Yesterday

This is Rescue Squad # 1, it is one block from my house.  The sunflowers on the lower right were placed there by my son yesterday.

Enough of that.  I would rather talk about what I did yesterday, September 11, 2011. I joined up with a bunch of runners who ran around Manhattan.   Not figuratively running around, like in random squiggly lines, but literally running around the parameter of Manhattan.  This run was organized by the same group of people who put on the Corbit that I almost finished in February.

The route was simple, Start at the Battery and run North up the East Side till it loops around to the south in Washington Heights

I was not so sure I had a 32 mile run in me, so when the route to that made sharp left turn at 125th Street, I continued going west to the Hudson River.  I cut 10 miles of the run and avoided the hills of Washington Heights.  I only ran 22 miles.  I know that if I wanted to I could have run home from Lower Manhattan but I did not want to fight the crowds on the Brooklyn Bridge.  I also wanted to wait for the rest of the runners who were completing the 50K.  As I think about it I might have had the energy to complete the entire route, but I will never know.







I got to the meeting place earlier than I wanted to.  I thought the Subway would be slow.  I gave myself an hour to make a trip that usually takes half of that.  I made perfect connections and got to Bowling Green in 20 minutes.

To the right is a photo I took with my phone.  The round object in the middle is The Sphere.  It used to sit between the Twin Towers.  My wife and I sat next to it and had breakfast a long time ago. In the back of the photo is the World Trade Center. Since the bottom of it is covered in reflective glass, only the top shows in this photo. Also the red stripes on the flags are all names.

The next few minutes were tough for me.  I was not really sure if I really wanted to be with people.  I was worried that this run would turn into hours of 9-11 stories.  I don't think I could have handled that.  I pulled my self together and found the group.

A wonderful group they were.  We did not talk about 2001.  The only reference made was the fact that the weather is better in 2011 for running.  It was a little to sunny on September 11, 2001 for a long run.  Also, nobody gave me a hard time for cutting the course.  They said I was doing the right thing.  Better to get to the finish than to stop in the middle.










I stopped to take the photo below.  It is the USS New York, it is"built with 7.5 tons of steel from the World Trade Center".  Behind it her is the Statue of Liberty.  I was standing in the exact spot that the US Airways Flight 1549 was towed to after it crash landed in the Hudson on January 15, 2009.  New York is a small town