Philadelphia Love Run

Tents set up before the race

The beginning of the race

I have run a few half marathons before, and a friend of mine had finished a 10k a few months ago and I thought it would be fun to run a half marathon together. I thought I had found the perfect race--it was in Philadelphia, and it was the inaugural run so the price was much cheaper than the New York half marathon. It was advertised as "the race that loves you back;" participants would get a technical shirt, a mug, and a huge medal. Additionally, there would be a party with beer, hot chocolate, and soft pretzels at the finish line. It was a good opportunity to visit my brother, who goes to school in Philadelphia, and run the race.

Of course neither of us prepared for the race at all. Another friend joined in, but being four years younger an an athelete, didn't do any training and managed to finish in one hour and fifty minutes. As for the two of us, I finished at about 3 hours, my worst time in racing history, and she finished at about 3 hours and 20 minutes.

This was absolutely not the race that loves you back. This is the race that pours ice water over you and then kicks you in the face 13.1 times. To be fair, it was my own fault for not training properly, and mother nature's fault for sending a torrential downpour. The race volunteers were great, and I do think it was well organized.

Nevertheless, this was the worst race that I have ever run, bad enough to make me completely forego distance running altogether. The race itself would have been okay, if not for the weather. Actually, it might have been really fun, if not for the weather. Nevertheless, this year we have had a really long winter, so on race day it was very cold. And it rained. It began as a mist, and turned into a complete downpour.

While I have always thought my endurance was good, my ability to tolerate cold is limited. Before the race, everyone was huddled underneath little tents that they had managed to set up. I deal very badly with the cold. My muscles tensed up, and almost right away I felt my IT band inflame. We ran through a park, and there were worms everywhere, mangled and trampled, and a few dead birds that had also been stepped on--a wing here, a beak there. The night before, I had looked up tips for running in the rain, and one had been to wear a garbage bag. I thought I wouldn't need that since I had a waterproof jacket. As it turns out, my jacket was NOT waterproof. Within the first hour, I was soaked from head to toe. With each step, water gushed out from my sneakers. It no longer made sense to avoid puddles. I'd try to wipe the water from my eyes, but my sleeves were so wet that it ended up making things worse.

I think my body started to shut down. I moved slower and slower. Several times I thought about quitting, and I'm not sure why I decided to stick it out. Maybe because I felt guilty since it had been my idea to do the race, and my two friends likely would finish--one because apparently half marathons without training are easy, the other simply because she never quits (she would probably cross the finish line, even if it had to be in an ambulance). In the end I finished, but I essentially hobbled across the finish line, drenched, cold and shivering. My hands were clutched together in an effort to keep warm--I could no longer feel my fingertips. At one point my friend who finished early sent a triumphant text message, and my hands shook so much that I could not even enter the passcode to unlock my phone. I had stopped drinking water and gatorade since I was so wet that I didn't want to drink anything--rainwater and who knows what else kept running into my mouth. In the end it was a mistake not to take some gatorade, since I became depleted of energy. At one point my mind flashed to a friend of mine who had gotten hypothermia during a race, and wondered if I too had hypothermia. She had said that medical aids asked her who the US President was, and her mind had been so far gone that she didn't know. I had thought to myself, at least I know the President is George Bush. But wait...no...it's a different guy. It took me a full 30 seconds to remember Obama's name. By then though, there was no first aid set up, and I really didn't have much choice but to force it through to the finish. My fingers had turned white. I felt like I was in some type of army training. The words from Game of Thrones kept echoing in my head, "the wall is so cold that you will never remember the feeling of being warm again." Classic first world problem--I think about the people who actually don't have proper shelter and may be forced to run around in the rain and the cold, and I really can't believe I paid $65 dollars to endure this experience.

I really do like distance running and the thrill of racing--but I guess it's only fun when you are running with the pack, instead of hobbling at the end. When I ran in Niagara Falls and Vienna it was so great. The last two, when my IT band hurt, even crossing the finish line didn't feel rewarding.

After crossing the finish line this time, I was handed a bag with some soggy soft pretzels, which I ate ravenously despite the salty goopy texture. My first friend had been waiting for us for an hour, but had been in good spirits and gotten interviewed. As soon as my last friend crossed the finish line, we hopped into a taxi and went home to huddle in front of a space heater. It seems the beer and chocolate party didn't really happen--maybe it did, but I was so cold that I just wanted to go home. The medal was very nice, though one person's medal broke when dropped. I broke my mug too, when I dropped my bag. Luckily one of my friends had two so I was able to take one of those. I had some spicy food which helped me warm up, and curled up on my air mattress and fell asleep. Of course when I woke up I felt like I had been hit by a car and my legs were screaming.

Next time I go back to Philly the only running I'll do is to Reading Terminal, which has really good food. I had a Philly cheesesteak there and fresh squeezed orange juice, which was the highlight of my trip. 

Terminal 5

Alex Winston

MSMR

The crowd

Grouplove

Clean up afterwards

On Wednesday I went to a concert at Terminal 5, on the west side. It's quite far though, since the closest subway stops are still four avenues away, about a 20 minute walk. I've been to two concerts there, both for artists that I did not know, and tickets that I did not pay for. The first was James Blake, the second was Grouplove.

