than nothing, but perhaps "training" is too strong a word. Still, on the few days that I'm not running TOO late, and I've got the sneakers, and I'm traveling light, left the laptop at home, and it's not too hot and humid in the city, the run comes close to being enjoyable, brief as it is.

Hiking Muscles vs. Running Muscles

2008-05-28T12:25:00.003-04:00

After hiking up and down the side of Mount Greylock with about 35 pounds of camping gear on my back, I was feeling aches in muscles I never knew I had. Could this qualify as holiday weekend crosstraining?

The array of leg muscles that propel the body and gear up the side of a mountain and drop it down from rock to rock in the other direction is a different array than the leg muscles that propelled me forward Tuesday afternoon through New Haven streets and across Edgewood Park on a post-holiday five-miler and this morning up the canal trail on a pre-work four-miler.

Both build leg strength, I figure, which is important to prevent injury. But more important is the motivation factor. A little physical activity, whatever it may be and whatever muscles used, could be what I need to get on track with marathon training, finally and at long last.

Two weeks until 5k in Saint Paul, Minn. Five months until NYC Marathon.

In the News

2008-04-21T13:26:00.003-04:00

Distance running's marquee event ended today with another repeat victory by Robert Cheruiyot of Kenya. Cheruiyot finished the 2008 Boston Marathon in 2:07:46.

On the women's side, Dire Tune, with a time of 2:25:25, became only the second Ethiopian woman to win the race. Jelena Prokopcuka, a recent back-to-back NYC Marathon winner, took fourth place.

The race came a day after 2004 Olympic bronze medalist Deena Kastor snagged the top spot in the women's U.S. Olympic marathon trials with a time of 2:29:35. Magdalena Lewy Boulet and Blake Russell claimed the other two marathon spots on the 2008 U.S. team.

For those of you who prefer running routes or races that are a bit shorter than 26.2 miles, check out this article about Sara Hall, a 5k racer who is trying to break into the Olympic mile (or more specifically, the Olympic 0.93 mile).

And lest such overachievers leave you second-guessing your own abilities, the Hartford Courant's Susan Campbell checks in with a couple ordinary Connecticut women who showed the true spirit of running by their completion of the half marathon April 6 in Central Park sponsored by More magazine.

Drawbridges and Other Dead Ends

2008-04-07T18:13:00.015-04:00

Even a runner's best laid plans run afoul when confronted with the unexpected dead end.

Faulty map, perhaps. Or road closed for construction; follow the detour. Or new construction — building going up where street once was. Maybe street festival with annoying fence presence. Pack of gang members waiting for trouble; find your own detour. Mean junkyard dog with chain too long or too loose for comfort. Train crossing. Traffic accident involving tractor trailer. Traffic accident involving raging inferno. Six-foot trench. Twelve-foot trench. Marshland where dry path should be. Neverending stream of school children walking hand-in-hand to the playground.

Or you simply got lost. You found yourself staring at a classic dead end. You ain't going nowhere.

But the most impassable of obstacles would have to be the broken drawbridge. The open drawbridge is bad enough, but it comes down eventually. Wait, then resume forward motion.

The broken drawbridge is a puzzling frustration. Why couldn't it have broken in the down position? The other side — it seems so close and yet so ... far ... away.

I hadn't run into this problem until recently, when I plotted a wonderful loop through the east side of New Haven only to find that the Ferry Street bridge was being repaired and out of commission, its twin platforms aiming toward the sky above the Quinnipiac River, like a magic trick performed by a magician who forgot how to break the spell once the trick was over.

"Any way of getting through?" I asked the construction workers who were heading home for the day.

"Not unless you got rockets in those shoes," one of them said. He seemed grateful I had set him up so well. It was a good line. Certainly true.

"Not quite," I said, feeling somewhat sluggish that day.

So instead, I followed the riverfront upstream to the next crossing and turned east again.

Natural Habitat of the City Runner

2008-04-06T20:34:00.008-04:00

The city streets call you, O City Runner. Resist the tradewinds that carry the rest of the flock to the unnatural habitat of park pathways.

An ironic contradiction or merely pragmatic? That the road runners of New York Road R unners find their home base near the greatest urban park in the country. (To be fair, the park has plenty of roads.) The club's office is on 89th Street a block from Central Park, where the first New York City Marathon was held, in 1970. The park remains the site of many of the club's races, as well as the five-borough marathon's final few miles.

