Warwick Ford's blog for runners in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and many other US cities
At long last New York Road Runners has received approval for the Brooklyn Half Marathon route and announced that registration will open at 12 pm on Monday March 26. This is a hugely popular event and expectations are that it will fill up within 24 hours. Sign up quickly and plan to enjoy this unique event with a great party after.
The New York City Parks Department has announced plans to pave with asphalt and almost double the width of the Old Putnam Trail. This proposal has raised protests from many of the trail’s users. It is an 8-feet wide 1.5-mile long trail, currently earth surfaced, linking the heart of Van Cortlandt Park to Westchester County. Over 1.5 acres of trees and natural bush would be destroyed in the City’s plan.
An alternative proposal is to resurface the trail with stone dust and keep the width unchanged – a much less costly and more environmentally friendly proposal.
We at Fun on Foot support this alternative proposal. Read more about this issue and our reasons for supporting the alternative at www.funonfoot.com/article1201.html
All running clubs in the New York City region, Philadelphia region, Boston region or New Jersey are invited to add or update listings in our club directories on www.funonfoot.com. Please advise website URL plus 1-to-2 sentences about your club for our listing. Email your details to info@funonfoot.com
Check existing listings at these links:
- New York City region clubs www.funonfoot.com/nycclubs.html
- Philadelphia region clubs www.funonfoot.com/phclubs.html
- Boston region clubs www.funonfoot.com/bosclubs.html
- New Jersey clubs www.funonfoot.com/njclubs.html
Please pass this message on to your contacts who are running club officers.
We have released a new free tool for New York runners to plan long training run routes. Download it at www.funonfoot.com/newyork.html. This is a 2-page color PDF map covering the best interlinked trails, paths, and quality sidewalk routes in all five NYC boroughs, with all segment mileages.
Examples of routes you might quickly come up with are:
- George Washington Bridge to South Ferry 11.2 miles
- George Washington Bridge to Liberty State Park 15.5 miles
- City Hall to Bay Ridge 12.5 miles
- Alley Pond Park to Flushing Meadows Corona Park 6.1 miles
- Coney Island to Far Rockaway 14.9 miles
We welcome all suggestions for improvement.
If you have even the remotest interest in running the New York City Marathon in the next couple of years now is the time to act. If you already qualify for 2012, go ahead and enter since applications just opened. If you do not qualify, go ahead and enter for the ballot, but do not hold your breath since the ballot win likelihood is shrinking every year. Another way you can get into 2012 is to become an active member of a NYC running club – clubs get some marathon slots and just might help you. Join now.
Most importantly though, and often overlooked, is that you can easily get a guaranteed entry into 2013 by simply running nine NYRR qualifying races in 2012 plus volunteering once. However, to use this path you MUST join NYRR before January 31, 2012. Act now to join NYRR at a modest fee if you have any possible interest in running in 2013 and you do not qualify otherwise.
The popular Hudson River trail in Manhattan ends at the George Washington Bridge, with a continuation along the Henry Hudson Parkway to emerge near the west end of Dyckman Street. Not far away, in the Bronx, there are many excellent trails in or connecting to Van Cortlandt Park. We have been researching connections between these two trail systems and believe we have now nailed the best one. This trail will allow you to connect from the Manhattan Hudson River trail to the New York Botanical Garden, Pelham Bay Park, Yonkers and points further north in Westchester County.
The on-foot distance from Dyckman Street and Broadway to the Van Cortlandt Park Nature Center is 3.4 miles, of which 0.5 mile is on pedestrian/bike paths and the rest are on (mostly quiet and pedestrian-friendly) street sidewalks.
The Manhattan end of this trail connects to Fun on Foot routes MH3 (Upper Hudson River and the Cloisters) and MH8 (Harlem Parks Corridor). The Bronx end connects to routes BX1 (Van Cortlandt Park), BX2 (Van Cortlandt to Botanical Garden) and BX8 (Van Cortlandt to Yonkers). Both ends are convenient to subway stations and food-beverage establishments. Therefore, there are some good options here for creating longer routes with a pleasant wind-down place and/or a subway ride back to where you started.
This connecting route is described in our new article, available free at www.funonfoot.com/article1102.html. Enjoy and please provide your feedback!
It was a fantastic event, as always. Over 47,000 people this year, making their way from the Staten Island end of the Verrazano Bridge 26.2 miles through cheering crowds in the other four boroughs to the finish in Central Park. The weather was perfect this year, with no risk of precipitation and pleasant temperatures throughout.
