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.