PAT

For some road runners, the route is the same everyday. A few loops around Prospect Park, a few trips up and down the waterfront by Belt Parkway, a few times around Lafayette High School, you get the idea. I cannot do that anymore. I did start out that way, the block of Scarangella Park was my go-to route. Eventually I went all over, I need to see something new, something different with each run. Lately, I feel better if I go somewhere further out. Today, it was the Little Free Library on East 71st Street in Bergen Beach. I like that area because the B3 bus takes me there, no need to drive and pay through the nose for gasoline. The walk from the bus terminal to the LFL was my warm-up. With Saint Patrick’s Day being the day after tomorrow, I thought writing his shortened name would be fun to do. I have neither the stamina to spell the full name, “Saint Patrick”, nor the room to fit that many letters.

In case you wonder, no, I didn’t climb over some fences to make the letter “a”. It is a little trick of pausing and resuming the tracker, in this case Strava app on my smartphone. While heading toward Avenue X, I paused the app when I was about midway through East 72nd Street. Then I ran back on East 72nd to Avenue W toward East 71st Street. About midway down 71st Street, I un-paused Strava. The computer only knew that I was last on East 72nd Street and that I now re-appeared on East 71st Street. There are many ways to get from Point A on E. 72nd to Point B on E. 71st but the shortest distance is the straight line, so that was what the computer chose. Everything else involved actual running.

 

THAT'S AMORE

The past few years for Valentine's Day, I led a group run that spells out something related to that over-commercialized event.  The first year it was "LOVE", the following it was also "LOVE" but packed into a neat little square, in the style of that famous Robert Indiana sculpture.  Last year, it was "I {heart} U", where the heart symbol was where the {heart} is.  A Facebook memory reminded me, belatedly, that this year it should be "xoxo".  I said "belatedly" because I totally forgot about it and already designed the route to spell "amore", the Italian word for love.  It could have been the Spanish word "amor" but because of that Dean Martin song I went with "amore".  The little pun about "a moray" (eel) and "amore" is one of my favorites, so "amore" it is.

The route makes no use of any special skill with pausing and unpausing of GPS watch or smartphone app.  I am tempted to throw in one, though, to make the top of the "r" better show the arch at the top of that letter.  It'll be an optional thing.  If you don't do it, the letter still looks like an "r".

9:30 A.M. Saturday 15 February 2020
Bartel-Pritchard Square
Brooklyn, NY

We'll walk to the green dot on the "a", without activating watch or smartphone app, then start from there.  Event is open to the public, so do come if you are in the neighborhood.  I'll be on the traffic circle of Bartel-Pritchard a little before 9:30.

I'M WALKIN' HERE! I'M WALKIN' HERE!

And I sure walked a lot.  New York City is a pedestrian paradise, in some ways.  Yes, there are many rude, or even evil, car-drivers and then there are also many lawless cyclists ready to knock down pedestrians.  In general, the great thing is one can walk almost everywhere.  Or run, for that matter.  I used to be an avid runner, got up early in the morning to run a few miles, wash off the dirt, then go to work.  Then I started working at a job that required a car commute, a commute that would be so much worse if I didn't leave the house by a certain hour in the morning.  That meant no more running in the morning before going to work.  I was able to walk a lot, before work or after, or during lunch breaks.   I still ran on the weekends, or during the week on those rare days when I finished work early.

Wouldn't it be nice to visualize all that walking and running on one map?  Yes, and that's exactly what the web site CityStrides offer.  It is free to use, with some extra features if you pay for a subscription.  There are a few subscription tiers, I think anyone with a job should be able to afford the fee, just to support the work of the one man who runs the whole thing.

Below is my map of New York City, i.e. the five boroughs (The Bronx, Manhattan, Brook, Queens, and Staten Island) combined.  My activities only cover about 25% of the entire NYC so there is much work left to be done.  There is no fame or fortune to claim, just bragging rights among friends or friendly competitors.  A few people already covered the entire city, measured by some other means. The movie The World Before Your Feet chronicles one such feat.  The guy in that movie didn't have a full-time job and achieved the goal in about six years.  I have other obligations to satisfy so for now I am happy with my slow progress.

I {HEART} U

If spreading love is the Brooklyn way, you can do it with me this coming Saturday the 9th of February.  I will lead a run for the Prospect Park Track Club that will spell out "I {heart} U", as shown below.  It'll cover about 4 miles, at least that's what Strava recorded when I did the test run last week.  I made a sleight of hand, or rather sleight of foot, to make the lines that seem to cut through the block, like the right side of the heart symbol.  I suspect Strava measured the distance along the straight line.  We'll actually run along the two legs of the right triangle, so it's a longer route.  The shortest distance between two points if a straight line, ya know?  See, who said high school math/trig isn't useful?