I finished it, albeit with a very poor time (my worst ever). However, recalling that six months ago I could not run a step owing to an Achilles tear, my finish brought enormous satisfaction.
Nola was not so fortunate – a new injury forced her to not start. She deserves the most respect, having done all the hard work training but being denied the ultimate satisfaction.
My main memories are of the cheering squad of my team, the Reservoir Dogs, at the 19-mile mark and the fantastic celebratory party we had Sunday night despite seriously painful legs and a still-nonfunctional NYC taxi system.
Congratulations to all finishers, all supporters (especially the Reservoir Dogs and Mercury Masters squads), and all like Nola who deserved a start but had fate intervene.
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We are one week away from the New York City Marathon. For those of us running, it is time to virtually wrap up our training and enjoy that nice taper week where we can give more attention to resting and carb-loading than we do to pounding our feet. For those of us planning our last longish training run for yesterday (Saturday) we received a rude shock. We were treated to a vicious winter storm with strong winds, frigid temperatures, and, would you believe it – inches of snow.
I had been planning a ten-mile, marathon-pace run but, choosing discretion instead of valor, decided to do my gym workout Saturday instead and postpone the run. Good choice. Today Nola and I ran a pleasant 10 miles along the Hudson, in cold, but otherwise friendly conditions.
What looks particularly attractive, so far, is the weather forecast for marathon day, November 6 – no precipitation, a high of 64 degrees F and a low of 49. You cannot ask for any better than that. Life is so much easier when we don’t have to prepare for nasty environmental conditions at Ford Wadsworth. Of course, forecasts do not always follow through their promise but we can cross our fingers.
I wish all marathoners good luck and a memorable run in the amazing NYC Marathon, and thank all spectators in anticipation of their marvelous support.
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The Staten Island Half Marathon was run on Sunday. The course takes the runners from the stadium near the St. George ferry terminal, along the streets to Fort Wadsworth, south about two miles to South Beach, and then turns around to return to the start mostly reversing the outbound route.
It is a quite tough route, with several hills and no shade. This year, the weather was a lot warmer than normal, with the temperature in the 70s throughout. I ran the race this year and, at the finish, felt zapped of energy and dissatisfied with my performance, thanks to the course and the weather. I heard of similar feelings from many runners. Nola was even less satisfied, struggling with a leg injury throughout the race.
One valuable aspect of this race for NYC Marathoners in training is that it helps condition runners to the logistics of the marathon, by having to get to Staten Island for the start. This race started at 8:30 am and the only Staten Island Ferries available were at 6:30 am and 7:30 am. I figured the 7:30 might be too tight time-wise so braved the early hours to catch the 6:30 and suffer the 1-1/2 hours of waiting around at the start. This turned out to be a good choice. There were way too many people at the Manhattan terminal for the 7:30 ferry and a good number were left behind. DOT was good enough to run a special, additional ferry but this did not arrive until the race was just starting. Nevertheless, it was a very successful race overall, made possible through the excellent planning skills of New York Road Runners and their volunteers.
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In the northeast, summer has been very hot and humid this year and not conducive to comfortable running. However, that long-anticipated change has arrived. As of last weekend, the temperature and humidity both dropped to respectable levels and running started to feel easy again.
In New York, last Saturday brought the running of Grete’s Great Gallop, the early fall traditional half marathon conducted within Central Park. It was a particularly touching event since it memorialized the passing of Grete Waitz, famed and beloved nine-time winner of the NYC Marathon, who succumbed to a lengthy battle with cancer early this year. The race was run in refreshingly pleasant conditions, although still a touch warmer than some of us prefer.
I have been struggling all summer recovering from an injury and the weather has contributed to keeping my performance level down. I ran Grete’s and was delighted to see my performance getting back near where it should be. Nola leapt out into the park Monday and ran a 23-mile long training run without a second thought. Welcome fall running conditions!
We runners now have a busy calendar for a few weeks. There are forthcoming marathons in Chicago, Washington DC, New York City, and Philadelphia, to mention a few. Nola and I are looking forward to the Staten Island Half next weekend and then the NYC Marathon on November 6. It is a busy schedule but very enjoyable training conditions, thanks to the arrival of the fall weather.
Best wishes to all runners preparing for the great fall races! Arrive fit at the start line and let the routine play out…
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