When I finally rolled out of bed this morning it was 10am, and I felt like a lazy mope... until I realized of course that it was 7am on home time, and I wasn't too far off on my body clock. I took a 10 block walk to get some breakfast and a coffee, and to gather my bearings a little better than last night.
I worked until about 2:30 in the afternoon, I've got a pretty good t-mobile wireless connection, but the gotomypc remote login system is a bit of a hassle in some ways - my computer uses Alt+Tab to switch between programs on my laptop, but when I'm in gotomypc looking at my work screen, I really wish I could switch between programs without having to mouse down to the tabs at the bottom. Anyway, I added my value for the day I think, and boss later acknowledged so through email so I'm happy.
When I came back from my breakfast walk, I took the elevator up to the fitness area to scope out what I'd have in store after a few hours of work left me all pent up to burn some energy... and the answer wasn't quite what I had hoped. They've got 6 gay-machines (crosstrainers), 6 treadmills, a couple of weight machines, and one recumbent bike. Not up Bakke's alley. I decide to make what I can of my workout outfit and head outside for a run... I've been doing a few sessions on the treadmill at work so I'll have a little range before getting sore. Running at just above zero with shorts on? Much more Canadian.
I layer on what I can since it's only about 35 degrees. I start with 2 layers of socks, some ankle gym socks and my warm ski socks I wore on the plane when I saw it was like -20C a couple days ago. I only have shorts, so I throw on underwear that are like bike shorts covering my quads, a pair of bike shorts, and regular outer shorts. This actually ends up working well and keeps my leg muscles warm the whole time. I wear a bike jersey so I can stuff things in the pockets, a white t-shirt, and a black long sleeve Arc'Teryx ski sweater that was a FirstEnergy ski day gift one year. The black leather gloves and black toque that I leave in the pockets of my overcoat complete the makeshift running outfit. I bring a plastic bag that I was going to put to block wind on my chest in between my layers if the wind was really cold. Grab the iPod and a few bucks and head out.
I don't really have any idea of my range, other than that I plan to head back when my legs get tired and sore. I set a slow base miles type pace to hopefully extend my sightseeing range. I start going north up both Lexington and Park. I can feel Capital, with a capital "C" in the air. JP MorganChase, Citi, UBS, Bear Stearns, Bank of America, etc. all have offices within a block of each other. Citigroup and Bank of America are the two largest public banks in the US, and just this one block of offices represent over a trillion dollars of market capitalization... and I know there's lots of others nearby (eg. Blackstone) or guys without their name on the front of a building. Smartly Audi, Mercedes and Ferrari all have dealerships on the ground floors to help soak up some of that bonus pool money. I'm actually surprised at how many Porches and Ferraris are driving around, to me an ultra-rich appropriate car in NY is a Rover, Benz or a Bentley. You don't really have an opportunity to drive fast, a luxury sedan or SUV in my opion would smooth out the bumps a little more on that rigorous commute from the Upper East Side loft down to the trading desk.
I make my way north and cut into Central Park about half way up. I snap a few tourist shots and ask for someone to take a snapshot of me while running around the reservoir. Scotty Bratt (one of my athletic co-workers) and I did a little running date here last year, it's a pretty scenic place for a cruise. Something about running in New York seems to necessitate me listening to Sting & The Police... most of his music is thoughtful, liberal and urbane. Everyone here is friendly, people who make eye contact smile. It feels nice that everyone is hospitable. I cross the park over to the Upper West Side, and make my way to the north end of the park.