PPTC hosts the event but it's free to the public.  Your fellow runners may encourage you to join the club and we may retire to some cafe to grab a much-deserved breakfast, Dutch treat.  An hour or so of your time is all you'll spend.

See you 8:30 A.M. at the corner of Union Street and Prospect Park West on Saturday the 9th of February!

THIS WEEK IN CITYSTRIDES: BROOKLYN, NEW YORK AT 20%

Happy New Year!

I started the new year by volunteering for my track club's handicap race and pot luck party.  One aspect of the event is a storytelling session after the race, with anecdotes about the club's past and current members.  I especially like the story about them interacting with Fred Lebow - yes, the Fred Lebow of New York Road Runners Club fame.

The last week of the year I had a few time-off days to burn, it was a use-it-or-lose-it situation.  Everyday of the week was cold but I wanted to maintain my tiny lead for New York, NY* in CityStrides so everyday I was out there running a few miles to add nodes.  Every little bit helps and currently I'm at 20% completed for Brooklyn and 9% completed for New York, NY.  Deep down I know that, because CityStrides round off to the nearest integer, I don't really have 20% and 9% but more of 19.x% and 8.y%, but it looks better this way.

In case you wonder, CityStrides has a little gadget at the upper left corner used for rotating or tilting the map.  I used it to achieve the view below.  Brooklyn, NY's height is longer than its width so that in order to include its northernmost portion, the area below Newtown Creek, I would normally have to zoom out further.  However, by tilting the map along the Z-axis you can see further without zooming out further.

* New York, NY in the CityStrides sphere means New York City itself, comprising of the five boroughs: Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Staten Island.  It does not mean the New York, NY as used by the United States Postal Service, which means just Manhattan and nearby islands plus Marble Hill, which is physically part of the Bronx but was originally part of Manhattan Island.

RELIVE

With Relive, I can playback my runs in all their glory.  With a premium account, you can keep all the videos in your account and do other things with them.  For me, I just share them to Facebook and Instagram, and occasionally here on Blogger.  Still, ain't technology great?  Click on the individual video to play it, there is an option to play at full-screen too.

Amy rules

Bergie

Menorah

Linda

THE YEAR IN GWRITING, PART TWO

In 2017, I actually won a contest with my run-art/gwriting/StravaArt, did some special requests from fans, and saw my work went to the dogs, in a good way, and, last but not least, created a menorah.

Just donut {swoosh}

Some time in August I found out from my track club's Facebook group that there was a donut-themed contest.  Draw anything donut-inspired for a chance to win a dozen donuts and entries into the Montclair Bread Company 5K Doughnut Run.  I actually came up with two designs, one of a donut being dunked into a cup plus the "Just donut {swoosh}" above.  Supposedly competition was light but I won that's all that matters.

Amy rules

In November, I asked for suggestions of what to write during future runs and one of the response was "Amy rules".  What's interesting with this particular task was that on that day I went for an NYRR OpenRun at Cunningham Park.  I planned to get there ahead of time to gwrite "Amy rules" before OpenRun started.  However, I made the mistake of trusting my memory, instead of Google Maps, and ended up getting lost briefly. Not totally lost, mind you, I still know my Queens geography, just enough to lose time and not able to finish the gwriting prior to OpenRun.  I used Strava app to do the writing so I simply paused it when I was done with "Amy".  Went to do OpenRun with Runkeeper app, then returned to where I was and un-paused Strava and proceeded to finish the whole two-word sentence.  Oh yes, it was no coincidence that I made "Amy rules" in the borough of Queens.

Bergie

Another suggestion came from the owner of a dog named Bergamot Grey, or Bergie for short.  Other dog names that I made in 2017 were Bandit and Beemer.  Just by coincidence that they all start with the letter B.  Yes, I am a dog person, but I do have a not-too-strict rule that dog names shouldn't be names normally reserved for people, such as Michael or Peter.

This Menorah Was Really Good

With the holiday season approaching, a Jewish friend asked if I could draw a dreidel.  Or a menorah.  Sure, I can.  New York City has many rectangular city blocks and a menorah with squarish branches could be drawn in many places.  But what if we want one that has nice, round branches?  As I reviewed the map for NYC, my first choice was the Mill Basin peninsula in Brooklyn.  However, unless I can walk on water (Jesus Christ!) or if Moses can part the water for me, there was no place draw the handle of the menorah.  A better choice was the crescent-shaped streets of Rego Park, Queens.  A few people were interested and we ended up having a small convoy of cars to make the trip from Prospect Park to Rego Park.  Shown above is my test run, during which I mistakenly lit the candles in the wrong spot.  I should know better that a few things in the Judaica world go from right to left, not unlike Chinese.  For the group run, we did it right to left but the flames didn't show that well.

THE YEAR IN GWRITING

The first title I thought for this blog was “This Week In Gwriting”, which is a nod to Leo Laporte’s podcast "This Week In Tech". I didn’t get around to writing the blog post and the year 2017 is almost over, so without much further ado, let us review some of the Gwritings, or StravaArts, I made this soon-to-be-over year.

