New York, New York, is everything they say

BAD BOY WRITE UP HERE  (updated Nov. 9th)

Big weekend! 

Our adventures started off on Thursday evening when seven us left Guelph and drove for 3 hours to spend the night in upstate NY.  On Friday we drove another 6 hours (passing through Scranton, PA) to get to NYC.  We decided to stay in between Van Cortlandt Park, where we were racing, and Central Park, where we watched the trials.  That put us right in the middle of the Bronx in a cheap Howard Johnson.

Watching the trials were tons of fun, so many people were out watching the race.  It was crazy to see just how amazing Ryan Hall is at running the Marathon and the battle to make the top three was really interesting.  By the end of the marathon we had heard that Ryan Shay might have passed away after running 5.5 miles of the race.  I didn’t, nor didn’t want to believe this, but when we got back to the hotel our fears were confirmed when we read the news online.  I had run with Ryan earlier this year in Flagstaff and he seemed like a great guy who was ready to work hard.  My prayers go out to all his family and friends. 

Saturday afternoon we raced the Bad Boy 8km cross country race at Van Cortlandt.  Our team, Speed River, went 1,2,3,5,8 to easily capture the team title and I was happy with my second place finish as I felt good and content with how my fitness is coming around.  I ran 170 km last week and my body seems to be holding up well.  Now that I have a decent effort and a few weeks of building under my belt I can get after it a little more in workouts.  I should see some significant gains before my next race in Manchester, CT on Nov, 22.

After a long run sunday morning we saw a couple snipets of the NYC marathon then made our way to lunch in SoHo before our 9 hour drive home. 

Instead of writing more about our adventures I put up some video and pics.  The Bad Boy pics are courtesy of Susan Pearsall.