A Tale of Two Half Marys, Part One

It was the worst of times, it was the best of times.  OK, enough with the attempt to parody Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities.  Two weekends in a row I had a half-marathon each weekend.  In one I did bad and in the other I did better than I thought I could.  Conditions are not the same, but there are factors that affected the outcomes.

This past Sunday (September 25) I ran in the Newport-Liberty Half Marathon (N-LHM).  I work in the area for maybe 6 years, not consecutively, but that's still a big chunk of time.  Only in recent months that I decided to explore the area near the office, during lunch breaks.  There is only so much time to explore, on foot, as I don't drive to work.  Exploring is best done on foot.  I always want to find out how to get to Liberty State Park from where I work, near the exit of the Holland Tunnel.  I also want to run along the Newport waterfront.  I often walk there during lunch breaks but never have the opportunity to run.

Unlike the typical NYRR races for which people can pick up bibs and T-shirts two days ahead of the event, for the N-LHM you need to do that on the day of the race.  I pre-registered so I got my bib and T-shirt fairly quickly.  I had no plan to check a bag so I wore a tank-top to the race then just added the race T-shirt on top.  It was Mistake #1.  It turned out to be a hot and humid day.  I sweat easily and the two layers of shirt simply kept all the sweat on me and weighed me down.  Only by Mile #5 or so that I had the brain to remove the inside and wrapped the tank-top around a hand, much like tapes on a boxer's fist.  If I checked bag I would have wasted a great deal of time.  The line was so long!  The same goes for the bathroom line.  Instead of having multiple lines going to the multiple portable johns, there were just two lines that snaked around the small street.

It was a good thing that I already explored the Hoboken area adjacent to Newport, via the somewhat recently opened waterfront connecting the two cities.  The route according to the official web site for the N-LHM showed a short excursion into Hoboken but in reality we didn't even go past the rail yard.  We went as far as just past Target and back we went on Washington Boulevard.  The part of the short excursion that we would go has not much to show anyway.  If the route was to include the waterfront then that's something else, but I suppose there were too many runners to squeeze through the construction area for some new condo and park, as well as the Hoboken transit hub.

It seemed like forever to see any mile marker.  I think the tall buildings along Washington helped block out the sun somewhat but once we turned into Grand Street there was no shade.  At some point we turned left and eventually ended up in Liberty State Park (LSP).  It was indeed nice there but again we were pretty much out in the sun, roasting away.  From looking at maps, I know that there is a bridge from the mainland to Ellis Island and at the end of Freedom Way I thought we somehow got onto Ellis Island.  Silly me, it was a long way to go before we would pass by the bridge.  I like it how the bridge/pier allows people easy access to sea-breeze while keeping some wild areas undisturbed.  I can imagine myself running in LSP frequently if I live in the area.  There were few photographers for the event but one or two were stationed near the bridge to Ellis Island, to capture the runners with the Statue of Liberty in the background.  It really is the back of Lady Liberty but it still makes a nice background.  Runners pass the photographers on the way to a U-turn so on the way back they knew ahead that they were there.  I put on a determined face for the camera then slouched right afterward.

The hot and humid weather, plus the soaked tank-top, all worked against me.  The day before, having to choose between (a) dying of ennui while some females relatives shopped, or (b) running at Marine Park, I chose the latter.  Looking back, I think it was an unwise decision.  I should have just walked instead.  Since the beginning of September, when my son went back to school, he had to take a yellow bus to school.  His new school schedule interfered with my running schedule, which is early morning.  I used to run then rushed home to drag him out of bed then we walked to school, mere minutes away.  Now I have a smaller window and can only run after he see him off on the bus.  Instead of the usual 8 km each morning I was doing only 4 km or less.  Running more on the day before the Newport Half did not help.  Shortly after the start, my left shoulder ached and I couldn't maintain my normal running form.  I had to walk more often or let the left arm droop.  While the legs do most of the work during a foot race, the other parts of the body matters too.



Two hours and forty-two minutes was my finish time for the Newport-Liberty Half Marathon.  The last time I spend 2:40ish for a Half Mary was for the Queens Half, when it was much hotter, in the middle of July.  Before that it was the ill-fated St. Louis Marathon 2011 that for me turned into a Half Marathon.  In the midst of confusion, I traveled a part of the route twice, once because I was diverted then the second time to confirm that the Full Mary was already cancelled.  I would like to think that the more I run the better I would get, but the N-LHM indicated otherwise.  The shorter, daily runs probably played a big role, then the extra piece of clothes, the unfriendly weather, and the lack of rest on the day before the race together really ruined it.

I am happy to report that for the NYRR Grete's Great Gallop (13.1 miles, October 1, 2011), my finish time was 2:28.  Conditions are definitely different than last Sunday, but I will into those details later.

Spoonie

The recent big news at Apple, Inc. is the resignation of Steve Jobs as CEO.  Taking over Jobs' spot is the Chief Operating Officer, Tim Cook.  As a Mac-head, I follow Apple news daily so I am familiar with the name "Tim Cook".  The average person may not know who Cook was but now he will.

What is so special about Tim Cook's name?  It is what I call a spoonie - by switching the non-consonant parts of the names you can make a somewhat meaningful phrase, i.e. "Took Him" from "Tim Cook".  Even better, you can make the 4-word phrase "Tim Cook Took Him", perhaps as an answer to the question "Where is the tomcat?"  Like palindromes, spoonies can be very contrived.   Note that I took the liberty to introduce the "kim" sound, just because "Cim" looks ambiguous and probably gets pronounced as "sim" or "chim", whatever that means.

Some of you may already know the word "spoonerism" is the proper term for the word play I described.  I decided to make up the shorter word just because it is just that - shorter.  "Spoonie" may have a dirty meaning in slang but slang is so rich I suspect most normal words have a dirty counterpart in the slang world.  Be sophisticated and rely less on slang words!

As a multi-syllabic language, English is not that great for making meaningful spoonies.  The few that I know are

• crushing blow <=> blushing crow
• popcorn <=> porn cop (a member of the vice squad?)
• take a look <=> took a lake (something a large creature like Godzilla can do?)

Spoonies are very popular in Vietnamese since the language is mono-syllabic.  Every original Vietnamese word has only one syllable.  "Saigon", the older but more popular name for the capital city of the former South Vietnam, was made so to look foreign and exotic.  (Ho Chi Minh City, or Thành Phố Hồ Chí Minh, is the official name.)  There is beauty in being mono-syllabic.  Words can be safely uttered without worrying about where one syllable ends and where the next begins.  Think "nowhere" - which syllable take the "W"?  Is it pronounced "no where" or "now here"?  Sure, having words spanning many syllables can be fun for poets and such, but for daily conversation, mono-syllables are great to have.


There are many Vietnamese jokes and phrases made from spoonies but after years of not using it enough, or reading Vietnamese, I do not remember that many but still enough for a blog entry.  Soccer, or "đá banh", is a popular sport in Vietnam.  The spoonie of "đá banh" is "đánh ba", or "to beat up one's father", a big no-no in Vietnam, where children are supposed to have high respect for their parents.  Similarly, "đá chanh", or lemonade, can become "đánh cha", where "cha" is another word for "father".  Along the fatherhood line, "tắm ỉa", or take a dump right before taking a shower, is a spoonie of "tía ẩm", where "tía" is a more endearing term for "father" and "ẩm" means to carry or cradle.  Enough with fathers and their issues...  If you speak Viet and know a Viet person, ask them if they know "con Hương bên đèo", which sounds like a woman named "Hương" who lives by a hill (đèo).  In reality, it is a spoonie for "con heo bên đường", or "the pig by the road".  Likewise, "con Chín bến đò" may sound like a lady, ranked eighth in the family so she's usually known as Number 9 (since the first-born is called #2), switch things around and you have "con chó bến đình", or "the dog by the temple"!  Lastly, many Chinese in Vietnam have roots in the Chaozhou region of China.  Ask a Viet you know if "ngầu lôi tăng kể" sounds like teochew (or Chaozhou language) and the person may agree.  In reality, the phrase is just a spoonie of "ngồi lâu tê cẳng", or "having sleepy legs from sitting too long".


