My first Thanksgiving

Thursday November 22nd was my very first Thanksgiving here. I started the day at 9am with a couple of thousand runners doing a 5 Mile race in Prospect park, one of many "Turkey Trots" going on around the USA.

 
Then straight home, showered and we raced off to Grand Central Station where we took a Metro North train about 70 miles north to the Connecticut border where some of Heather's friends have a lakeside house and had invited some friends for dinner. By the way, $49 for two return tickets shows why the trains are used so much here too.

Due to the time of year and lack of foliage the journey was quite cool, being able to see some more American towns and scenery. Some of the roadside rocks reminded me of the Inverness to Aviemore drive.

We got picked up from the station. The town had a nice little clock that when I showed Steve, he said made it look like something from Back to the Future, ha ha.

Ball Pond lake was quite small with houses of varying sizes dotted all around.

Looking across to where the house was

We had a wander down the garden to the water and I took a panoramic photo showing their nice little jetty. I hope to be invited back there in the summer so I can make use of their canoe.

Heather and I had a wander along the road while the cooks were busy and some of the houses were quite ridiculously large and a few had their Christmas decorations up already.

Then back for the main event:

Most of the food is just like our Christmas meal. Turkey, stuffing, sweet potato but in some nice bourbon sauce, brussels sprouts etc. It was more the desserts that were a first for me, pecan pie and a sweet potato pie that was actually really nice.
The company was interesting. As the owner was Heather's piano teacher when she grew up in Hawaii, their friends were slightly older too. I'll have to wait for next year to take part in the traditional television viewing of the NFL Thanksgiving games as this crowd were more into theatre, ha ha. But everyone was super nice and as usual there is always someone eager to tell you about their Scottish ancestry, which normally happens to sound more like Ireland instead.
The tiring part was the train home, getting to sleep around 2am and then going in for work the next day which was the infamous shopping day Black Friday and was incredibly busy for a few hours.

Fred Lebow XC

Now that it's into Winter it's cross country season and I spotted a 5K XC away up in Van Cortland Park in the Bronx. In the true tradition of cross country it was only $15 to enter so on November 18th we set off on a 1 hour and 45 minute journey for a race that lasted under 22 minutes!
With weekend subway work this meant a shuttle bus to the nearest subway stop that was open and then three separate trains all the way up to 242nd street, the furthest north I have set foot in New York City.

There was a field of about 250 and the course was some grass then some gravel paths up through some little hills. It was only 7 degrees but sunny and little wind, maybe with some rain it would've been a bit more like proper cross country conditions but I did enjoy competing in shorts and t-shirt in the middle of November!

The small field made a nice change from the thousands that have been in most of the other races I've done here. Maybe it was the location, the fact it was cross country or the fact for your $15 you get... a cup of water at the finish. Excellent.
Souvenirs are nice but when it costs $50 to run a local 5K it kinda makes you think twice entering.

I'm working!

After receiving my work permit a couple of weeks ago I had been looking and applying for a couple of jobs. Heather had suggested getting back in touch with the REI store, the one I had to turn down the job offer a few weeks ago, to see if they had any openings. I resisted because they had nothing showing on their website but after about 10 days of reminders I left a voicemail.
And Heather LOVES telling this story of how the guy called back that day and told me they were really busy and did in fact need to take on board some more part time staff and could I start tomorrow! So November 9th was my first day of work in the USA.

REI is an outdoor sports store. The SoHo store in NYC is in the Puck Building which was apparently the exterior for something in Will & Grace but more known for it's initial use as a printing works and REI has kept the original large water wheel and stone lithographs on the exposed brick walls which is pretty cool for visitors. The store is set over three floors but I am limited to the footwear department, ha ha. They have different zones so footwear covers that along with hats, gloves and socks.

One of the biggest benefits is that it is "only" a 40 minute commute involving no train transfers. I must be used to being a New Yorker when I consider 40 minutes good, especially compared to my previous under 10 minute commute back home in Scotland.

REI is national and also a co-op, so we are expected to sell their memberships which are actually a good purchase being only $20 for a lifetime of discounts. The staff seem super nice and obviously outdoorsy and cover all different ages. The customers have been nice enough so far with a massive variety what with the store location and being in NYC there are lots of tourists. I've served a few from Australia, a few people that recently visited Scotland, one guy that worked with Simple Minds in the 80's, one guy that played the Trump golf course in Aberdeen in August and the usual characters that love to chat.... for 30 minutes, exactly like The Running Shop, except I just don't recognise these people yet in order to avoid them.

