View from the Reservoir

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.