Of course to really appreciate all these word-plays you need to speak the Vietnamese language.  No promise, but I may, might, remotely possible, make a vlog or video log, where I record myself uttering these nonsensical phrases for entertainment purpose.  A very iffy idea.  Writing is hard enough already, videotaping (even without tape) with all the editing and text overlay is even harder, so don't hold your breath.

Lonely At The Front

Disaster Preparation - Dressed To Run

"What?  There is a fire? Quick, I want to wear my pilot jumpsuit!"  That was me during my younger years.  I had a yellow pilot jumpsuit that I love and would want to wear it should something happen and we had to leave the house in a hurry.  Or so I was told.  I admit I vaguely recall having the jumpsuit and the photo below helps reinforce the feeble memory.

Thanks to the recent visit by Hurricane Irene, I finally have a Go Bag made.  9/11, blackout, some other minor storm...  after each of those past events I would declare I would make a Go Bag, something to grab and run out of the house.  I never did, until this weekend.  I only have two 500-mL bottles of water and the bag is already pretty heavy.  At most it will last me two days, I think.  The recommended amount is 1 gallon per person per day.  One gallon is about 3.7 L, so I only have about a quarter of the recommended amount.  I do have a flashlight which does not require batteries but is rather human-powered.  As long as I have the strength to crank it, it will work.  I love the Etón series of emergency devices.  Flashlight, AM/FM radio, weather radio, USB port for charging small electronics like cell phone and Nintendo DS, powered by human power or solar energy.  In my case, the Go Bag's device also has an alarm clock.  I had some snacks and a few change of clothes and that's about it.  No important documents in waterproof bag, so I guess my Go Bag is not that ready to go.

Maybe it's an obvious thing so it's not mentioned, but in all the stories on disaster preparation I read, no one ever said that we should wear street clothes as part of the preparation.  For me, that would be a shirt or maybe even a sweater, then some kind of pants or shorts to hold the house keys, wallet with IDs and credit cards etc, some cash and coins, and the cell phone.  What's the point of having a Go Bag but you cannot go right away because you are not dressed to run out into the street.  I should have slept in street clothes last night but then did put it on when I woke up.  It's not that I don't want to be seen on TV at a shelter in my PJ, I just want to be prepared.  It is not so much as the clothes themselves, it's what I can bring with me and home clothes usually don't have pockets to carry stuff.  Maybe it is easy for a guy to say what I just did, but I imagine women can wear something comfy that allow them to run quickly.

Did you wonder if I had some other pilot jumpsuit on this morning?  No, for me these days life is all about long-distance running, so the shirt of choice I had was my NYRR Queens Half Marathon 2011.

Vacation Packing

T-shirts, check.  Sneakers, check.  Toothbrush, check.  For my recent trip to China, considering I pack only the night before, I did OK.  Somehow I managed to bring along everything I thought I would need for the trip.  Still, I have always wanted to write things down and check them off as I pack, so I finally put it all down in the Google sheet below, incomplete of course:

Qaptain Qwerty Vacation Packing

What I forgot to pack was dedication.  The determination to run during the vacation.  Granted it was a bus tour such that once the tour began there's nothing you can do but go along with the tour.  Most nights we got to the hotel late, when the pool or gym was already closed.  There was much walking or standing during most tours, but intentional exercise is always better than the walks during the tours.

I should have treated the vacation the same way I do with a typical day.  Get up early enough to squeeze in a run or whatever, shower, then go to work, or in this case,  join the tour.  Instead, I came up with excuses and did not run a single day during the whole 10-day trip.  Twice I did get up early but only managed a walk, which I think is good enough.  In the five Chinese cities that I visited, running is not that popular, or at least street running is not.  During the two walks as well as other times on the bus, I saw at most two different runners actually running as an exercise.  There were other people running, but only briefly to arrive at a bus stop or some similar destination.  Maybe people run at night when I already checked into the hotel, or in some public park that I did not know of.

Too bad I didn't manage to run, as the typical block in the visited cities are extra long compared to New York City.  I would call them super-blocks.  There were no individual homes, only large and tall buildings surrounded by walls.  There were some areas that have family homes, maybe at most three stories tall, but those buildings too were enclosed by some walls, again, long block.  I love the long blocks as that means less interactions with vehicular traffic.  Some of the cities even have footbridges, something I think New York City can make use of.  Keep the pedestrians out of the cars' way and there is zero chance anyone will get run over.  Some of the footbridges I saw in China even have escalators, and I wouldn't be surprised if others have elevators, too.

My biggest running regret was when we were in Shanghai, on our own after the bus tour ended.  I had two chances, two mornings, to run the 1.5-kilometer distance from the hotel to The Bund, a touristy waterfront area.  Although I did not know the exact way to get to The Bund, from the hotel I could easily see the Oriental Pearl Tower, so I could not be wrong to run in that direction.  The first morning I actually got up early enough but then I was upset that the trip, as it turned out, included a side business trip about the local real estate market.  I was scheduled to babysit some kids.  Why I didn't just run and shake off the unpleasantness I don't know, but it became an excuse to return to bed.  To be fair, even if I ran, I would not made it far because that morning a really heavy rain descended upon Shanghai.  The street was flooded badly at most corners.  For the second morning, it was the day I was to fly back to the U.S. and my mind came up with more excuses.  What if I got hit by a bus so that I would miss the flight?  If I survive the impact, that is.  What if that, what if this, in the end, no run.  I should have stuck to Nike's motto and just do it.  Now I only have a big regret.

A typical super-block in a Chinese city.  Yay, long stretch of not having to watch out for cars!

China Vacation 2011

Geek Cruise, that is what I need.  Mac-based Geek Cruise, even better.  One of these, that's what I will have as a vacation.  No waiting around while others do their shopping.  Just me and a bunch of geeks.  Maybe there will be lectures about some up-and-coming technologies, or maybe classes on some existing apps.  That may sound boring to the typical person, but then again, hanging around with nothing to do while others shop is boring, too.

I just came back to the U.S. from a 5-city, 5-day bus tour of Shanghai, China and nearby cities.  Each city has its unique culture or history and the tour guides were good, even though my Cantonese is not that good, but I know enough to figure out what they were talking about.  It was actually more interesting to hear the stories related to the places we were heading to.  For example, the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge's story was about Chinese citizens scraping together to finance the bridge and Chinese engineers overcoming technical difficulties to create the bridge.  It was not a beautiful bridge, the tour guide said, but it was the first to be built entirely by Chinese, without foreigner's assistance.  Earlier, the Russian helped built two other bridges that also traversed the Yangtze, but disagreement started between China and Russia and Russia recalled its engineers from the Nanjing project.  We arrived at the a building under the bridge, took the elevator to some viewing platform and took photos of the area, then got "treated" to an art gallery.  The near-extinct art involves painting on the inside of snuff bottles.  Not just bottles, but many kinds of glass objects, like globes and vases.  The work requires serious skill as the painter would have to pain on the inside of the objects, doing things backward or mirror-reversed.  Great stuff, but then we spent an hour or so there as many people in the tour went gaga over the artworks.  The visit to the bridge turned into a shopping spree of artworks.  Likewise, other visits to factories that specialize in products of the region also turned into shopping experience.  Some even appeared to be infomercials!  "Buy this set of silk bed spread and blanket NOW and we will throw in another set for free!  But wait, there's more!!!  We will also include, free of charge, a small handkerchief for you to clean your camera lens or eyeglasses!"  Haggling over the prices of some jade jewelry, persistent salespeople offering pearly necklaces or bracelets, medicine men telling us overweight people we need his herbs to live a healthier life... things I do not need to be involved with while on vacation!  In Cantonese, some tours are called "duckling tour" because the tourists get rushed about like a group of ducklings.  I don't know what these apparently vendor-sponsored tours are called but I think I'd rather be rushed about instead of sitting around waiting for others to shop.

