Saturday snow

Friday night we had our soccer playoffs. It was a bit frosty around the pitch and cold on your throat while breathing but good for running about trying to keep warm!

Unfortunately we got beat on penalties in the semi-final.

Then we had escaped so far but the city got a few inches of snow on Saturday.

I went for a late afternoon run in Prospect Park. The lake was mostly frozen and it was great to run in the snow, I love that.

Of course we had a show that night, Queens of the Stone Age at the Barclays Centre. We can take the bus from the bottom of our road right to the venue but it meant standing in a light blizzard for 20 minutes as the bus times were way out probably due to road conditions.

Outside the Barlcays

But it was really good. I love the new album although the crowd seemed very sedate compared to our last visit there to see Pearl Jam.

Then I worked Sunday but because it is soooo busy at work on Saturday/Sunday they provided pizza, sandwiches and crisps for all the staff. Not healthy but it takes a lot of will power not to have a slice... or two.

Winter update

Lots of small news items over the last few weeks.

I got my Permanent Resident Card (green card) a few days after the interview and acceptance letter arrived.

Just as the weather was getting a lot colder, Heather found a little kitten sitting shivering at the top of our street. So the whole "Don't be mad, but...." was the start of the first conversation we had later that day.
Rue is 50% cute and loveable and 50% a pain in the ass, running, jumping and biting everything. It took a couple of weeks for the other two cats to get anywhere near her or let her go anywhere near them. Slightly better now, she's just trying to play!
 

Yup, she did that.

Awww, but she's so cute

Like a small monkey on my back

Sleeping on my computer

Awww, look. They get along now... for the moment

Then we had Thanksgiving on the 28th November. It's a mega holiday here, especially on the food and shopping front. To me, an outsider, it's like Christmas without the presents.

We did the whole food thing. No turkey though, we went for a stuffed pork loin instead. I was on my own with the brussel sprouts though.

Then while I was in the mood, I stocked up on a couple of pre-Christmas goodies from the British store and another impulse buy.

Last week we had our works Christmas Party. As well as a tonne of mostly homemade food the budget was mainly blown on a large bouncy assault course castle. Not recommended AFTER you've just eaten all that food.

The cake house - 24 hours later

As of now, it's a little below zero and the snow has finally started falling!

Marathon Sunday

This morning we jogged down three avenues and walked along 4th Avenue in Brooklyn to watch the NYC Marathon.

It was about 8 degrees outside and there was a cold breeze so it got really cold for spectating but was generally good for running. Once we started a run back it was fine but I did have to take one of the free Dunkin' Donuts hats they were handing out as I was freezing.

Got real close to the elites as they sped past.

Then we wandered further up 4th Avenue. There was really good crowd support out between 5 and 6 miles and for runners who like to get involved with the crowd there were plenty of kids to high-5.

There were so many people with either their names on their tops or running in national colours, tonnes of French kit, lots of Swedes, Italians, a few Poles and a lot of Mexicans & South Americans getting their Spanish speaking support from this generally latino area.

Run a marathon? Never say never.

Good news

On Monday I finally had my final interview with a view to getting a green card. I say me, but it was really the both of us and it was actually more Heather that got asked a few more relationship specific questions whereas I was just really asked the yes/no list of questions such as have I ever been involved in genocide, a member of the communist party, polygamy, etc.

He didn't even really take all the paperwork we were asked to bring, just a few photos and checked our marriage certificate and passports.

Within a couple of days I got a letter welcoming me to the USA and was told I should get the card within 3 weeks.

Of course, he asked why we were unable to attend the original interview date on July 30th. Heather was sitting her bar exams which he took as a good reason!
So we also heard this week that she had passed!! So double good news for us.

3 for 1 on Banksy

The Banksy doing something everyday in October around New York thing just happened to be 3 blocks from work and was a dusk to midnight thing so I popped over to see it on Sunday night after work.

It was a giant grim reaper in a bumper car with some disco lights, smoke machine all while Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear The Reaper" played.... loudly.
The neighbours had complained about the noise and crowds so it was only on for the weekend.

