WELL WELL WELL 12/12/12!

December 12, 2012, aka 12/12/12 has come and is almost gone, and nothing significant happened.  Except perhaps that benefit concert that's all the buzz on my Facebook friends' walls.  I did not do anything different, other than set out to run 12.12 km instead of the usual 8 km.  I thought about running 12 hours 12 minutes and 12 second but I never ran that long before and there was not that many free hours in the day anyway.  Another option was to run 12.12 miles, which is equivalent to almost 20 km, which I could do in less than 2 hours and 15 minutes, but 12.12 km worked for me.

It's been a while since I ran to Fort Hamilton High School so that's where I aimed for.  I ran mostly along 85th Street, up Dyker Height's great hill between 12th and 11th Avenues.  When I felt like doing hill training I would run up and down the hills while moving a street over, i.e. up 85th St. then down 84th St., then up 83rd St. and down 82nd St.  Three sets of up and down was the max I ever did.  Today, I didn't want to get off-course so I went straight to 7th Avenue, over the foot-bridge that spans the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, then onward to Fort Ham.  At the school, the field was used by some people, safely assumed to be students since it was a school day.  The track and field were supposedly not open to the public since the gate from the playground was locked, even though part of the gate was already vandalized to allow a regular-sized person in easily.  Being the rule-abiding type, I didn't get onto the track but just ran on the sidewalk some more.  I already had over 6 km out but a little more further out wouldn't hurt, as I like to walk leisurely home when the chance is there.

Each time I cross the foot-bridge over the BQE I would recall the image of the highway (below) with the sign about the upcoming Marathon Sunday.  The photo was taken in 2011.  Alas, 2012 rolled around and the NYC Marathon didn't happen.  NYRR is in discussion with its insurance company and it will be a while before anything is known about what the 2012 runners can salvage from the situation.