I did have some fun looking for signs with incorrect or bad English to snap.  Here is one:

Don't Know Squat About Squash

Taking care of a melon garden is a lot more work that it seems.  You do not just setup some sort of a frame and the melon vines just move in and produce the melons for you.  You need to give the garden much water, not by spraying on the big leaves, which make them look refreshing but actually does not do any good.  The water needs to reach the soil where originally planted the buds.  A handyman would have an x by y frame for the vines to spread.  I am definitely not handy and like to use found objects to build the frame.  So far I have 2 CD towers which I rescued off the curb from a neighbor up the block.  Various poles found in my backyard serve as the vertical parts of the frame.  Several short pieces of string from the packinq of a Nerf, when tied together served as the horizontal parts.  The strings were not but luckily I have an old garden hose laying around.  As the vines spread around, I added pots and poles and even resorted to using two bicycles that I have no other uses for, as part of the "frame."

The melon vines had minds of their own!  I knew they would climb over the fence into my neighbors' yards, but I didn't expect them to squeeze through the plastic strips in the fence and grow up from there.  The melons or squashes in my garden have somewhat spiky vines so I worried the neighbor's grandchildren may get scratched, or at least scared by the vines.  So one day I went over to try to guide them back to my yard.  Lo and behold, one of the vines had a nice, round squash already!  It was so heavy that it pulled the vine down and was sitting on the cement wall.  As I tried to lift the whole thing back over my fence, I snapped it off!  Oh no, a premature death!  The squash whose life got squashed!!!  It was not ripe enough to eat so there was nothing else to do but display it on the kitchen for a few days, then off it went into the compost bin.  I think it was a girl melon, so I shall call it Melon Chloe.  So long, Chloe!

I hope you enjoy the exaggerated melon-drama...

Queens Half 2011

Someone famous once said, "You cannot cross the same river twice."  I think it was either Chuck Norris or "Weird" Al Yankovic (heh heh).  The saying kinda makes sense, since the river flows and technically the water you touch the first time cannot possibly be the same water the second time around.  This past weekend, for me that "river" was the course for the NYRR Queens Half Marathon 2011.

The NYRR Queens Half Marathon 2010 was the first race I ran in after resuming running, after a break of a few years.  In the beginning, I ran just to try to lose some weight.  At some point, I entertained the idea of running the NYC Marathon, even though I was, most likely, only logging 3K a day (not even 2 miles!).  A half-marathon seemed to be a good yardstick to see how good my endurance was.  I did not know much about running in the heat but made sure to stop at every water station just to be safe.  I had a baseball cap on and just some khaki short and the NYRR official cotton tee.  I walked from Mile #10 to Mile #11 then let some  guy soaked me with a hose.  Not a good idea, since the wet clothes weighed me down and the water killed my cell phone.  The cover for the old phone's charging port was all tattered and anything, especially water, could get inside the phone easily, and the water sure did.  I eked by the 3-hour time limit, with 6 minutes to spare.  The good thing is the race gave me confidence that I can do a Half Marathon.

This year I got compression shorts and many more races earlier in the year.  I set my best time for a Half Mary with the Manhattan Half in January, on a very cold day, like 9 degrees (!), with 2:23:40.  I almost matched that time with the Brooklyn Half in May, 2:24:40.  It was a decent day, not too hot, and it would be nice if I had the same finish time or better.  The weeks leading up the Queens Half NYC was also known as The Baked Apple.  It was hot!  Like 90 to 100 hot!  Still, unreasonably I hoped that would somehow beat my 2:23:40 record.  Even though I just took the whole month of June off from running to give the left foot time to recover.  The rest helped, but I felt sluggish in the two races in the early half of July.

The day of the Queens Half came and it was not so hot.  Still hot when you run but not as hot as last year's.  I slowed down for Gatorade and water after Mile #3, #6, and #9, then also #11 and #12.  From Mile #12 on I had my cell phone play "Mezamero! Yasei! (Awaken the Beast Within)", from Naruto Shippuuden Season 2, over and over, and that helped keep me going, perhaps even picking up some speed.  As usual, when the finish line finally appeared, I sprinted for it.  If I recall correctly, I did not feel as bad as when I finished the Queens Half in 2010.  Compared the time for Queens Half 2010 and 2011, this year I ran 14 minutes faster, or 2:40:47.  People with better capabilities can excel themselves, or set Personal Record (PR) regardless of weather conditions or other factors.  For me, I better stick with comparing similar races.  Even though this year's Queens Half stayed inside Flushing Meadow Park the whole time, i.e. no College Point Boulevard, it was not too much different.  No point comparing apples and oranges, i.e. summer races vs. winter races.  Maybe, just maybe, in a few years, with the current running schedule maintained, who knows, I will be able to outdo myself, hot or cold, but for now, I'll be realistic.

Qaptain Qwerty Book Club

Not too long ago, some famous talk show host, whose first name starts with the letter "O", had her final show.  I never watch that show but understand she used to have a book club on the show.  I was wondering if I can start a Qaptain Qwerty Book Club to fill the void, now that the show with the influential lady is no longer around.

My reading habit has gone through a major change lately.  I used to read 99% science fiction, either Star Wars or Star Trek.  Occasionally I would pick something else other than those two "Stars".  At some point I got sick of reading about how great the Mandalorians are, that they are not mere bounty hunters with tons of deadly gadgets on them.  I just cannot get over the fact that they are just mercenaries and would fight for whoever paying them.  So out went Star Wars.  I don't have too much of a problem with Star Trek until I came across some book with the Q character.  Even though Q is not in that many stories, the whole idea turned me off Star Trek.

For a while I got into the mystery genre and followed Agatha Christie and others, usually via audiobooks.  I hungrily tore through the Millennium trilogy, even though it was quaint reading about Netscape and Eudora computer programs in this day and age.  One day I decided to go easy on my eyes and would read only books of the large-print format.  The selection is not as large but I went with whatever authors I recognize or are prolific.  To that end, I briefly got into Janet Evanovich but she lost me on the second book of the Bounty Huntress series, when she spent some time writing about shopping as a therapy.  Maybe that's what got me into sci-fi.  I need to read about fantastic stuff, not ordinary life angst.  In the same vein, story about overworked workers, be it police detectives or filing clerks, seriously turned me off.  Luckily, one day just by chance I picked up a book by Bernard Cornwell, one from the Saxon series.  Life was hard, no creature comforts, might make right, men with weapons go around killing and looting, but no one ever have to write effing reports for managers to read.  Sure, the monks often transcribe parchments by hand, but the monks are the bad guys and sometimes get killed.

Cornwell's works are considered historical fiction.  He creates characters out of thin air, or loosely based on real people, and insert them into real historical events.  Or at least as real as it was recorded.  You know how the victors usually get to write history.  It is nice how he plainly point out at the end of the book who are fictitious and who are real.  Or how he unfairly makes some historical figures wimpy or bad.  It is amusing to learn that in the Saxon world, if you are over 40 years old, you are considered old.  Also, women of 15 or so, what we would consider teenage by 2011 standard, are ripe for marriage.  I am from Viet Nam and know that women got married early, or at least 50 years ago, and maybe still do, but after 30+ years in the U.S. I sorta forgot the tidbit.

Cornwell's Saxon series has only a few books and I flew through them in a short amount of time, whether they are large-print or not.  He also has a series about a soldier named Richard Sharpe.  The first Sharpe novel that I managed to find was "Sharpe's Trafalgar" and took place mostly on the open sea.  The first few chapters of the book described much about life of the travelers who pay the cheapest tickets.  I could not help thinking back to my journey out of Viet Nam.  Sharpe knew someone high on the social echelon and got invited to dinner with the captain, but at times he had to eat things that are barely edible.  At least he ate.  I don't remember if I ate at all.  I clearly recall the water smell terribly, whether because it was just scooped right off the river where the boat was docked, or because the plastic container was new.  The water did have that weird smell when plastic is new.  I vaguely recall eating some kind of sliced bread, or maybe it was just some form of bread.  I do not remember eating much, but I doubt I could have survived without food for the multi-day journey.  I think it was 8 days.  There was not much room where I sat but some rich teenagers with long legs just spread themselves all over.  I recall one time going up to the top level and took in some fresh breath of air.  At least once I went to use the restroom, at the back of boat.  The rest is just a blur.  Scary when life imitates arts.

