A New York State of Mind - NYC 2011

NYC Marathon – Part I: New York City & Pre-Race Fun

I <3 NY. I’ve spent many many many summer vacations in NYC growing up, and Spring 2009 was the year I was able to share everything that I love about the city with Jose Carlos and Ben. The NYC Marathon this year (2011) was a really good excuse for us (me+Ben) to go back! This trip to NYC was about seeing family, being a tourist, and just having fun in the city. Well, and we ran a marathon while we were there. Without really doing any long runs or focused training, the objective was to have fun, take pictures, and see new parts of New York!

We flew in to JFK mid-week without a problem, taking the J train – much to Lillian’s and Sherman’s surprise – to lower Manhattan, where our hotel was located (Think Chicago blue line to ORD at 6am… scary). 

Whoa wallpaper! Delta terminal @JFK

iPads at every station in the Delta terminal @JFK.
Have you ever seen a gate like this? I like!!

NYC Marathon ads everywhere - get pumped!!! I'M IN - as in "I GOT IN!"

The J Train really wasn’t that scary in the middle of the day. Our hotel was conveniently situated in Chinatown… my grandparents and mom came too, so between all of us, we took up 3 hotel rooms in this new 21-room boutique hotel, Hotel Mulberry. They arrived from Cleveland a few hours after us.

Hotel Mulberry itself was pretty nice, and it’s only been around for a year. With so few rooms, the place is so narrow you’ll miss it if you blink as you walk by. But, the rooms are enormous for NYC hotel rooms, which is a plus. 

View from the hotel room. We were above the sign! 

View across the street... Ben was hoping for some pick-up games of soccer.

Hotel Mulberry is across the street from a city park, almost butts up to City Hall, and is in a good spot in Lower Manhattan for reaching Chinatown, FiDi, SoHo, Little Italy, ferries, and attractions like the Statue of Liberty, South Street Seaport, WTC Memorial, and the Esplanade. Breakfast was included at Mama Eatery, which was located (almost) next door. Every morning we’d sit at closely-packed tables amongst groups of cops who were finishing or just starting their workdays (we overheard a few of them talking about running the marathon, which was cool). The downside of this location is that, if you don’t like Chinese Food, you might have to walk more than a couple of blocks for food.

Since the earlier part of my life and Ben’s first visit were complete whirlwinds of New York City touring, we were able to spend our time at a more leisurely pace without feeling like we had to take in everything. So much better… it took away the stress of feeling like we had to be tourists, and this time we were able to decide to go do some off-the-beaten path stuff, or just hang out with family. Still, a few of the tourist-y places we visited:

·         SoHo –shopping. I got some new boots at Terra Plana!!! They are the Boxing Boot, and because I have so many low back problems, the Vibram FiveFingers-like thin-sole, wide-forefoot characteristics of these boots are a perfect fit. That, and they’re really nice. J I also discovered my boat shoes on sale for 50% off! So glad I remembered to come here –the only Terre Plana store in the country is (of course!) in NYC’s best shopping district.

• ·         Occupy Wall Street – for reals. Zucotti Park’s not as big as the news would have you believe, and because there were no portajohns there, I was surprised (that I was surprised) at the smell emanating from the park if you hit the wind just right. It was completely entertaining. (then later we discovered Occupy Occupy Wall Street, the movement of the 1%. Lol!)

So, Occupy Occupy Wall Street is too funny for words. Sadly, I think news outlets are taking them seriously.

• ·         World Trade Center Memorial – On a more somber note, we visited the WTC memorial, a very humbling experience. I don’t know anybody personally who was killed in the September 11^th attacks, but the terrible things that happened become so much more real when you’re standing on Church Street. About 10 years ago at that exact spot, you would have been running for your life, getting covered with debris as the towers fell just a few blocks behind you. The memorial museum has videos and written personal accounts from people who lost family members on 9/11, a display of the helmets of firefighters who lost their lives that day, and the mementos that were left on the fencing around Ground Zero in the weeks/years that followed. There are now two enormous reflection pools in the exact footprint of where the twin towers once stood, bordered by plaques engraved with the name of every victim in that building. The memorial tower is not quite complete yet, but it is already a very impressive sight.

Food Carts Aren’t About Hot Dogs

In the days leading up to the race, we went on a Food Cart Tour (urbanoyster.com) of Midtown, sampling some of the BEST food cart food I’ve ever had. And we’re not talking hot dogs and cold burgers, but ethnic food cooked by five-star chefs who simply couldn’t afford the high overhead of opening a restaurant in Manhattan. For many of these immigrants, starting their own business, and the way they’ve worked their way up from nothing is impressive – it’s the American Dream! J Along the way, the tour guide gave us a historical and informative tour of food carts, some of the standards they have to meet, and rules they must follow – very interesting! Did you know: each of those push-cart hot dog vendors physically walks his/her hot dog cart over to Brooklyn each night? It’s a state law that food carts must be cleaned and inspected every evening. They also have to post their health inspection grades in their windows, just like they do at restaurants in NY. 

Highly recommend, I’m glad I listened to the recommendation in Delta SKY Magazine to go on one of their tours. We ate at Waffles & Dinges (Belgian Waffles), Bapcha (Korean), Trini-Paki Boys (Halal), a Mexican cart (where my mom was the only one brave enough to try the grasshopper quesadilla… chicken for me please), and an Indian food cart. Each vendor gave us a pretty substantially-sized portion of their food, and ALL were delicious. We loved the Halal food so much, we tried it again at 2 or 3 other food carts during the rest of our trip – and soon learned that food carts are indeed not equal. We loved Waffles & Dinges SO much that we ordered a full extra order of their waffles, even after sampling food from the 5 food carts prior… Ben also got a hot chocolate which – I swear – was straight up melted milk chocolate in a cup. It was so rich!!! …Then we felt sick from all of the sugar we’d just consumed.