I was at work when a friend of mine from law school asked me if I wanted a pair of free concert tickets to Grouplove. I had never heard of the band, and at first thought it was some compilation of artists, but I said yes because I like live music and usually enjoy most concerts that I have gone to. It turned out that it's a fairly famous group, and the tickets were completely sold out. Since I didn't buy the tickets myself, I was confused about the starting time, and ended up arriving an hour before the concert started. As a result, we got to stand very close to the stage. As a short person, I find venues with general admission can be difficult because there is always the possibility that some tall person stands in front of me. At the height of 5'3", most adults are tall people to me.

The crowd seemed a bit younger (high school perhaps), including a large group of girls who flew in from Australia who kept trying to run backstage. Someone also threw a bra at the stage, but missed and it fell around the photographers. I kept thinking someone should really pick it up and throw it on stage for her (or perhaps him), since they put so much effort into throwing it that it's too bad their message didn't get through. Another person threw a sweatshirt onto the stage, but it was quickly picked up by a stage manager and taken away. At the end the band threw pieces of crumpled paper into the crowd (I'm not sure if that was meant for people to catch, or what), and one jumped in and crowd surfed for a few minutes.

I was pleasantly surprised--I really enjoyed the entire concert, and ended up with a lot of new songs to add to my playlist. The opening bands, MS MR and Alex Winston, were really good as well. Later when I listened to mp3s of the songs that I had heard I found that the live version was much better, simply because the artists put so much energy into their performance. The show was actually filmed live for release on DVD, so perhaps there will be a screen with me in it. I was really tired from work, and wearing my arctic grade jacket because it was so cold in the venue. 

Getting Physical

When I was in Amsterdam, I went to the gym regularly. The gym I went to, called SportsCity, was cheap (about 30 or 40 dollars per month), extremely clean, and the staff was friendly. It was the same three or four people all the time. There were unlimited classes, including yoga and martial arts, and a sauna. My favorite part of going to the gym was the sauna, which really helped with sore muscles and made my skin look nicer. Even though the treadmill had a time limit of 10 minutes, I didn't mind.

I never enrolled in a gym in New York because of the price. It seemed the cheapest options were still 60 dollars a month (which is a lot for a human rights lawyer), and they were not so close to me. Last year however, I found a place called Mid City Gym that is only about $15 dollar a month. It's cheap, but it's a bit dirty. Apparently Arnold Schwarzenegger used to go and still has close ties, so of course the majority of the clientele are weight lifters and body builders. I go only for the treadmills. Everyone is very nice, but I find that I don't go so often because I still have to take the subway there, and it's not a very pleasant experience. When I enrolled I had asked if they had a sauna, and they laughed and said there is no way to find a gym with a sauna for less than $100 per month.

Yesterday, I went with a friend of mine to a party at her gym. She enrolled in a really nice gym called Equinox, famous for their hyper sexualized advertisements. To quote Business Insider's comments on their advertisements, "This year, hot, scantily-clad models return — but this time they are acting like crazed outlaws instead of porn stars." Membership is $200 dollars a month, so I guess that's why they are the type of gym that throws parties. The two of us are training for a half marathon, and I remember when she sent me a text that she was visiting Equinox. Shortly after I received a series of texts about how great it was and how she couldn't possibly fathom why she shouldn't join. By the time I sent a text reminding her that it's ridiculously expensive, she had already signed her papers. On the plus side, when you make a $200 per month investment on a gym, you are more likely to force yourself to go. As a result, she's been doing a lot better on her training than I have, since I feel less bad about my $15 going to waste. I guess that would be a good reason to join--it's like the opposite of an all you can eat buffet; to get your money's worth, you'd work out a ton.

She invited me to go to this gym party with her, and it was very nice. They offered free massages and facials, as well as food, wine, and my favorite brand of tea. The chair massage was probably the best chair massage I've ever had. In the bathrooms they have Khiel's body products. It was really nice, but not much better than my gym in Amsterdam, which I'm surprised to say I actually miss a lot. And for $200 a month, Equinox's upper west location still doesn't have a sauna.

All That Jazz

For Jazz lovers, I'd think that there would be no better place than New York. I however, am not a Jazz lover so I could be wrong. I like Jazz, but I don't know so much about it--but I observe that there seems to be a jazz club or bar on every other street, and many cafes and restaurants will feature live jazz performances throughout the week. In a city where so many ambitious and talented people (and some ambitious but not so talented) go to find their big break, there is such an abundance of musicians that even students and other financially challenged people can afford to attend good music shows. From the bands that play on the subway to the venues like Carnegie Hall, New York is saturated with tunes and melodies. Back when I was a law student and lived at the International House, there was jazz every Sunday in the pub downstairs. Some of the best music schools in the world, including Julliard, have free concerts every week featuring their students.