Farewell to Donnell

It seems my back yard is not the only place I did not visit often enough.  Today, after picking up the bib and T-shirt for tomorrow's 4-mile Central Park Conservancy Run at the NYRR office on 89th Street, I went looking for a book for my son's summer reading.  He will go to Bay Academy in September and they already sent him a reading assignment for the summer.  I figured I know my NYPL pretty well and would just visit some library in the area.  I could have gone to the Yorkville Branch, at 79th St. and Third Avenue, since it was the closest library to the NYRR office.  However, for exercising purpose, I walked along Fifth Avenue from the Apple Store to the NYRR office and would rather walk back the same way and do my library search from there.  Donnell Library Center on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues would then be the best choice.  Much to my surprise, the library was closed for good!  I just met some visiting distant relatives at MOMA a few weeks ago but I did not notice the library at all.  Further research later in the evening revealed that the Donnell Library Center was actually closed in August 2008.  That means for almost three years I never went by that place.  Either that or I forgot being there in the past three years!

Years ago when I still read Vietnamese literature, Donnell was the place to be.  As far as I know, Donnell had the best collection of Vietnamese books in the NYPL system.  It was from the Donnell collection that I read "Ngọn Cỏ Gió Đùa", which my late father often mentioned as the only novel he ever read.  He was the oldest child in a big family and had much to help the family.  He was very interested in futbol and did not care much about literature, but he did read that one book, by Hồ Biểu Chánh.  Much to my surprise, the book was really just a re-packaged version of Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables".  Different setting of old-time Viet Nam during some war, but same story.

Also thanks to Donnell that I got to read the classic Chinese lit "Water Margin", translated into Vietnamese as "Thủy Hử", of course.  My Chinese is too poor to be pitched against the Chinese version and English version somehow just would not cut it for me.  I might have read a few other Viet books but "NCGĐ" and "TH" are the two I recall in recent memories.  While we are on the topic of Viet lit, one disappointment I have about it is that there seems to be no impartial books out there.  Maybe I have not read enough, but the few I came across are either for or against the topic at hand, especially when it comes to modern Viet history.  They are more like propaganda materials, for or against the Communist regime, or other topics.  It was like reading The New York Post, where every Jew is a hero and everyone else in the Middle East are referred to by some negative adjectives.

My memory is failing me now but I think I used to go to Donnell's media center to watch videotapes or listened to music at the many cubicles set aside for such consumption.  Those were the days before the advent of YouTube and the Internet.  Certain pieces of music or movies would be available only at some media center, some physical place you have to be at to enjoy the work.  It is entirely possible that I am confusing Donnell's Media Center with NYU Bobst Library's.  I used to take advantage of the shared resources between The Cooper Union and NYU.

My #1 blog fan used to work near Donnell, I wonder if she has any special memories about it...

No Lemon, Yes Melon

If someone tells you he is environmentally conscious, would you assume he grows his own fruits and vegetable in a backyard garden?  If that is the requirement, then I am not much of a green person, but I really am.  I walk or use public transportation, instead of drive, most of the time.  I recycle and re-use everyday.  I turn off TVs, lights, computers, etc. when they are not in use.  But gardening so far has always eludes me.  My first attempt at gardening was many years ago when I lived in Long Island City.  The group Astoria Residents Recycling Our Waste (ARROW) just turned a vacant lot into a Green Thumb park, with a section set aside for gardening.  I helped setup the plots and got one assigned to me.  I lived just two blocks away from the new park but weeks then months pass and I never planted anything in the plot.  If there was any plot thickening, it was just weeds taking advantage of my absence.

Years later I have my own house with a backyard.  Long periods of time would go by and I would not spend any time in the backyard.  Last year I decided to maintain a compost bin, even though I did not know what I would do with the stuff once they are made.  From a friend in ARROW I got two more containers for composting and spent more time in the backyard turning and messing around with the bins.  By chance someone my wife knows has some extra melon buds (?) to give away.  The things would normally go to my in-laws but this year they already dedicated their front yard to growing string beans.  I do not recall what got into me but I decided to take a shot at growing them melons.

I do not have much soil area in the back yard so I grew one in a large pot while others went into the soil elsewhere.  Maybe in the future I will share my un-handyman's trellis but this time I just want to show off the potted melon.  As shown in the first two photos, the melon plant has grown large and spreading all over.  The tall photo is a Photoshop composite of three photos.  I may not have properly merged the photos together, but you get the idea.  I just water it everyday and guide its vines so it won't end up in the neighbor's yard.   By the way, I actually used some of the compost, made mostly from last year's autumn leaves, in a pot to support the melon vines as they spread onto cement floor.

I have not read up much about growing melons and just play by ears, so to speak.  I know these things like to climb but never having grown them before I was amazed to see first-hand how the process is done.  The vines themselves have sticky hair to cling on whatever they come across.  Then there are these other things that crawl ahead and coil around poles and such for support.  I definitely need to read up on melons to know the proper terms.

In case you wonder what's with the title of the blog post, it is a variation of the phrase NO MELON NO LEMON, which spells the same from left to right and from right to left.  I love palindromes and cannot pass the chance of using them, but in this case since I grow melons, it is NO LEMON YES MELON.  Of course the phrase is not a palindrome any more.

Run Charlie Brown Run

After about a month off from running, this weekend I am back.  The left foot had a spot, around mid-foot on the arch, that was very painful to the touch, so I took the doctor's advice to give it some time to rest.  I switched to cycling and it was not very satisfying, but better than nothing.  I was supposed to take the whole month of June off, but June 1 was National Running Day, so I ran a short route on that day then began the hiatus on June 2.  I resumed running on July 3 so that was about right for a 30-day break.

It was the weekend so it was tempting to put in a long run, longer than my usual five miles anyway.  Luckily, the reasonable side of me resisted the temptation and I ran just my old, daily five miles.  I picked the Dyker Height route because it involves a hill at the midway point, where I would turn around and head back.  The route goes through residential areas only and has no long stretch with no traffic.  At every corner is a either a stop sign or a traffic light, something to stop for and look before crossing, so for the whole month cycling I didn't use this route.  As I headed home, the sky darkened and by the time I got breakfast it was raining lightly.  No problem, the bagel shop where I got breakfast had a picnic table on the side of the building, with a window awning just enough to cover me.  It was a nice way to celebrate my return to running - my favorite breakfast of toasted bagel with cream cheese, in the quiet rain.

The next day, Independence Day (July 4th), I finally joined the Holiday Marathons people in Van Cortlandt Park, in the Bronx.  In this day and age of pre-registration and sold-out races, the Holiday Marathons (HM) series is a welcomed breath of fresh air.  While the typical organized races, whether through Active.com or NYRR, charge $20 and up, the HM series only ask for a $10 donation.  You do not get a souvenir T-shirt or official time but there is refreshment at the beginning and at the end of the race.  It is really just one loop of 6.56 miles.  Run one loop and you have about 10K, 2 loops then you have a Half-Marathon, and 4 times get you a Full Marathon.  Again, no medal or any prize whatsoever, but if your goal is to run one of those distance, it can be done without any requirements.  The course is a trail most of the time, so it was muddy or bumpy in places, somewhat of an obstacle course and not your typical road races.  The volunteers were helpful, the crowd was small enough for me to actually see the person singing the National Anthem, and there was a small cheering section.  For a donation of $10, it was a bargain.