More About Food

Some of my favorite food places in NY (recently):

• ·         Chinatown Ice Cream Factory – for some crazy and fun flavors. Try Green Tea, Lychee, or Sesame seed flavors.
• ·         Paticceria Rocco – in the West Village on Bleecker Street… THE best cannoli you can get.
• ·         Joe’s Pizza – The best slice you can get in NY. A true New York pizza. For reals!
• ·         Café Habana – Cuban food in a tiny restaurant. It’s so popular, expect to sit within 12-16 inches of the table next to you and make sure order the grilled corn.
• ·         Ninja – Japanese restaurant in the West Village, where your servers are ninjas. I haven’t been here, but apparently it’s really fun and your ninja could pop out of anywhere. http://www.ninjanewyork.com/
• ·         Serendipity – Midtown East. Ice cream sundaes as big as your head!! Famous for their frozen hot chocolate.
• ·         Wo Hop – I think. There are a ton of Chinese restuarants in Chinatown, but I think this is the one I’ve been to several times now. It’s like the family meeting spot, so it must have been vetted. All forms of payment accepted, but you should pay in cash.
• 
  

Anyway…

Two days before the race, we went to the expo, which was located at a convention center on the West side, close-ish to Midtown. We – Mom, Ben, and me – walked the entire way (4 miles) from our hotel, taking the newly -finished High Line for part of the way. The High Line is so cool! (It’s an urban “Rail Trail” if you’re a Bloomingtonian.) The High Line used to be an elevated train track, but has since been taken out of service and converted to an elevated walking path on the West side of the city. It stretches for at least 15 blocks, if I’m estimating right. Design fans would LOVE this. It’s so urban, hip, and modern in style, with tons of flowers planted and labeled, an amphitheater situated right above a street (so you can see cars coming towards you from below), benches to sit and relax, and a great view of Manhattan. It definitely gets a little crowded at times.

Amphitheater overlooking the street

Ben and I were pretty disappointed in the expo itself once we got there. The packet pick-up process was very organized and streamlined, yes. However, merchandise and vendor representation left something to be desired. If you’re looking for the best expo, so far, my recommendation is Boston. But NYC’s expo seems to have had its market cornered by Marathon Sports, the local running chain, that manned and stocked their inventory at nearly every booth. There were few opportunities to check out new or up-and-coming products.

The race shirt is possibly the best I've ever gotten. It's a long-sleeve.

3 qualities of a "keeper" race shirt:
Good design, great color, perfect fit, high quality

In one corner of the expo, we recorded 5-second videos of ourselves, which would play for each other on a jumbotron on the course. Usually it’s a spectator that does this, but since we were both running, we recorded our cheers separately so they’d be a surprise when our chips triggered them to be played during the race.  I remember drinking some REALLY good Odwalla smoothies at the expo, especially a new lime-flavored smoothie they’re making now. Leaving the expo was so-very-New York. As we left, tons of people holding large signs and handing out flyers encouraged us to get on the complimentary shuttle to Marathon Sports, where we could get a free lunch – and buy things from their store, of course. Since we had planned to take the train back anyway, we figured we’d hop a free ride to MS. Good thing we did! Free pizza, apples, water, and chips. Cheap food’s hard to come by in New York, so this was awesome. Although apparently some homeless people were able to follow the “free lunch for marathoners” signs and took advantage of the opportunity. Work smart, not hard, I guess! We walked the rest of the way back to our hotel down Broadway.

A must-take because of our favorite show. Near NYU

Union square park

Taking the long way back and bumming around near the hotel... South Street Seaport.

Hilarious because this guy was totally punk, walking a chihuahua with a pink cowl-neck sweater.

from the South Street Seaport

City Hall

Race Day Eve

I went on a short 3-mile “shake-out” run on the Manhattan Bridge while Ben napped. Good scenery! It took me toward Brooklyn, so I was able to get a nice view of the Financial District and lower Manhattan from where I was. Kind of dirty the rest of the way though, and since I’m a little afraid of trains, I was kind of freaked out by the loud subway noises as they flew by me on the bridge. Anyway, I got to the mid-point and turned around, but the part that cracks me up about this run is that there was a European family that had found a dead rat on the sidewalk near the beginning of the bridge. They were taking pictures of it while telling the rat, “Say cheese!” J That was so gross (but so funny)!

My mom, me, and Ben joined the rest of the family (cousins – Sherman, Justin, Rita, David, Ethan, Kayla) out to dinner at a place in the Financial District-ish called City Hall. Wow-!! I forgot how good real seafood tastes (not like the stuff we call seafood here in Indiana)! Although there were some yummy things in the seafood tower like mussels, crab, shrimp, and clams, I only ate the cooked items. Eating raw seafood just sounds like the beginning of a racing train wreck story... so not today! Crab cakes and main entrees were great. During dinner, we tried to strategize with our race supporters where to stand and spot us during the marathon… Sherman, Lillian, Justin, and Russell were going to watch with my mom, so it was decided they’d find us at mile 17 in Brooklyn. They even went out and bought cowbells in preparation for watching their first marathon!

Overall, very fun to see everybody again!

Once home, we got our race day clothes together (yes, I totally wore my failure of a Boston Marathon and Running with the Foxes race shirt again. Third time’s a charm?), staked out a breakfast place, and went to BED for the early morning.

Up Next: Part II, The Race! (whenever I get around to writing it. Maybe in 2012? J )