The parts I'm finding it harder to adjust to are the hours. Different shifts such as 8am to 4.30pm and then this week some later ones such as 1.30pm to 9.30pm. I don't enjoy the getting home late.
And this week especially on Black Friday and the Thanksgiving Saturday weekend it was so busy for some parts that it's difficult to do anything other than get and give shoes to customers. Certainly not the one-to-one running shoe analysis that I'm used to

.....but then I got a paycheck!!

So close yet so far

After the postponement of the Brooklyn Nets basketball first ever home regular season game during the week the rescheduled game went ahead on Saturday.

One of Heather's friends was coming into Brooklyn from New Jersey to see her and we went out for dinner. Her husband is French and his parents and cousin just happened to be visiting from France and they all had tickets for this game which was cheaper as it was against poorer opposition and would initially have been game two of the season so they got real lucky with that!
So we met her outside the stadium and in a funny situation I got to travel on a subway and stand outside while all the fans piled into the arena for the game.... while we met and went for a burger.

Then I got to stand outside the arena and watch the last minute of the game on the giant scoreboard which you can see from outside due the the sunken design of the court and see all the fans exit while we waited for her family to come out.

They all had their "I was there for opening night" t-shirts on and I got to see the issue No.1 Marvel comic style programme before handing it back :-(

Pretty cool but kinda disappointing to be so close to this (I'm guessing) historic action but yet to be standing literally watching from the outside!

The Aftermath

A couple of days after Hurricane Sandy, they restored power to parts of the subway. For us, this meant we could get to downtown Brooklyn by subway and then catch a shuttle bus into Manhattan. For once, I was glad I wasn't working yet and Heather's work had no power so at least we didn't have to join the rush hour(s) commute as apparently the long lines for buses and time spent in congested traffic meant some people were saying allow up to FOUR hours to get into Manhattan from Brooklyn.

©Brownstoner

©Brownstoner

We waited until Friday mi-morning and ventured into Manhattan to visit the New York Marathon Expo. Apart from the buses being packed to capacity there was no real wait and they had separated bus lanes across the bridges purely for these buses so we moved reasonably quick.

The Expo was massive and rammed with runners from all over the world and although neither if us were taking part it was still good to wander the stands and sample the giveaways!

To get home we decided to catch a regular bus further downtown and then we got off and ran down the west side a little and along Canal Street through Chinatown. This was all in the area of Manhattan still without power and as this particular street is normally one of the most congested at all times of the day and night it was spooky to see it eerily quiet. There were only a couple of tourist gift shops  using the available daylight to open.

We ran over the Manhattan Bridge and then once back in Brooklyn hopped on the subway home.
Something else I'm not used to is being in an apartment where you have no control over the heat in the building. We can't really complain considering the situation of so many people in NY & NJ, but our heating is not on yet so it is freezing inside our apartment, I've never worn so much clothing to bed before!

As the MTA carried on with their cleanup they posted some photos and this one taken around the South Street Seaport area shows how high the water level reached.

©MTA

And then there were the photos of all the garage forecourts and the stories of people waiting hours for gas both in cars and with gas cans.

Even after the buildup of people commenting (negatively) on the fact that the New York Marathon was still going ahead it was still a shock to hear it was cancelled especially after we just came back from the Expo that day and with the vast majority of runners already here or on their way.

In the end, the amount of negative publicity (mainly online) that the Marathon organisers and runners themselves were receiving forced them (Mayor Bloomberg) into cancelling the race at that very very late stage. I'm not going to comment on some of the frankly stupid comments some people (obviously non-runners) were making but in the end nearly 1000 runners turned up at the Staten Island ferry to go over and help out there on race day. While A few thousand also turned up at Central Park and did various distances in the park also raising money for the Red Cross and no doubt their own charities.

©Saucony

Hurricane Sandy

Well, that passed through then! Luckily where we are situated, at just about the tallest point in Brooklyn, we were never going to be at risk from any flooding. Although we just had to wait and see as regards power and water and INTERNET. Oh my god, the internet!

Heather has been through a couple of real bad storms while living on Hawaii but I had no clue what to expect. I ventured out on Sunday to grab a couple of extra things like some matches and bread and water, etc. I would have got more but the lines in the local stores put me off!

It started off with the wind just building later on during the day but already people were posting pictures of trees downed in the neighbourhood.

This was about ten hours before the hurricane was even scheduled to hit land!
But it was Monday that it was supposed to get a lot worse. Luckily we have a new couch to "hunker down" on, that seemed to be the phrase of the day everywhere I looked.