I won't deny, when coming to Manhattan the northeast runner thinks of Central Park.

Nor will I deny the joy of a brisk park loop, though I prefer it in the off season when the skyline is visible through the leafless trees. Park running serves its purpose, but a city run should take place in the city.

A true city run harnesses the energy of the honking taxis, the wide-turning buses, the sidewalk food stands, the construction crews, the shuffling business people, even the tourists, wide-eyed and curious, not to mention the glorious hulking masses of concrete, steel and glass that flash in and out of the peripheral vision of the city runner.

The problem: Unless you time your run perfectly, you're gonna hit a stoplight — which is perfect if you need to rest, but for any momentum it's a killer.

Jane Jacobs, the late-great Greenwich Village resident and philosopher of city planning, wrote in her seminal "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" (1961) that short blocks are one of the essential components of vibrant city neighborhoods, because the increased potential for twists and turns brings people deeper into the diverse neighborhood. Rockefeller Center is a better stroll than the long blocks between Fifth and Sixth avenues found in the rest of Midtown.

"It is fluidity of use, and the mixing of paths, not homogeneity of architecture, that ties together city neighborhoods into pools of city use," she writes.

But Adams' pools of city use were for workers, residents and pedestrians. Runners have their own modes of urban appreciation that aren't easily accommodated by even the best-designed neighborhoods.

If park runs are too removed and neighborhood runs too congested, then an appropriate alternative would be a run that takes in the urban landscape from a distance.

I recently felt my calling as a city runner during a five-miler along the Hudson River from Midtown to Battery Park. The paved running and biking path between the river and the West Side Highway is close enough to the traffic to feel the energy, but the runner's momentum is rarely threatened, except by the occasional cross-traffic. Glance off to the left and the Empire State Building towers over the lesser buildings nearby. Glance right and there's New Jersey across the Hudson. Ahead, the Statue of Liberty slowly comes into view. And with it, Lower Manhattan and World Financial Center and Ground Zero and Castle Clinton and Battery Park, where people wait in line for the boat to Liberty and Ellis islands.

Catch your breath, wipe the sweat and appreciate the city surroundings — before you duck into the subway to rejoin the flock.

The Inexplicable, Undeniable Rush of Run

2008-03-31T13:38:00.010-04:00

The fantasy life of the long distance runner goes something like this ...

I live in New Haven, Conn., with very few obvious reasons to travel down the coast to Southport, but if such a journey were in the cards I could hop the Metro-North train and be there in a half hour with no hassle. Or I could drive down Interstate 95 — likely with plenty of hassle. Or perhaps I could charter a boat and get there via Long Island Sound.

But I'm a runner, so when I think of those 26.2 miles or so from New Haven to Southport I think of my running shoes (Asics, of course). And I fantasize about what routes I'd take to maximize ocean vistas and minimize traffic crossings and avoid dead ends.

Then I imagine the pain.

These days, untold numbers of people are trusting their legs to carry them 26.2 miles to the finish lines of marathons everywhere, from Boston to Big Sur, whether it be their first or 500th race. On Nov. 2, I hope to become one of them by running the NYC Marathon, the granddaddy of them all with more than 38,000 runners completing the race in 2007.

Just don't ask me to explain why. It doesn't make much sense even to a semi-regular runner like me. Why volunteer to put the body through such an ordeal?

The first marathon was run by a fellow named Pheidippides with a mission: Carry a Greek battlefield message of victory from Marathon to Athens.

Upon completing the mission, the messenger promptly died.

Not a very auspicious beginning. But now — 2,500 years and many pairs of sandals and shoes later — the competition begotten by poor Pheidippedes' fateful run now counts more than 400,000 finishes a year in the United States alone, according to MarathonGuide.com's annual report.

Some even claim to enjoy it.

A friend of mine, after running his first marathon in 2006 in Minnesota's Twin Cities, said by the end he felt overcome by emotion amid the cheering crowds and giant American flag flapping overhead near the end of the race course. Not to mention the sense of accomplishment he felt.

And what do marathoners have to show for their accomplishment? The cynical observer may scoff and say, not much.

But runners know the sum is greater than its component miles. The exhilaration is hard to describe, but it's undeniable. I hope for Northeast Runner to become a lively forum for its expression.