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.

Paine to Pain

A Sunday day out!
I was running the Paine to Pain Trail Half marathon so we hired a zipcar car for the day and took off for New Rochelle at 7am. It only took us about 50 minutes to get there and it's always good to see more of the suburbs rather than just the city itself.

The race field was around 700 runners and with the High School as the start/finish location it brought back memories of local Scottish races rather than the other larger races I've been used to lately.
Parking in the lot, walking round the (very posh looking) school to the registration area, finishing the race on the school running track and getting a shower in the locker rooms, the local race feel is so much nicer, must be the comfort factor!

New Rochelle High School

The local houses were on the large side too:

The day was a little drizzly, a bit grey but also unfortunately (for me) a teensy bit humid. Which as well as the sweat running down my head meant my prescription eyewear misted up in the corners which for a trail race where you need to see the ground was mildly annoying at times.

You can read about the history of the race here but basically it is 90% off road on forest trails, on recently linked trail paths covering a handful of New York counties with a slight historical link.
No real climbs at all but very undulating, about 700ft of climb & descent. I've come to the conclusion, I prefer the climbs although it's really on the descents I make up time.

Each wave was started with a guy dressed in colonial clothing using his musket. The race organiser in the little pre-race briefing as well as informing us of the slippy wooden bridges told us the musket was 200 years old and in this weather could misfire. True enough, it just clicked, we laughed and held steady for a few seconds more before the proper blast let us go.

you looking at me?

I was in wave 1 of 4 and it started with a 1/4 mile drag uphill helping to spread out the field before we hit the trail. In true American style the road was lined with the high school cheerleaders encouraging us to "L-E-T-S G-O, LETS GO".

I settled into a steady pace and after the first 3 or 4 miles the field had sorted itself out and it was the usual situation where you see a couple of people, around the corner, through the trees up ahead then when you pass a few spectators you hear the clapping for the people behind you a few seconds after you pass by them.

At mile 6

It is hard going on your own for that long. I had a couple of tight shoulder moments and knew I didn't feel quite as good as May's half marathons but training has been more geared for the 10K with a few long runs thrown in.
They didn't have many mile markers, maybe just 3 but at the 11M marker I passed the marshall at the side and he said 19th position. Behind me I could hear him say 20 & 21 to the next two guys still in earshot so I decided I wanted a top 20 finish and did a Mo Farah and went for home 2 miles out!
It worked and I came past the cheerleaders and onto the track for the 3/4 lap to the finish well ahead of the next runners.

I finished in just over 1hour 34 mins, 7.12 pace and finished 20th (there was one faster runner in wave 2) out of the 638 finishers and 5th out of the 154 aged 40-49'ers.
It was a pretty tough race for me mainly due to the distance and concentration required as well as the course not really having any climbs to slow you down or downhill to relax on.

The finish area on the track was good, the weather was a bit grey but still warm enough to hang about a bit sampling the free goodies. I had a cookie, half a banana, a small bagel with some peanut butter on top, a carton of coconut water, a smoothie sample and a small donut, ha ha.

Heather took her bike and had a little jaunt round the neighbourhood while I ran. One of the funny pics she took was of this road:

I doubt it sits at the mouth of the River Ness.

My work, albeit another REI, was a mini sponsor so I chatted with Dave the outdoor/outreach guy who had his little table with Powergel giveaways.

Two other little notes about the race were that there were 4 guys who ran the entire course beforehand at dawn with headlamps, jeez.
And more interesting was the first 2 runners were slightly ahead of the 3rd placed guy but within the last couple of miles they went the wrong way! Apparently the 3rd placed guy shouted at them, ran to the finish and then stepped aside just before crossing the line, waited until the first two finished then walked over the line in 3rd. Needless to say he won some kind of sportsmanship award.

As we had the car for the day we had to make the most of it and I don't think I've ever had a post-race recovery like this before. Not since the last time we did the same anyway!

We drove 10 miles to a famous-ish grocery store, cause I love food. Stew Leonards was made out like a farm style supermarket complete with some petting animals round the back and plenty of stuff to keep us the kids entertained as you go round.

Yes, you could indeed press the button and watch her do the banana dance. I bought a sausage loaf that I ate for lunch at work 3 days in a row and we got a free ice cream!

Then we drove back to our storage unit in Dumbo and from our loaded up car, unloaded all our summer clothing, took it up and spent nearly an hour tidying up our unit and coming back to the car with all our winter clothing.

Then back into Manhattan for a quick errand........ then back to Brooklyn and to Target to get some big items like toilet paper and cans of juice. Have I mentioned how I sometimes miss having a car?

Of course then we had to take everything up the stairs to our 4th floor apartment, OMG.
By the time I'd showered (again) we sat down for some pizza around 7pm. We took the car back around 9.15pm and after the 15 min walk home I could enjoy my cheesecake!

4 in a week

As it turns to Fall here, it also seems to be gig season for us. Got a few more coming up that I'm looking forward to but we started last Friday with a trip to the local Barclays arena to see Vampire Weekend.
They sounded great, the set was really clever with a mirror behind the band that reflected the crowd near the front. We also noticed the crowd seemed a little bit collegiate and some were very young indeed. Let's just say there were a lot of guys with baseball caps on backwards.

The very next night we went into Manhattan to see the Stereophonics. Tickets were only $25 for this one. We weren't that enthused about going but again, a smaller venue and they sounded really good. They've gotta be pretty unknown in America so this time the place was full of Brits I guess, with probably New York's Welsh contingent. A couple of Welsh flags and some rowdy folk, at one point there were guys on each others shoulders, three tall!

So that was two late nights where I didn't get to sleep until after 2am and then I ran the Fifth Avenue Mile on the Sunday morning. In some ways I was lucky it was just a mile!

Tuesday night we went to a new venue. The Skirball Centre at NYU (New York University) to see KT Tunstall. It was a really plush small theatre with American width seats, ha ha, I've never sat in theatre seats that wide. All the tickets were the same price but I must have got in there early because, and I'd forgotten this, that we were at the very front, in the centre.

The set was much better than I thought considering the new album is more mellow. But she has good banter with the crowd before every song and does that whole one-woman band thing where she plays sounds like her hand drumming on the guitar or the crowd clapping, recording it, then looping it in the background while she plays the song.

On the second last song, as the lights dimmed, she threw her guitar pick in to the crowd and it kind of fluttered into our row but we couldn't see it. Then as the gig finished she bowed and walked along the front and high-fived our half of the crowd, starting with me!
Then when the house lights came back on and we picked up our bags, we only only went and found her guitar pick (Heather has never heard the word plectrum) under our bags!

The very next night a friend had managed to get tickets to a special album launch gig by Tired Pony in a Housing Works Bookstore, luckily round the corner from work. I left work around 9.50pm and they opened the doors just after 10pm.
I was expecting at least a kind of small hall or a cleared space but it was indeed just a bookshop!
A different type of gig for me and it was amazing. Gary Lightbody mentioned how he loved R.E.M. growing up and how it was amazing enough to play with Peter Buck in the group but even better as he brought up Mike Mills from the crowd to do vocals on one song.
As he left the stage he brushed right past us and then we glanced over and he was only standing at the back beside Michael Stipe!

At the end of the gig Heather asked the nearby guitar tech if she could have his set list. He said he normally keeps them but he gave it to her. Complete with guitar tunings for each song.