Linda

My most recent oeuvre, made just this Christmas Day.  It was not the first time I made a Linda route.  Back in August while vacationing in the exotic island of Aruba, one hot steamy morning I ran Linda but the non-grid streets threw me off.  It took a while before I found the chance to redo it, on the streets of un-exotic Brooklyn, New York.  While I can easily cut through a city block to make the middle section of the letter "a", I try to avoid relying on the trick.  While planning the run, I picked Flatlands Avenue as the street that will naturally provide the needed line.

Grab A Bite With Jimmy




"Grab A Bite With Jimmy" is another run-art that makes good use of the existing environment, i.e. no Dark Magic via the use of GPS app's pause function.  Well, to a certain extent.  Jimmy is this friend of mine who seems to have a very healthy appetite.  The quasi-roundabout near Zucker-Hillside Hospital provided the perfect round-ish food that Jimmy seems to eat a lot of.  However, to achieve the bite mark I did have to use Dark Magic.  While I have no plan of drawing offensive pictures any time soon, this was my early foray into drawing, not just writing.

Make Some Noises With Adam

I followed the success of "Grab A Bite With Jimmy" by making "Make Some Noises With Adam".  Adam won two awards earlier in the year from the track club.  Instead of wooden plaques or paper certificates, the prizes were cowbells.  Very useful for a cheerleader like Adam!  To get the trapezoidal shape of the cowbell I did have to resort to my special trick to make the slanting lines.

Resist With Lisa, Sort Of

Back in February, I made "resist" and dedicated to Lisa LMK and others who, duh, resist the current administration.  In November I wanted to make the both the fist and the word "Lisa" but I ran out of time.  Yes, these things take time.  Sorry, Lisa LMK!  I still have the area where "Lisa" would be, I'll return to the area some day to do it.  "Lisa" and fist will appear together in CityStrides, that web site that gives me so much joy and aggregation aggravation.

There are more but there are a few more days left of the old year.  I might make another post just yet!

SIT ON A POTATO PAN, OTIS AVENUE

I love it when two of my areas of interest intermix.  The title of this blog post refers to the phrase SIT ON A POTATO PAN, OTIS.  I don't know anyone named Otis or why he was told to sit on the pan.  It's just that the phrase is a palindrome – it spells the same from left to right and from right to left.  You'll have to ignore the comma and move the spaces around, of course.  I first learned about palindromes in a computer class for the BASIC language.  Recently I found a new love in CityStrides.com.

CityStrides.com let runners and walkers overlay a map of places they visited.  It seems like an impossible task – literally travel along all the streets in your town or places you visited.  In my case, that would be primarily New York City.  For some reason, out of the five boroughs, Brooklyn and Manhattan are also considered their own individual city.

Work and family constrains do not allow me to cover as much of my hometown Brooklyn as I want to so for now I try to maximize my coverage of NYC instead, as I regularly get sent to Staten Island and also travel through the Bronx.  The way CityStrides calculate percent completed has nothing to do with a street's length.  For example, let's say a city has a Main Street that goes for miles and miles.  Then there are also many streets that only stretch for a few hundred feet.  If someone were to focus primarily on completing Main Street while someone else covers all the shorter streets, guess who will have a better completion rate?  Yup, not the Main Street guy because by the end of the day, he may have just one out of the total streets completed.  Fair enough, really.

In trying to take advantage of this seemingly erroneous percent complete (which really is not erroneous), I try to cover all the short streets whenever possible.  Streets that are identified as Place or Lane are usually very short, one- or two-block long.  Then I came across Otis Avenue in the Bronx, in the Schuylerville area.  Imagine my surprise after walking along it and not finding it considered completed per CityStrides.  I searched for it in CityStrides and lo and behold there actually are three different Otis Avenues in New York City.  One in the Bronx, another in Queens, not far from Flushing Meadows Park, and yet a third one in Staten Island, just north of Miller Field.  The three locations are shown as series of green hexagons in the picture below.  Personally I think it is a mistake to consider the three Otis Avenues as three parts of one thing.  They just happen to share the name Otis and then also happen to be avenues.  New York City was not composed of the five boroughs – Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bronx, Staten Island, and Queens.  So at some point before the merger, streets were named independently and Otis Avenue happen to appear three times in the three different boroughs.  Just my semi-educated guess, of course.  CityStrides gets its data from OpenStreetMap, so if anything is to change it would have to come from OpenStreetMap.  Maybe I'll study OpenStreetMap and somehow I.D. the three Otis Avenues with suffix to make them unique to the borough and not considered part of "one street".  Highly unlikely I'll mess around with OpenStreetMap, as it seems to be a lot more involved than editing a page in Wikipedia.