But apart from a few flickering lights and our four storey building swaying a little when the wind picked up, we were very lucky. Some of Heather's friends all over the city didn't have it so good. A couple had their homes flooded and others lost power.

We followed the news on television, and Twitter was really good for getting instant updates especially around Brooklyn. We watched the video and seen the pictures of the power transformer thing blowing up in midtown Manhattan.

That caused practically the whole of lower Manhattan to go dark. From about 34th street downwards. So I jumped off the couch and looked out our window to see, it was a bit freaky to see as normally there are obviously so many lights from the buildings in the distance.

Not our photo, but gives you an idea of what it looked like from even closer.
The stories on the news about the water levels were weird because we could see that it wasn't exactly pouring rain outside so it's freaky to think of the hurricane winds combined with a full moon/high tide pushing the water in from so far off the coast.

To see pictures of places I know so well gave me an instant picture of how far in the water was coming. This was the carousel I've pictured before, down by Brooklyn Bridge Park.

Just before bed we looked out the side window to see the sky lit up similar to the video of the transformer blowing up, it looked like sheet lightning that was permanently on for a minute. There is a power station of some kind a few blocks away so I don't know what that powers?

This morning we seen the news pictures of the houses destroyed by fire and the tunnels filled with water and felt extremely fortunate to escape so relatively untouched.

See the height sign!

We went out this morning for a walk and there were a lot of businesses open. I guess unlike for Manhattan stores, a lot of people here live locally. It did have a slight feel of Christmas or New Year about it, with people happy to get out of the house for a walk and some fresh air. Plus like us people obviously wanted to see the damage done!
Apart from a lot of bits of trees on the pavement and some shops missing their awnings it seemed okay. There were a couple of downed trees on cars and up at Prospect Park there was a big clean up operation going on.

Then of course, the subways are closed. Because of that, like a lot of people Heather is off work and the MTA aren't sure yet when things are likely to reopen. The New York City Marathon is this coming weekend and I wanted to go to the Marathon Expo this week, partly out of interest and partly I was trying to get some work there. At least I'm not one of the thousands of runners attempting to travel to the city to take part.

Washington DC / Army Ten Miler

Last Friday morning we took the BoltBus (approx 4½ hours) from New York to Washington DC in order to run the Army Ten Miler.

I've visited DC once before for a weekend and if you didn't know, DC itself is actually quite small in size. This means it's easy to get around using the Metro but because it's quite expensive in "the city" most ordinary people live just outside which happens to be different states, Maryland and Virginia. So we actually stayed across the Potomac River in Virginia.

On the Friday we visited.... a shopping mall. One of the main cultural landmarks of Washington, NOT.

But we went back to the same store we went to in 2009 on my very first trip with Heather and they had the same cardboard Obama they had back then when he was running for President. This time I did get a photo with him though.

He's much flatter in real life

And this dick

Then it was on to the Armory where the race expo and packet pickup was. As well as the exhibitors inside, the Army also had a few stands outside and some equipment such as this helicopter! It made for a great photo as the sun was just setting.

Then on the way back we got off the train on a random part of the city that sounded like it was central-ish and used the iPhone to google "pizza" and found this great place a couple of blocks away that served pizza pies, with pie being the operative word.

Not sure if I like the tomato on top of everything. I like to see the toppings so I can look forward to eating them! Rather than it being a surprise when I get a bit of sausage or whatever.
We found we were actually round the corner from Fords Theatre where Lincoln was shot. Then we grabbed some self serve frozen yoghurt and endured the walk up the tallest, slowest escalator in the world at our Metro stop.

On Saturday we decided to take a look at the Capitol Bikeshare system they have here. There was a dock right across the road from the hotel and it was only $7 for a 24hr membership.

There are over 175 stations across the area and after downloading the phone app it was easy to see where they were and how many spaces/bikes were available. We started on the middle left (11) and headed across the bridge into the Georgetown area.

The trips were free for up to 30mins and then $2 up to 60mins and so on. So in true Aberdonian style we made sure we got those bikes docked within the 30min timeframe. A couple of times we walked about a bit but one time we literally docked the bike then took it straight back out again in order to make a longer journey with a fresh 30mins, ha ha.

The Georgetown area is so nice. Like a couple of the other American cities (not New York) I've visited, the streets and buildings seem so clean, the brickwork on most buildings makes it look like it was just built. Maybe I'm just used to the grey granite of Aberdeen and the other much older buildings around the UK. Although I just read that that the oldest unchanged building in DC, a stonehouse in Georgetown, was built 270 years after Aberdeen university was founded!

