Ribbon of Recreation

Today was the final day of an NYC event called Summer Streets in which the city closed Park Avenue and connecting streets from the Brooklyn Bridge to Central Park for for the entire morning. Many of the cross streets are closed as well, and walkers, runners and bicyclists are invited to take over.  The video above is views of the event over Mayor B. talking about what he calls a "Ribbon of Recreation".

I, of course, would never have known about this, but for the group run organized by the Flyers. The club plan was to run downtown from Central Park, and then go out for brunch. 

I met up with TH on 96th, and we ran through the park to the meet point at 72nd.  From there we ran with the Flyers out to Park Avenue and headed south. I have really enjoyed the few times I've gotten to run on the car-less streets of New York, and this was no exception. Park Avenue is quite spectacular. As far as I'm concerned, they should do this every weekend. Hey, they close the road in Central Park, right? OK, I am a bit biased -- I don't drive in the city -- I imagine that Summer Streets was a huge inconvenience for some folks.... 

Anyway, we ran all the way down park, "through" the Met Life building (very cool), and past Union Square and onto Lafayette.  From there we ran to the City Hall area where we regrouped to talk about brunch. I was feeling like running some more, so I skipped brunch and headed back north with a handful of like minded folks, including TH and JF. We never committed to running the whole way back, but we were having a great time, chatting about anything from politics to parenting. Before we knew it, we were back at 72nd street. 

Given our the milage on JF's GPS, and our pre-run from 96th, TH and I called it a 12 mile run - longer than I have gone in a while. I've been shy about the long run for a while, but I feel like I may be back. This run certainly went easily, and I did close to 10 miles on Thursday. Both runs were at an easy pace, with an emphasis on socializing. That may be my key to building up endurance. When I run alone, I set a distance goal, and then just naturally push to complete it quickly. As a result, I don't get in as many "recovery" or easy runs as I probably should. 

At any rate, things are looking up, running wise. Cheers!