Lucky for me, I happened to start participating in NYRR Open Run at Flushing Meadow Park.  I usually get there early and have time to walk around.  Otis Avenue of Queens was knocked out during my first run at FMP.  Next came Otis Avenue in Staten Island, where my son attends high school and I also work there regularly.  Easy for me, but I am sure the typical runner who have a job with a fixed office will find it hard to complete these erroneously longer streets.  Take that, Otis Avenue, go sit on a pot for all I care!

BED-STUY RESTORATION 10K AND INAUGURAL IMAGINE ACADEMY 5K

I love my "job" with the Prospect Park Track Club.  The Club has a program whereby members are encouraged to run with local races, i.e. those that are based in Brooklyn.  The program, Run Brooklyn, dictates that participants should run in six Brooklyn races that are professionally-timed then get a chance to win money prizes at the Club's annual award dinner.  "Brooklyn races" means the run course must start and end in Brooklyn, such that events like the Tunnel To Tower, which starts on the Brooklyn side of the Battery Park Tunnel but ends in the old World Trade Center site, does not count.  The "professionally-timed" condition eliminates fun runs like the Color Run series, whereby participants' time isn't recorded.

By way of suggestions, announcement of the Run Brooklyn program would list a handful of Brooklyn races, just the names.  I volunteered to maintain a spreadsheet containing the race names, dates, URL for registration purposes, and additional tidbits like whether the race coincides with a popular event.  After a few years of maintaining the spreadsheet, I also maintain a calendar that is embedded into the PPTC.org site.  The info in the spreadsheet and the calendar is mostly the same but the calendar has the advantage of also listing NYRR races, the big gorilla in the market, so that when events happen on the same day, participants can make an informed decision which race to register for.

I made such an informed decision today when I forwent the NYRR Staten Island Half and ran in the Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration 10K.  Staten Island used to be a mysterious place that I drive through along I278 from the Verrazano Bridge to the Goethal Bridge, or some other bridge, but after spending a large amount time working there, along with running in a few races there as well, the novelty is not there any more for me.  I like to run in different locations and this year the Bed-Stuy 10K fits the bill.

The Bed-Stuy 10K had its staging area in Restoration Plaza, which is near the corner of Fulton Street and New York Avenue.  All under one big white tent on the Plaza were a stage, DJ stand, registration table, refreshment tables, and some vendor tables.  Refreshment included coffee, bananas, half-cut bagels, small apples, and orange juices, which I believe was all donated from the nearby Super Foodtown supermarket.  In a nearby building, runners were treated to indoor plumbing for their sanitary needs, as well as a bag check area.  Maybe I was not too aware of my surrounding but I found out about the bag check purely by accident.  I think there should be more signs to point out the restroom and bag-check service.

The first event this year was the Kiddie Run.  Some five little kids, two as young as four years of age, ran a few yards to the Finish Line on Herkimer Street behind the Restoration Plaza.  Next we had a workout session led by an instructor on the floor of the big tent and three leaders on the stage.  It was a good workout, plenty enough to loosen all your muscles for the upcoming race.

There was no music along the race course but if there was "Turn! Turn! Turn!" by The Byrds should be played.  Look at the course map!  I was afraid that I would run the wrong way because there were so many turns.  At the start, I asked a few runners near me if they were familiar with the course but they either were running the untimed 5K or not know the course.  Luckily the corners were well-staffed, either by event personnel or by NYPD.  A safety cone with the proper directional arrow also helped in case you missed the instruction from the staff.  Something else I could use along the course was more water.  There was a station at Mile 2 and again at Mile 4, but by the time slowpoke me got to Mile 4 there was no more cups.  I think there was some water left in the water cooler, yes, the sort used in your typical cubicle office, but I didn't want to stop completely to drink from the faucet.  Luckily, it was rainy for most of the race and I cooled down enough to not need water that much.  I don't know the history of the race course so it might be that way all these years, with the many turns, so maybe not much can be done about it.  During the last two miles, I so looked forward to seeing the finish arch from a distance to get me going stronger.  It never came as the arch was just down the road after the final turn.

For every run turn turn turn / There is a reason turn turn turn

Bed-Stuy 10K, now in its 36th year, was well-organized despite all its turns.  A few weeks back I ran an inaugural race that had some teething pain.  From the elitefeats mailing list I discovered the inaugural Imagine Academy For Autism 5K in Marine Park, the actual park, not just the neighborhood.  The race course was just the outer loop of the park, which I ran many times already with NYRR Open Run, so the novelty attraction wasn't there for me.  Open Run covers 3 loops, for a total of about 2.5 miles, the Imagine 5K went for a little over 3.5 to reach about 5K.