Look, we cycled along the canal path for a bit, just like Inverness!

It is obviously heavily university orientated as the busy Saturday shopping streets we landed in consisted of Abercrombie & Fitch, Hollister, Jack Wills, All Saints and preppy bars called things like "Rugby".
So we quickly exited onto a side street and I got to see some of the local houses. They looked expensive and the streets looked so good in the Fall with the colour of the trees.

 

 
It's definitely an area I'd go back and visit. We hadn't really planned out anything in particular before coming down. What with it being the day before the race, I was worried a day of cycling and walking and all that  fresh air would tire me out, what with me being a super highly tuned athlete and all that.
Then back on the bikes, down the hill onto the waterfront.

We were going to head back over the river to the hotel but once we realised the bridge was basically behind the Lincoln Monument, it really is a small city, we raced along Constitution Avenue, where we did a u-turn in order to see this really cool statue of Einstein.

After an early dinner we took the Metro back to our hotel area but upon exiting, walked the opposite way, crossing main roads in the near dark didn't feel that safe but we wanted to see the famous Iwo Jima monument. It was brightly lit up on one side and looked amazing under the darkening skies. The monument was massive too, much larger than I'd expected.

Sunday morning was race day. The race started at 8am so I was up at 6am. I was worried I wouldn't get my regular race day porridge & bagel/toast as the hotel didn't serve food until 6.30am.
Heather had been ill in the run up to the race and got a bit worse again a few days before so decided not to run. She has done the event a few times before but that didn't make her feel any better about it, probably worse. Luckily there was a Starbucks outside the hotel that opened at 6am so while I showered and prepared my good wife made a porridge run for me!

The location of the hotel was excellent, the Metro stop was a 5min walk and only two stops to the Pentagon where the race started. It was funny to go down the stairs onto the platform to see hundreds of runners lined up waiting for the train and obviously the train full of runners that arrived on the platform.

It's the third largest 10 mile race in the world and there were just under 22,000 finishers. Minus the 1-150 "elite" runners, I was in the first coral of numbers 1-4000. I desperately needed to pee but when I seen the lines for the portaloos and the fact I had to be in my coral in 10mins time I just made my way through the other corals to get to mine.

this amount of loos ÷ 22,000 people = ?

With 15mins to go, they had a high ranking Army guy reading something on the sound system about the troops and the amount of wounded warriors taking part. Nearly everyone stopped and there was near silence. I was still making my way to the start but stopped with everyone else but after a minute I noticed there were still people using the loos and the sound of the doors continually banging closed so I pressed on towards my coral, trying hard to forget how much better I'd feel if I could only pee.

Once the gun cannon went, the start was the worst part for being crowded while running, the half dozen guys who ran off into the bushes to pee didn't make it any quieter. You are kind of stuck running on whatever part/side of the road you decided to start. Once we got up onto the bridge it widened out. I was glad I was that far up though, I can't imagine how bad it is further down the field, although you would get to see more of the wounded warrior guys taking part. I only passed one on the course and it was good to see some other runners clapping them and shouting encouragement and thanks.

Heather had taken my gear and was going back on the Metro to around mile 6 where the runners loop around and come back past again, so she could see me out on course. Can you tell in these pics that I spotted her?

All this unemployment has enabled me to do some consistent training and I was aiming ideally for 7minute mile pace for a 1hour 10 finish but was prepared to accept up to 7minute 30secs in the event it was warm or I didn't feel at good at the uncommon time of 6am, etc.
In the end, I don't think I've felt as good in a race for ages. The weather was perfect, around 11 or 12 degrees and a very light cool breeze. I kind of just ran how I felt and this meant around 7.05 pace and then I picked it up for the last 4 miles. So I ran faster for the second half and did around 6mins 36secs for the last mile. I felt strong at the finish and it makes me wonder how much harder I could've pushed from further out?

Straight through the finish area, grabbed my finishers "coin"

 
and to the toilet for that much needed pee. Then got some water, a bagel, a muffin, a cereal bar, a cookie and, oh that's it.

The only downside was I couldn't find Heather afterwards so I just made my way back on the Metro to the hotel and we met up there. Then I gorged on a Quiznos steak sandwich and on the 10min rest stop on the bus I had a tasty greasy pizza stromboli (a first for me but I'll be on the look out for those now).

Nice, but not at $30

Then to finish off a good weekend, when we got home my work permit card was in the mailbox!
So apart from the last few days where I have been moving stuff around the apartment and then taking delivery and assembling an Ikea sofa I shall be getting on the job scene asap.