Running New York

I have been in the Empire State for the last two weeks on a research trip. While I love my research, library study is lonely, solo work largely done inside under soul-sucking fluorescent lights, so the best parts of my trip thus far have been sharing amazing long runs and food with old friends. Today, I had a fantastic run in New York City! Jean and Nick took me on a fantastic 13.5 loop of Brooklyn (formerly Breukelen) and the lower end of Manhattan. I was so happy to run down the promenade with the skyline of Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty and Governor's Island (formerly Nutten Island, where the first boatload of Walloons set up in 1624, until Peter Minuit began building a fort across the way in 1626), all under a perfectly clear blue sky! We crossed the Brooklyn Bridge and then ran through Battery Park and through the tiny area that was Nieuw Amsterdam--past the Customs House, which is where Fort Amsterdam was, and the plaque for the old Dutch church built in 1633 at Pearl and Broad Streets.

Then we wound our way back up past the Old Slip, through the Bowery (Stuyvesant's old farm) and across  the Manhattan Bridge and through Fort Greene. I had the best tour guides!

Of course, part of the fun of long runs is the food and drink post-run! And Jean and Nick did not disappoint. We had fantastic breakfast tacos at Guero's Taco Bar (Nick knows everybody in his Franklin Ave-Brooklyn 'hood, and you can follow his blog about it here). Post-run calories were also a highlight when I ran a longish solo11.5 miler in Albany last week. After the run, I enjoyed catching up with a college friend (has it really been 10 years??) and sampling tasty beer (mmmm Wee Heavy...) and local Albany craft brews at Ye Olde English Pub and Evans Ale Pumphouse.

 

Next week, I'll try to run long in Grand Rapids, Michigan, while there for a conference. Hopefully the "Great Lakes" state can compete with great Empire... (I love that the Dutch in part began their empire in what became the Empire State in our new empire 400 years later...)

Claes Jansz Visscher, View of Nieuw Amsterdam, c. 1651. Handcolored intaglio.