The run was great except I unknowingly cheated myself out of a few miles.  I am totally unfamiliar with Van Cortlandt Park and the race course.  Knowing my slower pace, I put myself in the back of the pack at the beginning of the race.  I simply followed the big crowd of people in front of me but eventually there were just a few people, like two, one in the front and one in the back, around me on the race course.  As usual, I ran without my near-sighted glasses but could see the road fine.  Every now and then I would see the orange streamer hanging on trees as route markers.  At forks in the road there were white arrows on the ground to point me in the right direction.  Unfortunately, when I got out of the trail and back on the edge of parade ground, I automatically thought that was it, that I would just go around the perimeter of the parade ground.  I totally missed the arrow pointing back to the woods.  I was supposed to follow some path that intersect the Henry Hudson Parkway then make a U-turn back to the parade ground.  Even on my wrong course, I made an early left turn but realized quickly and resumed the course, still the wrong, shorter course, but I was not aware of it.  I did notice someone running downhill from the woods onto the perimeter of the parade ground, but I thought it was just someone running a longer route.  I imagined there were veterans of the area who knew other longer route.  As I approached the finish line, some fast runners were passing me and I simply thought they were on their second loop.  Some people are just that fast!  As I logged my time, I was amazed how much faster I was.  My pace was less than 10 minutes per mile.  I found it hard to believe, what with me just came off a month-long break.  While cooling down after the race I saw people who I knew on DailyMile.com coming in.  I know they are fast runners, much faster than me.  A long subway ride home later, I decided to review the race route to find out where I made the shortcut.  The Garmin map at http://thejuly4thmarathon.com/the-course/ is hard to see but opening it in Google Earth helped a lot.  I found my early left turn and then the right turn that I missed.  I still enjoyed the run and felt good afterward.

Memorial Day 2011, Belatedly

Better late than never!  Over the years, as I travel around, whether on vacation, on a bike trip locally, or even during walks after lunch at work, whenever I come across a war memorial I would take photos of the monuments.  Below are photos I took of the Korean War Memorial in Atlantic City, the Vietnam War Memorial and World War 2 Memorial on the waterfront in the south of Hoboken, a World War Memorial in Long Island City (it was erected in 1926, people couldn't foresee a World War 2 coming up in about 10 years), a memorial in Marine Park, Brooklyn, and the grave for Sergeant Alexander Kidd (on Governors Island, New York, I think).  A belated salute to the fallen!

80s Classics

Years ago, classics music meant music from the 1960s and older.  Nowadays, in the year 2011, 1980s music is considered classics, too.  Whatever 1980s music is called, to me it's the stuff I grew up with.  That meant America's Top Ten with Casey Kasem on Saturday, Friday Night Video on, duh, Friday nights, and America's Top 40 on Sunday morning and afternoon.  Oh yeah, also Solid Gold with Dionne Warwick, which is not always good, but there were good moments.  I never got into music enough to learn any instruments or join a band, just enough to recognize most songs that were played on the radio.  At some point, Life changed and suddenly one day I don't know any of the current songs or singers.  Sure I discovered Jonathan Coulton and whatever songs honored by "Weird" Al Yankovic with a parody, but in general I don't know much else.

This past September when my Son joined the chorus at school I thought he would be singing church music and such.  Or maybe worse the typical crap played on the radio these days.  Luckily his teacher has a 1980s project for them to work with and Son came home with songs like "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and "Hit Me With Your Best Shot".  Around Christmas time the chorus practiced and sang Christmas songs, naturally, but comes spring and they finally unleashed their 80s classics.  Today I got to attend the performance outside Brooklyn Borough Hall.  They performed many songs and I recorded them all badly but Journey's Separate Way is one of my favorite songs, so here it is!  (Note to self:  zoom in before the performance begins and do not zoom back out until the performance is done.)

NYRR Brooklyn Half Marathon

I did it!  A year ago I stumbled upon the finish line, sort of, of the NYRR Brooklyn Half Marathon, but today I was part of it.

As usual, getting to the starting line is half the challenge, thanks to the MTA's regular weekend track work.  I thought I would take the D train to the Prospect Avenue station and walk from 4th Avenue to Park Drive West.  Normally the D does not stop at Prospect Avenue, but on weekend it usually does.  Alas, the D was not running toward Manhattan, at least not from my station.  I got lucky and caught a train just as I climbed the stairs to the station, otherwise I would have to wait a long time.  Based on suggestion from the NYRR Facebook page, I took the Q from Coney Island to Parkside Avenue station.  I had a vague idea where the starting line was and followed some fellow runners, but since I had to go to my high-numbered corral, I ended up making a big circle around the lake in Prospect Park.  I think I walked 1.5 miles from the subway station to my assigned corral.  Too bad that distance was not included in the 13.1 miles.

I ran in Prospect Park twice before and was out of breath both times, with just one loop around the inside.  To better prepare for the two loops in Prospect Park during the Brooklyn Half, I have been training in Dyker Height.  Before I would just go up the hill then down the hill toward the BQE then head back.  Lately, I also head toward 80th Street and 12th Avenue, going up and down the hill in the process.  I think the training helped somewhat as I did not feel as bad as when I ran in Prospect Park before.

It is not true that once you are out of the park it's all flat.  Just right outside the park, we had to climb over the bridge over the Prospect Expressway then down into the Expressway itself, only to climb again into Oy Vey Parkway.  I read somewhere that spectator support along the Parkway was sparse and it was true.  Maybe there is some local ordinance about noises, or the rich people living along the Parkway don't want to be disturbed.  It was a hot and sunny day, but luckily the Parkway was half covered by tree shades so only when we entered intersections did we get some sun.  I don't think there is an Avenue A, but the first avenue name I noticed was Avenue H.  Slowly the letter increased until we reached Avenue Z, then it was Neptune Avenue then we turned onto Mermaid Avenue.  I don't know how it was done earlier when there were many more people, but by the time I got to Coney Island we were directed to get onto the Boardwalk using the ramp near the handball court.

On the Boardwalk, I had "Somewhere in Brooklyn" by Bruno Mars playing on my cell phone but it was unnecessary and ineffective.  Some DJ already played loud motivational tunes and support from the crowd along the Boardwalk was great.  As usual, I sprinted the short distance on the Boardwalk, not just the 0.1 mile to the finish line, but some distance before Mile 13.  After the race I attended a meet-n-greet with other runners who I am friends with on the web site dailymile.com.  It's always nice to put some real faces to the faces we see in cyberspace.

I was hoping I would break my personal record of 2:23:40, which I achieved with the Manhattan Half Marathon in the dead of winter in January.  I was able to run non-stop, bypassing all the water stations, which were serving frozen water anyway.  For the Brooklyn Half, to be safe, I stopped for water three times, around Mile 7, 10, and 12.  I was disappointed to discover in the end that my time today is 2:24:40.  Even though conditions are not the same, I still hoped I would outdo myself.  Other people on dailymile.com sure did best themselves.  I don't know how they did it.  I just have to train more, I guess.

Somewhere in Brooklyn

Less than 24 hours to go for the NYRR Brooklyn Half Marathon, yay!  I was actually at the Brooklyn Half in 2010, but only as a passerby.  I just resumed running after years of off-and-on running.  That morning I decided to run along Stillwell Avenue to Coney Island and sheesh, where did all these people come from?  I asked one of the runners who were walking to the subway station and learned it was the Brooklyn Half Marathon.  What a novel idea, half a marathon instead of the whole thing!  I ran the full marathon back in the late 1990s and even ran 2 shorter races and since then I did not keep up with NYRR.  Funny how one moment you don't care about nyrr.org and a short time later you regularly visit it to check out the races, not that the site changes that often.  I am sure I signed up for those 90s marathons with pen and paper, but not sure how I registered for the 2 shorter races. Maybe NYRR used to mail entry forms to its members?  How did we ever live our lives without the Internet?