The race was supposed to start at 10 AM but there was a speech or two and the race didn't really until 10:30.  It was a hot day so the extra half-hour made a little difference.  Although the course was just a few loops of the park, there was no water station anywhere.  After I did my 3.5 loops, the finish line was totally blocked by finishers.  People were just milling about in front of the finish mat, chatting, taking photos, snacking etc.  Perhaps because it was the first time for these people to participate in a race but the situation could be helped by having the refreshment table a few yards AFTER the finish line, not mere feet in front of it.  Lastly, there was no trash container anywhere to collect all the wrappers, fruit peels, etc.  Responsible runners had to go a few yards away to squeeze the trash into already-packed receptacles.  Hopefully next year these issues won't be present.

EARLY HAPPY BIRTHDAY PROSPECT PARK!

That's right, this coming weekend, April 1 and 2, will be the big 150-year celebration of Prospect Park!  Besides the little, artsy run I will help lead on Sunday, the Prospect Park Alliance has many events planned.  For more info, visit https://www.prospectpark.org/150 .  Many events are free, some have suggested donations, while others offer discounts for members of Prospect Park Alliance.  I wish I can join the History Run hosted by NYRR on Saturday the 1st.  It will be a fun run with many stops at monuments and historical sites throughout the park.  I love running and also love history, what a great combo!  Alas, I already registered to run as a pacer for the Hot Chocolate 15K in Philadelphia.  Don't worry, the 15K won't affect the 3-mile run next day.  I ran the Queens Marathon this past Sunday and today I'm well enough to take the stairs at work on a few occasions.  I even plan to do a little morning run in Staten Island tomorrow.

Speaking of the Prospect Park 150 run, if you are coming, do you feel comfortable enough with the course?  About fifty people signed up via the Google doc so I'll print 25 or so copies of the map.  For your convenience, here is the "course" again.  See you Sunday!

NYRR NYC HALF-MARATHON 2017

Wishful thinking, it is part of human nature, right?  There I was last night, laying awake wishing I will pull off a miracle and finish the half-marathon in 2:13, which was my best time for a half, back in 2012.  But I no longer run everyday any more.  Back in 2012, fresh off from a job that dragged on for 12 mostly painful years, well, there were some good ones, but near the end it was exhausting, I had much time to prepare for the half-marathon in Staten Island.  Yes, I ran my best 5K back in August last year, by having a good friend pace me and I also used better breathing techniques.  But it was a 5K, or 3.1 miles long, versus a half-marathon, glorious 13.1 miles.  The cheering crowd in Times Square and elsewhere supposedly can give runners a good boost, but it won't make up that much to cover lack of training.  Yet I dreamt a little.  Then I decided I would just be socially unfriendly and not spend time on queue for porta-potty.

It was my first time running the NYRR NYC Half-Marathon.  The high cost, $120+ I think, was a main factor for me to avoid it.  There are so many other races to spend my hard-earned money on.  Sure you don't get to run through Times Square but is that alone worthwhile the big fee?  But last year I was supposed to be a guide for an Achilles runner who decided at the last minute to run with some friend of his, so I ended up at the cheer zone for my track club instead.  It was nice to be out there, seeing all the energy.  I volunteered at a water station for the NYC Half some years ago, but being at the cheer zone was different.  I decided then that I would actually run it.  It helped that I did all five races for the five boroughs of NYC to gain automatic entry into the NYC Half.  I know, the NYC Half is so highly sought after you don't just register for them.  You either earn a guaranteed entry or try your luck with lottery, or some other means.

There was a big snowstorm on the Tuesday before the Sunday race.  Then the weather report said there would be more storm or lousy weather on the weekend.  Ay yay yay, just my luck, another messy run like the Staten Island Half 2016.  Luckily, it turned out there was no precipitation whatsoever.  Just so very cold!  I try to make the races as simple as possible so I went without bag check.  First time ever I had a disposable layer on, both the top and the bottom parts of the body.  I hate the idea of throwing away clothes that are still wearable but I have too many pieces of clothes anyway.  Besides, NYRR does a good job of collecting the throwaway clothes for Good Will.  I placed my pieces neatly on a rail, near other people's stuff, I am sure they will find a new good home.  I just had the scary feeling that I left something valuables in those clothes, but I made sure there was nothing.

I was in Wave 3, Corral D.  At NYRR races, a slowpoke like me is usually in Corral K, but because the NYC Half had three different Waves, it appeared like I moved up several Corrals but I know better.  It was nice to bump into track club members: Jackie, who was a volunteer team leader; and Murray, who was assigned to the same Corral and Wave with me.  Murray planned to run at a certain pace but we started out together and he periodically said we were too fast than his planned pace.  Around Harlem Hill I went ahead with my pace, which was not that much faster, but I wanted to at least beat my 2:30 from last year's Brooklyn Half.  I ran a few more Half-Marys since Brooklyn but I was sort of a pacer so my finish time was 2:45 or 3:00.  I ran slower going uphill then tried to make higher leaps as I came down the hills.  I walked twice to wolf down the Gu's that I brought with me, and maybe again shortly afterward to grab water or Gatorade to wash the stuff down.  I think I stopped one more time at Mile 12 to get another drink, last one for the long stretch home.