I'm not tired yet, so I decide to jog through Harlem. A decade or more back I understand this would have been a fairly poor decision, but I understand that Harlem has come a long way lately. I turn right and head east, and even though I'm 45 minutes in and 67 blocks north of my start, I take my first left and keep heading north. If I peter out quickly I can take a train or cab back I figure. Plus I'm intrigued, I hadn't ever made it to Harlem yet in my various NY explorations, and have always wanted to. I run up Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd, and see lots of stores that sell things I don't need - hair extensions, hair braiding, fake nails, tatoos, liquor stores, and some delicious smelling fried chicken place that undoubtedly would have a negative impact on my cholesterol levels. There weren't a lot of white dudes jogging up this way, but as it turns out, my jogging outfit was acually fairly appropriate for the day... Harlem had a few joggers, most looked more like the boxer types doing their roadwork (I'm not stereotyping, the jab combos while jogging gave this away). If I had Everlast across my chest I'd fit right in, but the black toque black shirt thing seemed to be what everyone wore. I had Jurassic5 to help me keep my pace up, the body easily adopts the beat it's listening to. The people certainly changed from Central Park and South. I noticed that instead of me smiling at people and having my smiles returned, I was being smiled at first and therefore owed the return smile. Not knowing the first thing about Harlem, that wasn't what I expected. Old dudes with canes, guys loading trucks, teenagers on the street, etc. would smile at me first, and I could never tell if it was just "hey man what's up" or "what's this kid running around here for?" but I didn't care, it was nice either way. I passed a butt-ugly looking brick building with an asphalt playground that served as a high school, sure didn't look very educationally inspirational. I was heading east, and didn't want to go further north until I saw Marcus Garvey park while crossing 5th Ave on East 120th. The park was a rocky knob of a hill, and I wanted to climb it for a hill workout and a good view south. I took a few pictures from the south end of the plateau, and walked across to the north end of the plateau that was fenced off as closed and had a few dudes... uhh... just sorta hanging out and doing their business. They didn't seem to interested in me, but I did have a momentary lapse of judgement. I like to jump onto walls and such to work on my vertical and balance, and the plateau was surrouned by a wall that was about 4 feet tall, with an A shaped crown so water wouldn't pool on it. I jumped onto it without bracing my hands on it, just landing with my feet so I could stand up smoothly. Fortunately the leap turned out fine, but I did startle myself a bit... when I climbed up the south end of the plateau, the same wall was there and below it was just a grassy hill. On this end I was suddenly looking down at a 3 story drop to jagged rocks. My heart rate was too low on the run anyway and needed a little jolt. I left the SE corner of the park where the 7 year old kids were better basket ball players than I've ever been. It's weird seeing kids that size hitting jump shots from anywhere a meter or two below the 3 point line. I seem to recall jr. high gym class there were enough kids who couldn't keep their eyes on the freakin' ball even during 3 on 3 that someone would eventually get a ball right in the face when they weren't watching for a pass.
As I returned south, Dr. Octagon (The Instrumentalyst: Octagon Beats) kept me company. I wasn't hungry or tired, but tempo did help me focus on sighseeing and just making the legs do their thing. There was a good 6 blocks of apartment buildings between Park and Lexington that were clearly marked as projects - emblems on the buildings that said "Owned by the New York Property Authority" confirmed the fact if you couldn't figure it out first by the local citizenry. Lots of tasty looking Mexican/Spanish Cochinas everywhere, and man did they ever smell tasty. Running 75 more blocks with a giant burrito in my stomach didn't seem like something I wanted to experiment with though. Eventually I made it back down into the Upper East Side, where the food markets looked a little more expensive and the fruits on display looked a little more choice and nicely waxed. Despite how good they looked, I held out till about 10 blocks from "home" back in Murray Hill to duck into one and pick up my afternoon snack, I didn't want to carry it too far back to the hotel. In a place that was no more than 10 feet wide, I bought a black bean soup and a tuna empanada from a Chilean woman who had 8 soups made from scratch daily. Something just looked right about the place. It reminded me of a co-worker of mine who frequently dreams out loud of opening up his "soup kitchen" somewhere, someday. Probably one of the smarter plans I've heard as of late. The people I was crowded in with were all complimenting Marina on her soups, and said they'd be back next weekend for a whole pot when they had company over. She made them happy, they made her some money. I hustled home, stopped into a Starbucks around the corner from the hotel for a tea, and hurried up to the room to feast.
So 124th Street was as far north as I made it, which was a full 81 blocks north of the hotel, plust I ventured east/west about 7 blocks. Elapsed time was 2.5 hours, and I didn't really feel sore until I walked the last couple blocks as cool down. My training has focused on low end aerobic capacity and strength, so my muscles, ligaments and bones felt really up to the task today. It was fun to tour through Harlem a bit, I've always wanted to. My soup and empanada were delicious, so now it's chill out time till the corporate dinner at 8:30.
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