Bumping into the Brooklyn Half in 2010 gave me an idea.  I was just back into running and did 3K everyday, maybe 9K on the weekends.  I knew I was not ready for the full marathon, but perhaps a Half is achievable.  I signed up for the Queens Half Marathon and managed to finish it under the 3-hour limit.  It was one of the hottest days of the summer and I walked from Mile 10 to Mile 11 or one of those miles at the end.  The important thing is the goal was achieved.  Next I ran the Bronx Half, under better weather and improved my time.  Lastly, one freezing day in January 2011 I ran the Manhattan Half and set my personal best of 2 hours and 23 minutes.  Maybe it is wishful thinking but for the Brooklyn Half I want to outdo myself again.  Conditions are not the same, of course, cold weather vs. hot weather.  I was able to run the entire Manhattan Half without stopping for water.  But we can dream, can we not?

Fartlek, Anyone?

Colonoscopy technology is so advanced these days, doctors no longer have to put on gloves and get messy with the camera probing about.  Instead, doctors can be assisted with a voice-control robotic arm that does all the work.  It all starts with the doctor's command, "See colon, enter."

Seriously, I don't think the technology changed that much since I last had one more than five years ago.  It did feel fast.  One minute I was having a broken chat with the anesthesiologist then the next instance he woke me up to go to the recovery room.  I did not even feel groggy, just bloated from all the gas that went in.  From what I blogged last time, I had a nasty headache because of the fasting before the procedure.  This time maybe because the liquid diet actually helped somewhat, or maybe because of my recent more active lifestyle, I did not have a headache at all.  Not the morning of the procedure, not afterward.  Before, if I somehow forgot to have coffee in the morning, or skipped lunch, a headache certainly came in the late afternoon.  I think it is mostly due to all the jogging and regular exercise.  We have only one body to worship, let us take good care of it through exercise!


Speaking of which, here is just one more joke.  Since I skipped running two days in a row, I thought of putting in some miles after the procedure.  I asked my doctor about it and he said, "Fartlek, no; fart, yes."  OK, such conversation never happened but I did refrain from running today. 

Diarrhea of A Mad Man 2011

One of my favorite scene from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was when Dr. McCoy, having traveled back in time, met a woman at a hospital who was scheduled for some surgery.  The good doctor gave her some pill and she was up and running shortly afterward, no need for any messy surgery.  Maybe some day colonoscopy can be done without all the, uh, messy preparation.

I will have a colonoscopy tomorrow and, based on what I wrote in 2005, not too much has changed since I last had one.  Without going back to the blog, I mistakenly told my doctor that I last had it done in 2001.  Good thing it is about time I have one done anyway, as my father had colon cancer that was detected too late.

http://www.qaptainqwerty.com/2005/09/diarrhea-of-mad-man.html

The Holiday Marathons

In the Vietnamese language, there is a phrase, "Thời Thế Tạo Anh Hùng" which translates to "the situation creates the hero."  In other words, for all scheming and planning, sometimes events just happen and you have to react accordingly.

The weekends before the St. Louis Marathon, there were half-marathons that I wanted to sign up for.  First, there was a half-marathon in Flushing Meadow Park on April 2, then there was the Unite 13.1 run at Rutgers University the week after.  I think the runners community in the tri-state area is big enough to support more than the NYRR and thought of supporting these other organizations.  Still, I figured I better get some good rest before and after the marathon.  The big day came and it was too hot in St. Louis and the race was shortened to a half-marathon.  Only those fast enough to reach the midpoint of the marathon at a certain time were allowed to continue.  It was a big disappointment for me.  No problem, I will just sign up for other races closer to home.  Alas, the Unite 13.1 run was already mostly filled up, with some spots left on race day.  While I somewhat looked forward to the long trip via subway and light-rail to Newark, I would only go there if I have a guaranteed spot in the race.  Scratch that one.  Then there is the Long Island Marathon weekend of May 1.  Again, because of some shuffling of personnel at work, my on-call dooty got moved up a week.  That is right, from May 8 to May 1.  While it is good that I will be able to do something undisturbed (hopefully) on Mother's Day, now my hope for Long Island Marathon is dashed.

But wait, there is a ray of hope!  Coming up this weekend is the Easter Marathons, one in a series of The Holidays Marathons.  Instead of stuffing our faces with food, or, shudder, go shopping, how about running in a race for the holidays?  The Holiday Marathons has races of varying distances - 10K, Half-Marathon, Full-Marathon, etc.  All free and commitment-free!  No registration, just show up on time and run.  Maybe not totally free if you fork over some donation amount, but the suggestion donation amount is still not as much as the typical race that I usually register for.

I plan to run a half-marathon in the Easter Marathon.  It is a trail run and I am not familiar with the area of Van Cordlandt Park so a half will do.  Eventually, I will definitely do a full-marathon.  There will be no medal but I just want to know if I can do it.  Check them out at http://www.theholidaymarathons.com/

Thank You Saint Louis!

It is my last day of the trip to St. Louis to run the Marathon.  Even though I did not get to even try to complete the Marathon because it was shut down due to the hot weather, I do appreciate all the people that organized the event, the volunteers, and the spectators.  While not as many as those for the NYC Marathon, it was a good crowd.

Special thanks go to

• the residents of Soulard with the big banner and the line-up to give us runners high-fives.  I recall high-fiving someone dressed up in Superman costume, that was fun.
• the lady who gave out slices of oranges somewhere around Mile 11.  It was getting hot then and she was properly situated between the water stations.
• the lady, sitting by the curb between Miles 12 and 13, who called out my name as she gave some encouraging words.  It was a nice personal touch that the bib have the first name printed.
• and of course, last but most important, my big sister TOTA (Top-of-the-Arch) and brother-in-law for hosting my stay and making it an all-expense-paid vacation with plenty of time for relaxing and recuperating!

Marred My Thong in the Marathon

I was all excited and ready for the St. Louis Marathon.  Got up 10 minutes before the alarm clock made its noise, was at the runners' corral before the 7 AM starting time, waited patiently for my turn to leave the corral.  There were many times more half-marathoners than full ones and we just had to slowly walk toward the starting line.  It was not cloudy as the weather report said, a bit warm but not as bad as some hot days I felt in Brooklyn, NY.  Perfect running weather, at least in my book.  There was plenty of water and Gatorade along the way.  I kept a steady pace to conserve my energy for the home stretch.  I was sure the last six miles would be challenging.  There were some hills along the way, but thinking of the support I got from my Facebook friends, like Deb (both of them), Annie, Rachel, Heather, and others, helped me move forward.

Alas, it was not meant to be.  Before I reached Mile 10, where originally the half-marathoners and full-marathoners would part ways, race officials decided the weather was not suitable to continue the full-marathon.  Some people mentioned last year's Chicago Marathon.  Maybe it was too hot and some people succumbed to heatstroke, or worse.  I did see at least two runners lying by the side of the road with emergency technicians helping them.

I was so disappointed I walked a bit after Mile 12.  All that planning, of taking easy the first few miles, turned out to be for nothing.  This half-marathon will probably not have my best time, since I slowed down for water a few times, because I thought I need the energy for later.  I still get a medal that says 26.2 miles, but I know I did not run the 26.2 miles.  Now I have to seriously consider the Long Island Marathon in early May.

Countdown to St. Louis Marathon

About 12 more hours to go until the St. Louis Marathon.  Lots of rest and no running the past few days.  I don't watch what I eat that carefully, but do plan to have pasta for dinner.  There will be only about 3,000 participants for the full marathon, compared to about 15,000 for the half-marathon.  If I live in St. Louis, I probably would go for the half, but since I flew here, after all that troubles with security checkpoint, might as well go for the full.

This will be my third marathon ever.  The last time I ran the marathon was in 1995, with the year before that being my first marathon.  Both times it was the New York City Marathon, back then sponsored by Chemical Bank, I think.  It was somewhat easier to enter back then.  For 1994, I got selected in the first lottery.  The second time around, I didn't get selected and was on the waiting list.  I pretty much gave up but then I got selected from the waiting list, so I ran.  There was no fee to enter the lottery and the registration was something like $30 or so, a bargain compared to today's fee.  If you have the time, you can even go wait on line, in person, and get a paper application that gives you guaranteed entry.  The others that enter the lottery would request the form via USPS mail and send it back.