I did stick to my plan of not stopping for anything other than walk breaks.  I acknowledged when called but did not stop for photos.  That's the extent of my being unsocial.  It was good to see Jackie again around the 72nd Street Transverse in Central Park as she tried to get out of Central Park to get to the finish line.  I loved how Joe at 42nd Street cupped his hand to better holler at me.  I don't run with headphone and keeps my eyes open so I usually catch everything.  Actually, I probably saw Joe with his cupped hands before I heard him.  Also on 42nd Street I spotted Linda from the back and asked for confirmation while she was re-fueling, nom nom nom.  I knew Joyce would be at Mile 9's fluid station, with the Back On My Feet group.  She perched high on something so it was easy to spot her and we exchanged greetings so it was good.  Another wishful thinking, I thought there might be a chance my club's cheer zone would still be around when I got there.  But it was a cold day and for us Wave 3 people that would mean the cheerleaders have to be there for like three hours.  I had a PPTC hoodie on so occasionally other people would call the club name and I would respond with a fist pump or such.  All the words of encouragement really made a difference, even if it didn't make me finish faster, it sure kept me going.

Strava app messed up and didn't record the tunnel portion of the race.  Instead, it said I went quickly uptown to Chambers Street then zoomed back at the tunnel exit.  It also went bonker in Times Square.  Altogether, per Strava app, I ran over 22 miles at 6 or so minutes per mile.  Of course I didn't.  It still said I did 2:30, but since I stopped Strava after a few steps past the finish line, it turned out I made sub-2:30, or 2:29:43 to be exact.  Sigh, such is the life of a slow runner, had to forgo toilet visits, sacrifice most social interaction, i.e. no stopping for photos, just to squeak by some goal.  Some fast runners would have stomach cramps, wait on long lines for the toilets, then still P.R. by 15 minutes.  But with this sports, it's usually just the runners against their younger self so I'm good.

PROSPECT PARK SESQUICENTENNIAL - ROUTE INSTRUCTION

At 9 A.M. Sunday April 2, I will help lead a run with the Prospect Park Track Club to celebrate The Park's 150-year anniversary.  The route will spell out... drum rolls... "150"!  I already posted what the route looks like but while it is obvious to me how it should be run, it may not be so to others.  Follows is the step-by-step instruction, as shown in the accompany picture:

1. Start near the corner of 10th Street and Seventh Avenue, on the side of the street closer to 11th Street.  Note that we won't start at the corner but rather slightly away from the corner, toward the park.
2. Start the watch/app (which from now on I'll just call "watch"), walk across the street then pause the watch.
3. Run around the corner to 9th Street and Seventh Avenue then un-pause the watch.  Wait a little bit for the straight line from 10th Street to be drawn.
4. Run toward the park then turn right toward 10th Street and make a U-turn to head toward 8th Street.
5. Follow arrow directions, be sure to make the kick-up at the lower left of the "5".  I want to make sure "150" does not look like "ISO", so these little extra lines here and there are actually very important.
6. At the corner of 7th Street and Eighth Avenue, the back corner of New York Methodist Hospital, pause watch again.
7. Run around the block to the corner of 6th Street and Seventh Avenue and un-pause the watch.  You should be at the entrance to Barnes & Noble Bookstore.  Again, linger at the corner a few seconds to make sure the straight line from 7th Street and Eighth Avenue is drawn before continuing on.
8. The rest is straightforward, IMHO.  Run toward 1st Street and Seventh Avenue then loop back toward 2nd Street, run counter-clockwise as shown to make the zero.
9. Stop when you get back to 1st and Seventh.  The run is less than 3 miles, if you want to have more mileage, but without messing up the "0", draw the "0" again but this time at Carroll Street and Prospect Park West instead of turning into Carroll, continue on toward Grand Army Plaza. Of course, if you already stopped your watch when you first got back to 1st and Seventh you can run anywhere without marring your work of art.

Hope you find the instruction useful.  Sign up for the run at 

https://goo.gl/UknXdS

MARINE PARK IS ON THE MAP

I have good news and bad news.  Good news is I am still on this ambitious project of "mapping" every Brooklyn neighborhood by running and spelling their names, in that neighborhood.  Or somewhere close.  Just this weekend I finally completed "Marine Park".  The bad news is I took too long to do this Garmin web site finally got rid of Classic view so now any additional maps will look slightly different.  "Marine Park" is one such.  The lines are darker, which is fine, but luckily the underlying map is still the same.  Whew.  All the more reason I should hurry up and finish this before any more changes, whether with Garmin.com or with my own health.  You never know, one day you can be healthy and all, the next day you can no longer run.