They just happened to have the Waterfall Truck and also the Sirens of the Lambs there too so I got to see all three! It was reasonably busy with people coming and going and also parking on the main road to jump out and see them.

The truck

Inside the rear of the truck

The animal one just puts a smile on everyone's face despite the fact it's supposed to be making a point about fresh farm meats (on the truck door), the cuteness of the animals and the way they are transported.... to your plate.

Gig-tastic

We had the last round of concert visits for a little while.

Last Friday and Saturday we hit up the (reasonably) local Barclays Centre to see our favourites, Pearl Jam! They have been one of both Heather and my favourite bands since they came on the scene around twenty three years ago (nearly to the day) and were one of the factors in us getting together as we mentioned our shared love of them.

We entered the fan club draw for both nights of tickets and were lucky enough to "win" for both nights.
As they are well known for playing different sets each night we were lucky to hear around 66 songs over the course of Friday and Saturday night with only about 10 repeated, mainly stuff from their new album. Nearly three hours shows with no opening band starting at 8.30pm. Excellent.

The best bit was when their large lights descended form the ceiling and they started pushing a few out and then carrying on playing but dodging them as they swung back towards the stage, then Eddie got all angry and climbed up on one and started swinging on it, out over the crowd.

The fan club seats are selected in order of how long you have been in the fan club so for Friday (Heather's) we were in the floor seats and for Saturday we were in the lower bowl for mine.
We got great and different views for both nights which was neat. You could tell the surrounding crowd on the floor were a bit more old school fans than the following days!

The following week I got to visit two new venues for us, Hammerstein Ballroom for Franz Ferdinand on Tuesday and a blast form my past at the Roseland Ballroom to see Simple Minds.

Franz Ferdinand were excellent. The seats were old theatre venue so the view was good but the leg room was about half that of an economy airline! The sound was soooo loud but they were really good.

They finished the set with this amazing drum foursome. 

Simple Minds were a little disappointing if I'm honest. I think the time to see them was probably about twenty five years ago! An old pale white crowd for sure, ha ha.

Kurt Steiner 5K

Sunday, a beautiful bright sunny morning and a two hour, 1 bus and 3 train ride up to Van Cortland Park for a 5K New York Road Runner's Cross Country.

After the half marathon, the 10K the week after this was going to be my final 'serious' race for the season. I couldn't make the previous one and the 40-44 age group results showed the medals for the top 3 were up for grabs.... maybe, fingers crossed.

A good size field of 280 runners, I'd have preferred a better warm up but train delays put paid to that. I set off and eventually the field was strung out. Eventually I caught up with the 1st placed girl and used her as bait to pull me on and then concentrated on catching the guy in front over the last 1/4 mile.

My heart rate actually maxed out at 213 at the finish after I tried my hardest! I walked slowly past the medal table, your age groups are on the race numbers, and after the guy in front got something they called me back and handed me a medal.

So I got 2nd 40-44, yay! 19.26 (6.17 pace) but you can tell there were a lot of good club runners (because it's a NYRR event) as I was 38th place in total.

The results are funny because if you are a NYRR member you can fill in your club name or where you live such as Brooklyn or Queens, etc but you can put your country if you are not American. So I was first Brit, ha ha, the first page of results has a finisher from Canada, Israel, France, Spain, Paraguay and more.
The winner has won a few of the races, he is from Uganda. No photos of me this time but a couple of the winner to show the nice sunny weather we still have, ha ha.

 
It's just now starting to get close to dipping below the 10 degrees mark.
We can moan about the humidity during the summer but the other side to that is today was the first day since sometime in April that I didn't wear shorts to work!

Banksy

Just a quick post to say that I seen the Banksy truck!
Banksy is doing this whole one piece per day thing around New York for the month of October. It's been mainly graffiti but he did this really funny and slightly scary "Sirens of the lambs" thing where he put stuffed animals in a slaughterhouse truck driven around town by "the farmer".

The video is so funny especially the kids reactions to the freaky sounding animals.



On one of my breaks at work I was standing at our front door getting cell phone service and some fresh air and I just happened to look up as the truck was passing. Of course the lights were green and by the time I got the camera to pop up on the phone it was away round the corner.