Sixteen years later, of course sixteen years older, I actually think I am more prepared than the younger me.  While it is true that I was single, even unemployed, so naturally I had more time to train, I didn't train that much.  I was living in Long Island City and would only run to Astoria Park, put in at most 3 miles around track under the Triboro Bridge, have lunch on a bench somewhere then walked back home.  At most I ran 5 miles a day and did not enter any official races to gauge my speed.  These days I do long runs on weekends and participated in NYRR-sponsored events.  I am shooting for a 5-hour finish time, or 5.5 hours top.  We will find out in about 12 hours!

Meet Me in St. Louis

Boarding pass printed, my one piece of luggage packed, training done, or as done as it possibly be done... I am off to LaGuardia Airport for the flight to St. Louis for the marathon on Sunday!

It's some McDonnel Douglas plane model, so at least I won't have to worry any cracks in the fuselage.

The sore throat is still there, hopefully it will be gone by Sunday.  My nose was sniffling two days ago, but as usual a good night's sleep took care of it.  I hadn't have that in a long time, just missed a few days of running and it came right back.

Can a pain in the arch be the same as a pain in the arse?  I didn't run the past few days so it does not hurt any more going downstairs but I know it will come back on Sunday night.

Being a pessimistic person, I can think of many phrase to describe the possible undesirable outcome of the run.  "Misery in Missouri".  "Still Lose It in St. Louis".  "Marred My Thong in the Marathon".

Only one way to find out, RUN!!!!!

Twenty Miles

I finally did it, or came close enough.  I read somewhere that a few weeks prior to a marathon the runner should run a 20-mile course.  (For those who do not know, the marathon is 26.2 miles.)  Once before I ran 10 miles, from my home in Brooklyn, not far from the amusement parks of Coney Island, to Manhattan's Chinatown.  Other times, I ran half-marathons or 15K races organized by the NYRR.  I thought a 20-mi run would be just the 10-mi run with an extra 10 added.  The math is simple enough.

I expected to spend at least 4 hours doing the 20 miles.  If I run before the sun rises, I would have to bring a flashlight, just to have a source of light on me.  I feel better knowing there is a smaller chance some motorist not running me over.  For the 20-mile run, I wanted to travel light, really light, so I waited until the sun came out, around 6:15, before I started out.

I mostly followed the D subway line from 25th Avenue to Fort Hamilton Parkway, where the subway goes subterranean, i.e. underground or at least below street level.  Next the route went along 39th Street, which like because one side is all dead-ends so I had a long run totally uninterrupted by traffic.  At Fifth Avenue I turned toward Manhattan and used Greenpoint Cemetery to again avoid traffic.  Normally I avoid commercial areas like Brooklyn's Fifth Avenue, but it was early in the morning, 7ish to 8ish so there was not that many people out on the street yet.  The stores were mostly still closed.  Soon enough Flatbush Avenue was reached, next it was MetroTech Center.  Through the tree grove I tried to get to the street by going between 2 of the Polytechnic buildings, to reach George Westinghouse H.S., but alas that exit was closed.  I had to loop back toward 1 CMC and go past Starbucks to head toward the pedestrian lane of the Manhattan Bridge.  The ascend on the bridge seemed to take forever but eventually I got to the other side, Manhattan's Chinatown.  Maybe having ran this route before made it seem shorter.  The first 10 miles were relatively easy to cover.

Chinatown at 8 in the morning was already a busy.  Stores and restaurants were opened for business, dim-sum eaters abound, and there were some buses unloading, ahem, losers from Atlantic City, just a wild guess.  I did walk a little bit, even though it was relatively easy to run the 10 miles, I was still tired.  I continued running once inside Sarah D. Roosevelt Park, near the bike path of the Manhattan Bridge, to Delancey and then toward the waterfront.  Over a footbridge to cross the FDR, I was in the East River to continue the run south.  I ran this way before, but not all the way to the Winter Garden in Battery Park City.  The waterfront is not continuous but it was still possible to run mostly uninterrupted by vehicular traffic.  By the time I reached Pier 17 (South Street Seaport), I was so thirsty and hoped that the new playground, Imagination, would have a working fountain.  Rats, the place was closed, padlocked for the weekend perhaps.  I kept going past the Staten Island Ferry Terminal, along the street perimeter of Battery Park, and past the long line of tourists waiting to get ferry tickets to visit the Statue of Liberty.  Shortly later, I was inside Battery Park City.  The last time I was in the BPC, I think its southern end was still under construction.  Now there are gardens, walkways, arches, benches, everything nice and inviting, but I had a goal to reach.  Two blocks before reaching the Winter Garden, still not recognizing it from the outside, I gave up and bought a Gatorade from a street vendor.  I walked to the Garden and even sat down for about 10 minutes, under the indoor palm trees.  It was warm and comfortable, but I had to get back and soon found myself tracing my path back.  By then both feet were aching, even the toes ached, on the left.  It helped a bit that I knew what was coming up next, but still I couldn't run all the way back to Chinatown.  After cross the FDR via the footbridge, I walked the rest of the way.  It probably came out to 18 miles and not 20, but that will have to do.  I sure hope the crowd in St. Louis will be supportive enough for me to cover the whole 26.2 miles.  My strategy will be 10 miles, a short walk while drinking, then another 10 and some more water, then it's all the way to the finish line.  I ran the Manhattan Half-Marathon continuous, without stopping at all, no water whatsoever.  But for a full marathon, I cannot do that, as my attempt at a 20-mile run already shown.

Colon Cancer Challenge

Another NYRR race has come and gone.  As you may know, I like long races, 15K, 13.1-mile, etc.  When registration for the Colon Cancer Challenge became available, I signed up at once.  The day has come and gone.

As usual, the adventure began with the NYC subway.  For this weekend, my D train runs on the N line.  Pity those tourists with their maps, not much applies on the weekend.  The race was scheduled for 1100.  I left home at 0900 to leave enough time to pick up my bib and T-shirt.  Just for kicks, I ran to the nearest N station, only to wait there for a long time.  Not only the subway changes routes on the weekend, it also runs slower.  I thought of getting off the D at 47-50 Street Station, but that would mean a walk of over 20 blocks to get to the Bandshell in Central Park.  I switched at Columbus Circle for the local C train and got off right at 72 Street and crossed the park to get to the Bandshell.  I planned to run 10 extra miles after this 15k (9.3-mile) race so I wanted to save the energy.  Part of a marathon training dictates that one should run a 20-mile trip a few weeks before the real thing.  I signed up for the St. Louis Marathon and it is just two weeks away and I haven't done a 20-mile run yet.

While waiting for the light to change to cross Central Park West, I read a plaque on some nearby building.  What interested me was that the architect was Irwin S Chanin.  That Chanin, for which the Cooper Union's Architectural School was named after.  Supposedly he was famous for using the "twin towers" design seen on a few buildings around Central Park.  I thought of the movie "Ghostbusters" when I saw the building later on from inside the park.

Somehow I thought that it was a requirement to donate some money for research on colon cancer in order to run in the race.  I didn't donate anything and only paid the registration fee.  I got my bib with no hassle.  This time I even saved the NYRR four safety pins as I had them from my previous races.  No point of wasting them pins if they are so re-usable.  I never thought of it but after getting my bib that my father died from colon cancer, indirectly anyway.  It started at the colon but by the time surgery was done to remove the offending cells, the disease already spread to the liver.  "I run for my father", some people at the race wrote on their T-shirts or had paper signs taped to their clothes.  Conveniently, there was a donation tent at the staging/expo area so I dropped $20.