For "Marine Park", I broke one of my rules about running.  I hate driving and when I go for a run, I absolutely don't want to drive somewhere just to run there.  But I have to be realistic now.  While I can certainly drive to Marine Park to do the run, it is just much faster when I drive.  And there is plenty of parking at the park, so I really have no excuse not to.  With this executive decision made, I plan to drive to Prospect Park etc some weekend day, really early in the morning for a better chance of finding a parking spot, and be done with those faraway places.  Let's hope the map will be filled soon!

SET IN SUNSET PARK

What a great feeling it is once you are resolved to do something and make modifications to your plan to achieve the final outcome.  So I decided I would walk if I have to, instead of running, just to complete my run-mapping of Brooklyn.  Running is more interesting but not always optimal, like after a meal.  Just a few days ago I churned out "Slope", for Park Slope, after a brunch with the track club.  Today I was in the neighborhood of Sunset Park and had a little time for running.  Not enough to do the entire "Sunset Park", or even the word "Sunset", but that is not a problem.  I am already stitching together the map in Photoshop, no harm to do one syllable at a time, like "set" as in "Sunset".  "t" didn't come out a straight as it should but it's beyond my control.  I guess at different time of day the satellite can be uncooperative.  Perhaps when I stitch "set" together with the other syllables it won't look so bad.

HAPPY NEW YEAR - BROOKLYN RUN-MAPPING RETURNS

Happy New Year!  I didn't declare it but deep down I know I want to resume blogging.  There should be only so much Facebooking one can do.  Be more of a content producer, not just a mere Liker and Bait-Clicker.  Without much further ado, here's a topic close to my heart, running and spelling out the neighborhoods of Brooklyn!  I prefer to call it Run-Mapping!

I should have known better but as I was done with the areas close to where I live, things get more challenging.  I have this weird rule about running - no driving to the place to run.  In other words, I should not drive x miles out to some place just to run around.  I guess it has to do with my strong dislike of driving.  If I am to complete this run-mapping of Brooklyn nabes, sooner or later I'll have to drive to where I want to run.  Until such time, I'll make the most of my travel.

Late in December I ran to Marine Park just to spell "Park".  Marine Park is about 5 km from me so spelling the whole "Marine Park" was not possible time-wise.  Lately on these runs I have one or two phone apps to track my "writing".  At one time I even thought if not for this run-map project, I probably can retire my Garmin GPS watch.  The apps work the same way with regards to pause and resume, so I can use them to virtually cut through city blocks to make letters like K and R with their pesky diagonal lines.  When they actually work as they are supposed to, that is.  On the "Park" run, they didn't.  Both Strava and MapMyFitness totally miss the P and then went crazy the rest of the run.  Luckily, I did have the trusty Garmin, even though the lack of a rectangular city grid threw me off my course.  As shown below, "Pa" is a big disappointment, even to a non-perfectionist like me.  The "a" is too far away from its neighbors and "r" looks too much like an "n".  I should have done my usual virtual trespassing in making the diagonal lines in "k".  I use the picture in the map anyway but deep down I know I will re-run that route to make a better word.

Even though I am a member of the Prospect Park Track Club, I don't go to Prospect Park that much.  Living far south almost in Coney Island, it's a bit of a trip for me.  But I do go there from time to time and I should take advantage of those trips to finally add Park Slope and neighbors to my map.

On New Year's Day, I volunteered as a backup time-keeper for the Club's Harry Handicap race, held in Prospect Park.  After the race, I had some food and was in no shape to run so I did the next best thing to spell out "Slope" - I walked.  It was not as interesting as running but for these far-flung places I just have to make the best of my time.  Again, MapMyFitness screwed up but Garmin Forerunner again saved the day.  I gladly used the picture in the big map although there are many more street blocks I need to capture to make the map truly continuous.

Given the annoying changes Garmin make to its web site, I should hurry up and run more neighborhoods sooner before some changes render my techniques useless.  Wish me luck! 

WELCOME TO CONEY ISLAND!

Welcome to Coney Island!  Some time ago I ran the route for "Coney" but never got around to adding "Island", until this week.  It is a good thing that I took advantage of the open space in Leon Kaiser Park to make most of "Coney" because the island (which is not really an island any more) is not "tall" enough to give me much room to work with.  I thought of using the space between the Boardwalk and the beach but running on sand is no fun.  I studied what was available and what I did with "Coney" and concluded that I could do it with Surf Avenue and the Boardwalk.  Because of constructions, some streets no longer led to the Boardwalk but good thing I have that one trick in my bag.  I just had to run back and forth over some streets, but technically I can cut through walls and other objects.  For the I, I could have jumped off the Boardwalk and land on the sand below but to be safe I used my technique.

Onward to Sheepshead Bay!

WELCOME TO GRAVESEND AND BENSONHURST

Welcome to Gravesend and Bensonhurst!  It took a few runs to have it done correctly but it is worthwhile.  The second e in "send" is not perfect, but that will do.  "Bensonhurst" was created from scratch, now a few blocks north of Bath Beach border.  I probably will re-do Bath Beach to move it westward toward 14th Avenue and away from Gravesend.

