Run Runaway

I went to NYC to watch The Pie run in the NYC Marathon.  It was a pretty big bucket-lister for her, and I wanted to tag along and be a good husband (wonder if that commenter from years ago that said there was too much bike stuff and not even family-related material on here still reads).

We took the Amtrak up to the Big Apple.  I highly recommend it and also don't.  Depends on what you want in life.  Now that I've done it, I don't know if I'd do it again... at least all the way to NYC... but I won't be going back to NYC anytime soon, so whatever.

I didn't bring a bike. It woulda been cheap (free?), but it wasn't worth it to me.  The spectating portion of the day can get super crowded, I membered from my trip up there two decades ago with Bill that you just can't lock up to "any old thing," the hotel rooms are smöl, and I was there for The Pie, not me.  I've not had five days in a row off the bike since I lived in Ohio back before '96, so this was just gonna be a new'ish experience for me.

And I didn't wanna rent-a-turd either.  I'd have plenty of time to walk all over the place, and you can see a lot more when you're not swiveling your head around the whole time looking for e-bikes, scooters, peds, cops, one wheels, taxis, Ubers... you get it.  All in all, I probably put about 35-40 miles on my Bedrock Action Sandals™, and my feet certainly smelled like it on the twelve hour train ride home.

I swear that every tenth person I saw would have qualified to be the most interesting person I would see in any given week in uptown Charlotte.  Fashion is strange.  Puffy coats when it's 70° outside is also... something.  I think street hot dog vendors cook their meat tubes over burning garbage.  Class three e-bikes are scary, and why do the food delivery guys already have Pogies on their bars?  Staying in a hundred year old hotel might mean that your AC shuts down every three to eight hours and you might get stuck between floors on an elevator and need an extraction.  If' you're gonna leave your hotel to spectate all over the city for seven hours, you might wanna think about where you're gonna relieve yourself.  Seeing a TV show like Last Week Tonight be tape was an experience, but it is also seeing the sausage made.

Here's more, with pictures in no particular (but kinda sorta) order.

Grinduro number plate on a typical NYC bike.  Dunno what the story is.  Don't know what was more fun to watch, the foodies on their e-bikes making their own laws or the Freds fredding it up in Central Park.

Pie and I went on a very long walk along the Hudson after we picked up her race stuff.  Fifteen miles round trip to the Trade Center Memorial.  We saw things that we weren't looking for, and also drank beer when we saw it.

I much preferred walking along the river than through the city, what with its hyper-competitive crosswalking games.

We found the smelliest bathroom in the city, possible the world.  I grew up working on farms, and I think it was worse than squeegeeing calf shit off the barn floor.  Definitely one of those "do I breathe outta my nose or mouth or just die?"

Random wiener artwork we found when we got lost in some building.

On the way up to the rooftop bar where that famous guy who recently got in trouble for some DM'in shot a music video.

No one has ever taken this photo.  No one.

We got trapped in an elevator between floors on the way back down.  Only my second time ever getting stuck on one in all these years of going up and down in boxes.  

But the first time I got yoinked out.  Later, Pie told me the story of the guy who got cut in half doing this.  I'm glad she waited.

I ended up going on a pretty long walk by myself whilst The Pie napped.  She'd gotten some shit sleep as our AC would go out intermittently.  Those are horse butts.  I saw so many things that caught my eye, but I took a picture of butts.

I witnessed all kinds of typical NYC stuff in Central Park and then wandered around Manhattan... and found my way to the Last Week Tonight studio because we just found out we had tickets after being elevator trapped.  I'm a planner, so I pre-walked our route.

I wondered if I'd see anything dope, and staring up at the buildings, I thought "I wonder if I'm near the apartment from Ghostbusters."  I was.  I went.  It wasn't as big as I thought it would be.  It felt the same about me.

Inside the studio later... and it was just as I imagined it.  Probably better on TV, aside from the warmup Q&A.  No giant props or people in squirrel costumes... dammit.

Woke up the next morning, and The Pie was already on the move.  She was on a Lyft at 7:00AM, headed to the Staten Island Ferry to then get on a bus to the start line... and she barely got there in time for her 11:30AM start.  I started watching the race at 8:30AM, so I would know when to head out the door to see the bigs finish.

Checking in on the live-Tweeting of the race, and the leading male runner who'd been out front for miles and miles dove into a port-a-potty around mile twenty.  Abnormal? Yeth.  Minutes later, he collapsed.  Hottest NYC Marathon ever.  IT'S NOVEMBER IN NEW YORK AND I WORE ACTION SANDALS EVERYWHERE.

I wandered all over after seeing the top women and men finish.  I was on a quest for a couple good locations to Pie spot and also find a place to take a leak.  FYI: public restrooms go unisex if one or the other goes down... in a very organic manner. 

Yeth, The Pie did cry when she saw me.  This race really means/meant something to her, and I'm envious that she still has these things in her life.

Go find beer...

Sit down in Central Park, google to see if it's legal to drink in the park... and no?  Legal to smoke weeds but not drink beer.  Noted.

I was really only buying the beer for her tho.

Mile 24, and yeth, it's dark.  11:30 start and stupid time change be damned.

We had a quiet evening after the race, aside from The Pie coughing and having to call the front desk for literally the tenth time about the AC at 1:00AM.  Woke up and walked back to Penn Station and choo-chooed our way home arriving in Charlotte at 3:00AM... and happily finding our car in the parking lot, and still having a catalytic converter attached to it.

I'm stoked for The Pie and delighted that I was able to take part.  It was gawdamn special to be there for her.