This is what it really looks like close-up:

 
It sent me back downstairs with a big smile on my face. I guess if you live in New York you shouldn't bury your head in your phone all the time as you miss all the cool stuff passing by.

Midnight at the pop-up shop

In celebration of the release of the new Pearl Jam album Heather and I attended the above pop-up shop on Monday night. I left work just after 10pm and we walked down Broadway, getting there just before 10.30pm. There was already a line! I mean I should've expected that but I thought we'd just rock up before midnight and it might be busy but...

So we waited and waited and just after midnight it opened and the line moved a little. They let about thirty people in and then every so often a few more when people left.

 
As we got closer everyone was watching the people coming out to see what they were getting. They were selling some limited edition t-shirts and also all the merchandise that is going on sale at the two Brooklyn gigs we are attending this weekend. So it was also a chance to get some stuff including the poster without having to worry about getting it at the gig itself.

In the end we got into the store around 1am and stayed 40mins. We got a couple of t-shirts each, the cd and one of the posters.

Don Pendleton, the artist who did the posters and all the artwork for the album was in attendance painting something similar to the poster artwork but everyone entering was told not to speak to the artist, ha ha, and he will not be signing anything!

When we left there were still just as many people in the line waiting to get in. I read a comment from one guy that was one of the last to leave the store at 3.30am!

It was a fun night, everyone was in an excited mood which made up for us not getting to bed until 3am.

Rock 'n' Roll

After last weekend's half marathon this Saturday it was the attempt at a sub-40 min 10K.

The (mildly overpriced but late substitution for the intended DC 10K) Rock 'n' Roll 10K in Brooklyn's Prospect Park. I got up in the dark around 6.20am for the early 7.30am start. I had decided to give baggage check a miss and just run over there ready to race in my kit with just a bottle of water in hand.

There was supposed to be around 7000 people so I thought things might be a bit hectic but I couldn't have been more wrong! In the end there were 'just' the 4111 finishers. I had the shortest line for a port-a-loo ever, probably because they had some beside the start as well as in the main gathering area where most of the other people were waiting. Then 15mins before the start I got into the coral to find much more space than a NYRR event and despite the 15 elite men and women at the very front I was in the second or third row of people from the start line!

There was a distinct lack of what I would say good club runners, a noticeable lack of running vests, more t-shirts, ha ha. I know the Staten Island Half Marathon was the following day and it is a NYRR qualifying event for the NY Marathon. Maybe people thought this was a slightly gimmicky event, I dunno.

I know the course like the back of my hand so set off fast knowing the slight uphill first mile was followed by a downhill 2nd and a flat 3rd and 4th. The 5th mile is a steady climb in the park, a killer hill for some people but the last mile is a gradual descent with the turn and last 1/4 mile to the finish.
Plus I'm getting used to going off faster than I ever used to, getting a better judge of pace too.

The weather was perfect. Ever so slightly cloudy, about 14 degrees with a mild breeze in places and because of the early start the sun didn't really come out until I was walking home.

My splits were about 6.32, 6.04, 6.09, 6.20, 6.45, 6.04, 1.13 for a finishing time of 39.12 (6.19 pace).
I finished in 36th place overall and when I logged in to see the results was pretty amazed to see I am apparently 2nd (out of 185) in the 40-44. The bad news was I was beaten by 1 second. ONE SECOND!!! According to the gun time he finished around 2mins behind me so it's not like I knew or we even sprinted it out or anything.

Good pic! Looking good... after 1.5M!

Not looking so good 30 secs after the finish

 The website says the marathon and half series they host give awards to the top 3 in each age group, by mail, 4-6 weeks after the event so fingers crossed they do it for the 10K too.
That would make the entry fee worth it, seeing as there wasn't even a bagel at the finish just bananas and apples and free chocolate milk. At least the t-shirt was a tech Brooks one albeit with an early 1990's style print.

So in the year of turning 40 that's a 10K PB (I've no idea how fast I ran as kid) to go along with PB's in the 5K, 10M and 1/2 Marathon. Very very mild disappointment at not cracking 39 now, or indeed being 2 seconds faster!

Next week is a cross-country 5K and then I'm taking it easy.