The next neighborhoods I'll put on the map, so to speak, will probably be those to the east and south of Gravesend, just to round things out.  Such as Coney Island and Sheepshead Bay.  Afterward I'll march northward to connect to Prospect Park, since I have many friends living up there, they may appreciate it.

WELCOME TO BROOKLYN

So I did not win the Newton Running route art contest.  Did not even get to be one of the three finalists having a shot at winning shoes for life plus a GPS watch.  After a short time feeling unhappy about it, I decided to start a new, very ambitious project: create a map of all the Brooklyn neighborhoods through run art.  It is ambitious indeed as I don't know all the neighborhoods.  Sure I can start with my own area and adjacent ones, but the thought of driving elsewhere just to run a route sure is not appealing to me.  The thing is once I am done, whenever that is, I'll know a lot more about Brooklyn.

I belong to a NextDoor.com neighborhood made for Bath Beach residents so the first nabe I ran was Bath Beach.  I made two separate runs and stitched the two pieces together.  I am not that happy with the B in Bath and may re-run the route one of these days.  Next I thought I would cover my own turf and ran "Grave"  for Gravesend.  I did feel something odd when I started to create the V, sure enough once I got back I discovered that the "r" and the "a" are stuck together.  It was good that I decided early on to make Gravesend in two separate runs.  No point of putting a lot of time into a run only to find out that it's no good.  These days I run in the evening any way and dinner seems to come too soon each time, that is I have time constraint.

Today I was supposed to re-run Grave but I happened to be near Bensonhurst so I made "Benson".  While "Benson" itself came out perfect, I made it too close to the border of Bath Beach and Bensonhurst such that when stitched Bensonhurst to the bigger map, the letters overlaps, rats!

Here is the work-in-progress map, warts and all.  Slowly and surely I will have the entire Brooklyn represented as route arts.

SCENES FROM A RUN: GREAT KILLS PARK

My son goes to school in Staten Island and this weekend he needed to meet a classmate for some project.  The bus does not run reliably on the weekend so I drove him to Staten Island.  The kids stay at a public library and I had some down time.  Years ago I would spend that time in the car watching movie on a portable DVD player or maybe listen to audiobooks etc.  Now that I'm more health-minded, the night before I checked out nearby area for a running route.  Once before I noticed some National Park not too far from the school and the library.  Great Kills Park it is called.  It has a beach, too and features a narrow strip of land sticking out into the Atlantic.  That was my destination after dropping off the boys at the public library.

I don't hate driving per se, it's the parking part that I hate.  Luckily, this is Staten Island, the one borough of New York City that not that many New Yorkers visit.  I drove into the park and even near the main entrance near Hylan Boulevard there were some parking spots.  I kept driving further, I wanted to go as far as I could by car then explore the rest of the park on foot.  Parking Lot G was the furthest I could go.  Beyond that you would need a permit of some sort.  There was plenty of parking spots and there was no booth to collect tolls so I supposed it's free parking.  Kinda sad how I thought that way, elsewhere in New York City it costs a fortune to leave your car in a safe place, to avoid getting ticketed.  

I already had running clothes on the inside, so just removing the outer layer, a few minutes of stretching and off I went.  To be safe, I started with the multi-use path, there were already a few walkers and runners.  Not too long afterward the road ended and I took the sandy path on the left to go toward the beach.  On the beach I turned northwest to get to Crooke's Point.  The run became more of a walk, I rescued two overturned horseshoe crabs and watched them slowly re-entering the sea without saying thank-you.  There were a few fishermen out on the beach, some with kids.  The waves lapped at the sand but there was always enough room to go along.  After Crooke's Point, there was a rocky wall and a road paved with gravels.  I resumed running but took time out to snap photos of some sleeping ducks.  What a life, just lounging around with beaks in their back.  At the end of the gravel path, I was back at Parking Lot G.

I already covered about 5 km so I figured it would run 5 more km for an even 10.  As I ran toward park entrance, a raccoon calmly crossed the road to get into the bush.  The park has some some wild sections closed off to visitors, either by fence or bush, the 'coons are very much at home.  At the 6 km mark, I planned to run for another 2 km then U-turn to reach the 10 km.  However, at Parking Lot F, I decided to go along the nice waterfront and unknowingly curved away from the park entrance.  I kept following the road and eventually found myself back on Hylan Boulevard.  Sure I could still U-turn but there was no fun in that.  I had a good idea where the park entrance was and found my way there and eventually got back to Parking Lot G.  The distance came out 12 km, a hot and humid km's more than planned.

I was there!

Lucky duckies.

These two horseshoe crabs became some seagulls' dinner.

Whatever species these flowers are, I stopped and smelled them.