A colleague from work is a Jazz aficionado, and reportedly can hear any jazz track and identify the song and the artist. He regularly organizes jazz events, and seems to have many connections in the New York jazz scene. Last week, he invited several of us to see Jaimeo Brown at the Jazz Standard. The Jazz Standard has a performance place in the basement, and a BBQ restaurant on the first floor. Guests can order items from the restaurant and eat downstairs. Since I had already eaten dinner, I had a chocolate cake with a glass of milk. Probably one of the better chocolate cakes that I have had, but not the best--definitely worth trying and worth ordering again. What I liked about Jaimeo Brown was that he incorporated an electric guitar and a soundboard into his songs, which don't seem to be so common in Jazz.

Over the weekend, the same colleague organized a house concert. I have been to a few of these at different locations. Somebody volunteers their apartment and everyone brings snacks and drinks to share, and an artist performs. There is a suggested donation, usually about $15 per person, to the artist(s). This last one featured a man who played the saxophone, his 14-year old son who sang and played trumpet, and another man playing...this shows how little about jazz I know--it looks like a large cello, I think it's called a bass, and he usually plucks the strings. I forgot all of their names, but apparently they are quite famous and sell out when they go on tour in Europe.

The Schomburg Center

Yesterday, I visited the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, which is part of the New York Public Library. My interpreter and friend from Senegal came to visit me in New York, and he is doing his Ph.D. thesis on the relationship between the civil rights movement in America and the civil rights movements in Africa. While I am at work, he visits the center, which is one of the best, if not the best, resource for information on issues relating to black people. I let him borrow my camera so he could take pictures of the pages, and study them in his own time when he left New York. Another friend of mine who studies black culture in relation to theatre is a fellow there, and invited us to attend an event featuring the author Sylviane Diouf (who, from what I heard, is also Senegalese but I could be mistaken).

Diouf's book, "Slavery's Exiles: The Story of the American Maroons," presents in depth research on a part of the history of the slave trade in the US that I, and many people, never knew about. Apparently, for many slaves in the deep South, they had very little opportunity to go North to freedom. Most of the slave that managed to escape to the North were from states that bordered the North. Thus, some slaves ended up escaping to the woods, the "Maroons." They would live in caves, or build shelters in trees or underground--mostly underground. Some communities formed, entirely of people who lived in underground caves that they had built. Though small, some of the caves were complex, complete with an area for cooking and a way to ventilate the smoke. They usually only left the caves at night, and some children never left the caves and were raised entirely in darkness for their safety. As a result, some children had become completely blind, or had vision impairments when they left. There was some cooperation between maroons and slave--slave would sometimes "hire" maroons to do their work, and pay them in rations. For food, maroons would either forage, or plant some crops, but starvation was a major threat. With time, some were able to try to blend in with the population of free slaves in some of the Southern cities. It was impressive, but also very sad, the extent to which people sacrificed, and the conditions that they lived in, for their freedom. 

Let it Snow

New York has been hit with more snow this year than any of the years that I have been here. Somehow, it doesn't seem to be so bad compared to Boston. As a kid, I remember snow piled high in our yard, sometimes in mountains taller than us. New York however, seems to suffer more from snow, likely because it is so crowded. Because the city never sleeps, there isn't a time to properly clean everything. In my home town by Boston we would go to sleep, and when we woke up, the streets would be plowed. Here in New York however, there are always cars on the roads. The plows go through, but it's messy.

I liked how the snow in the suburbs would remain white for so long. In school, we would fill bowls with snow that had fallen, pour syrup on it and eat it because it was so clean (actually later I stopped doing that because my parents told me it was dirty anyway). The suburbs can be a winter wonderland. New York is beautiful right when the snow falls. The city lights shine in the background as the snowflakes drift from the sky, catches on the few tree branches and apartment steps. Within a few hours though, it all turns into a gray soup. Gray, and in a place where there is a high density of people and dogs, yellow. This year, it's been so bad that some states have run out of salt.

My apartment is small, and in theory easy to heat, but it's an old building and there are gaps where wind comes in very easily. The heat does not work properly. Luckily, I was able to buy a space heater, and that works well enough to heat up the whole place. At night though, I feel like I'm camping. The difficult thing about having a rent stabilized apartment is that it is hard to make complaints since rent stabilized apartments are rare. I'd rather not fight with my landlord, since it was so hard to get the apartment in the first place. I suppose he knows that though, which is why he doesn't turn up the heat. I argued with him once, and said that it's too cold, and his reply was simply, "Not cold. Very warm. Very warm here."

Every winter I want to move somewhere warm. I've reached an age where I don't care about how I look anymore. When I go out in the cold, I dress like a homeless person who has to carry every article of clothing he/she owns on his body at the same time. First a layer of wool tights. Then pants. Then socks. I've thought about wearing another layer of sweat pants over all that, but perhaps have retained some send of fashion self-consciousness--maybe I'll start doing that when I'm 30. Then I wear a thermal top, a dress shirt, and two sweaters over that. Then a scarf, and an arctic expedition jacket (expensive, but absolutely worth it). Each winter I vow to look for jobs in a warmer place. But then the cold fades away, and I love New York again.