Stalk-running alert!  I got defeated by a stalk-runner today.  Somewhere along the route I noticed a woman with a purple hoodie and white headphone passing me.  I didn't try to pass her but just maintain my normal speed.  Eventually that's enough to pass her, so she was probably running at variable speed.  Around Mile #8 she used a downhill to zoom past me but I didn't copy the tactic.  I still thought that I should conserve my energy for the 10-mile run after the race.  Still, as the finish line came into sight I couldn't help it and started sprinting for it.  My stalk-runner was up ahead, way too far for me to catch up.  Even though I lost to my impromptu running partner, I still broke my own record for a 15K, the Ted Corbitt Run last year, by 20 seconds or so.

The sprint exhausted me.  Gatorade tasted so good just then, I should have grabbed another one.  Back at the expo area there were only bagels and apples.  My original plan was to resume running once I reach 72nd Street and Central Park West.  In reality, I was so tired and cold, I walked all the way along 72nd Street to the West Side Highway, while eating the bagel and then the apple.  It was a worthwhile trip, as Riverside Park was so beautiful.  At 72nd Street, the waterfront of Riverside Park stretched north and south.  I needed to head south for some other business so south I went.  I was no longer in a race, and was tired anyway, so I stopped here and there to snap some photos.  I measured via Google Earth that to get in 10 miles from 72nd Street and CPW, I would need to go to the waterfront, travel south all the way to tip of Manhattan then loop back north to the Williamsburg Bridge.  Somehow I didn't have the energy to do so and only went as far as 23rd Street, Chelsea Pier.  At least and at last, I got to discover a new trail.  Many times I drove on the West Side Highway and glanced longingly at the beautiful bike/jogging path along the Hudson River.

Looking north.  I like the "bar stools".

Looking north.  If you don't mind the mossy steps, I suppose you can take off your shoes and let the wave laps at your feet.

Bring your date here for a romantic outing!

Willow!

Some day I will run north to see where this path ends at, but today I needed to head south.

Who you gonna call?

The Eyes Are The First To Go

Aging stinks.  In Vietnamese one phrase that refers to the aging process is "răng long tóc bạc", which transliterate as "loosened teeth and white hair".  But then I also heard elsewhere that the eyes are the first to go when a person ages.  Being near-sighted, I also heard that at some point in time my near-sightness will help me see clearly.  Supposedly, the old person cannot see objects nearby well, but since I'm already near-sighted, I have no problems, right?  I suspect that that time has come and gone without me noticing because I now have troubles seeing small things up close, with the near-sighted glasses on.  While I understand that the glasses are to help me see far, I didn't have troubles using them to see objects nearby before.  Something is up.  These days to read the screen of cell phones or other handheld devices, I have to take the glasses off.  Maybe soon I'll get bi-focal.  Groan.

One of my approach to maintaining decent eyesight is not to make the eyes work so hard.  While I cannot help using the computer a lot, I don't watch much TV or DVDs.  Instead, I listen to podcasts and audiobooks, being from an iPod or on CDs.  Still, not everything is available on CDs, at least not from the public library, so from time to time I still read books.  Except that now the words seem too small.  Just by chance, when I was busy searching for the last book in the Millennium trilogy Stieg Larsson, the only copy available from the Jersey City Free Public Library was a large-print one.  The experience changed my opinion of large-print books.  I have to admit it, I like them.  I used to think that only old people, really old people in the 70s or worse, would read large-print books.  I know now it is not true.  Just a few years past the critical 40, I am already enjoying them.  After "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest", I already hungrily went through Catherine Coulter's "Knock Out".  While large-print books are typically, well, large, compared to pocketbook paperback, for the winter I can usually slip the book into the inside, large pocket of my winter jacket.  Things will get trickier when summer comes, but I don't carrying a tote bag to help while away commuting time.

Good news, old folks like me!  You don't have to give up reading just because the your eyes cannot stand the tiny print.  In addition to audiobooks, there is also large-print books.

Coogan's Salsa, Blues & Shamrocks 5K

I like long-distance running and usually sign up for half-marathon or 15K races.  I am not sure now why I joined the Coogan 5K race (Sunday, March 6).  Perhap I welcomed the change of location.  After the Manhattan Half, the Midnight Run 4M, and the Ted Corbitt 15K, I have seen enough of Central Park.  What was more, Washington Height was an area I visit occasionally, to see a relative, so I looked forward to exploring The Height better, on foot.

I hate driving but NYC subway did not make the trip easier.  Coogan 5K  was the first race for which I picked up bib and T-shirt on the day of the event.  I left home early to allow time for waiting on line to get the T-shirt and such.  I knew the D train was running to Coney Island on the N line, but I was surprised to find an N train going to Manhattan stopping at my D's 25th Avenue station.  Not a problem, since I knew that I could transfer to the 1 train at Times Square.  The only thing was there seemed to be some issue on the 1/2/3 line.  A #2 (or #3) pulled into the station but then it just sat there. Times Square is a large station with many other subway lines passing through it.  The A and C trains also go to Washington Height but it is a long walk from the 1/2/3 to A/C platform.  Luckily, I was dressed up for the race and simply ran there and caught some train just in time.

I thought I knew the Washington Heights area but only recently that I noticed the building near the hospital was a Track and Field Hall of Fame.  No wonder on nice day there were these kids running short races on the sidewalk on that block.  With the Coogan race, I got a glimpse inside and it was very nice-looking.  Too bad I didn't have time to read the many plaques lining the stairwell, to see if I recognize any names.  It was a somewhat rushed ascend to the third floor to pick up our bibs.


The race itself was so-so.  At barely over 3 miles, it was a very short run.  With 7,000+ people and being at the end of that crowd, it took some time for the crowd to separate too, even if I am not that fast a runner.  Thankfully, the light rain and the hills added to the challenge.  Before long, the finish line was in sight, much sooner than I expected so I didn't do my usual sprint.  I finished with 10:22 minutes/mile but it does not mean much because, again, it was such a short race.


I usually run on an empty stomach and did so for the Coogan.  After the race, I wolfed down a bagel, a slice of orange, and an apple while walking to the Riverside Drive.  Some weeks earlier I discovered that there is no running trail alongside the West Side Highway.  The highway actually rises almost to the height of the ridge on which Washington Height sits on.  For that occasion, I ran north of the skating rink.  This time is my chance to see what's south of the rink.  After the quick and healthy breakfast, I walked along Riverside Drive to the rink.  I was disappointed to learn that there simply was no riverside path south of the rink.  There was no exit, period, out of the rink area that would go along the water.  There seems to be some street exit whereby you would have to run on the sidewalk.  In the end, I went along Riverside Drive all the way down to 94th Street then to the 1/2/3 subway for the trip home.  It was disappointing that there was no "green way" going all around Manhattan Island but I still put in 12 kilometers for the day.

But It Is Home

It is a cold, rainy Monday morning in Brooklyn, New York.  What a gloomy way to get back to work or school.

This time of the week last week, I was in sunny and warm Florida, in the Kissimmee area.  The week went by with visits to Universal Studio and Epcot, running along country roads where there was no sidewalks, and reading of "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" by the side of the swimming pool.  Believe it or not, I missed home.

Back at home, there was a pile of sale receipts waiting for me to enter into a Google doc.  It is my attempt at try to have better control of my finances.  Not too long during a purge of my worldly possession, I simply threw out stack of such receipts but over time they've accumulated again.  But it is home.

Back at home, my office, now smaller, consists of just 2 flat surfaces and a chair.  Printers and scanner are usable but not on a big desk like before.  I have a few boxes of stuff to go through before I would buy a computer desk.  Messy, messy.  But it is home.

Back at home, I have much of what used to be in my office up in the attic.  Computers and computer parts that I probably will never use, but just don't have the heart to throw out.  Books, board games, newspapers, etc.  I tried to be organized and labeled many of the boxes on 3 sides but I still ended up with 2 boxes that simply read "papery stuff".

It is cold and not always sunny, but daybreak comes sooner now.  And it is home.