Matt and Mike, each trying hard to be as much of an effete snob as I am. (Mike has borrowed my glasses to assist in the effort.)

Carrie and Jen, getting wet on the swings.

Christmas Party on Water Street

Viv and David, posing very cute.

Rich, Gwen, and Adrienne.

I think there was some kind of minor wardrobe malfunction going on here. Adrienne is getting some help from Gwen.

Another aerial shot.

Matt holds forth; he's giving his Christmas toast.

More Matt.

Viv and David.

An aerial view, from halfway up the steps to Kristin's garret.

Getting ready for the party. Matt ties a full Windsor after making a switch in his attire, while Adrienne chit-chats with David and his new fawn-colored jacket.

West Lounge

Can you feel the love?

The first snow of the season, on Varick Street in New York.

The Bleecker Street station for the Lexington line.

Grand Central Station

Philly Marathon

Official Results

Event: Philadelphia Marathon
Year: 2005
Bib: 4472
Last name: Lindy
First name: Jeffrey
City: New York
State: NY
Overall: 159
Chip number:

Finish time: 02:59:02
(this is the time from the firing of the gun)

Chip time: 02:58:55
(this takes into account when I actually crossed the starting line, which was seven seconds back on account of the thousand or so people in front of me)

pace: 6:49.439 per mile

splits

• mile 1: 5:55 (this is approximate... the sign said 6:02 as I passed the mile mark, and I was seven seconds back of the gun)

• mile 10: 1:06:25 (6:38.5/mile pace for these ten miles)

• halfway: 1:27:48 (6:52.6/mile pace for the 3.1 miles after the 10mi mark)

• mile 14: 1:33:47

• mile 20: 2:14:50 (6:49.5/mile pace for the 6.9 miles after the 10mi mark)

• finish: 2:58:55 (6:57.0/mile pace for the second half of the marathon, 7:05/mile pace for the last 6.2 miles)

You can see I faded pretty bad in the second half, though apparently I picked it up a touch from halfway to the 20mi turnaround point. After the turnaround point, it was pure "survival mode" running, where I calculated every time I passed a mile marker exactly how fast I had to run from that point on to still break three hours.



I turned out not to need that ambulance, but it was comforting to know it was there. The finish is just around this last bend.

Me, chugging into the last few hundred yards on fumes.

I'm rockin' the Tufts baby blue shorts and Tufts rowing toque. (You gotta'.) I almost certainly overdressed for the temps, which started out around 38 degrees but got to mid-40's with zero wind by the time I finished just before eleven o'clock. There were very few people who had tights on, and these are semi-serious long-johns from Hind.

I started out with a pair of $2 white gloves that I'd bought at the Expo the day before, but I ditched those about three or four miles in. I considered ditching the hat, too, but that would've probably done more harm than good since my noggin was completely soaked in sweat. The chill would've been worse than the heat.

I attempted to just even-split the whole race, and aside from a predictable fade and going out way too damn fast in the first mile, I think I did a pretty good job. The longest run of my life had been an 18 mile race in mid-September (1:56 for a 6:28 average pace per mile), but I'd developed a bit of a gimpy knee in early October which necessitated me cutting my training way down. I definitely noticed the lack of proper long runs after the 16 mile point; my quads pretty much went into Operation Shutdown. From that point on I just tried to keep up a fast turnover, take a lot of steps per minute, and keep my footfalls directly underneath me and not overstride.

Alissa and Paul have decorated well. I really liked their interior: very cozy.
They were nice enough to put me up Friday and Saturday night, which was perfect because I hadn't seen Alissa in quite a while, and they were an easy walk to the start and finish line (in front of the Museum).

Jonah, the Boston Terrier, is out of place in Philadelphia. I think he is probably the only Boston Terrier in the universe who knows the word "Schenectady."

Jonah, who's two and a half, is quite excitable. He does a lot of jumping from Ottoman to chair to love seat, making snorting noises all the while. It's as if he's a demonically possessed, evil little piglet.

Alissa agrees with me that he would surely make a succulent roast. So plump.

Alissa and Paul's cute little house on Judson Street, in the Museum district of Philly.

Bedford Street on a rainy night.

(I got a little bit wet lying down on the street to take this photo.)

Poker Night: Omaha

Adrienne and Rich are playing as a team, which I'm not quite sure is fair.
David is as dismayed as I am, and shows it.

There's a straight out there, but I didn't make mine.

In fact, I played abysmally bad the entire night, even by my very relaxed standards. I got one boat (Queens full of Tens, I think), and otherwise didn't do better than trips, which apparently sucks for Omaha.

Rich teaching (or attempting to teach) Adrienne how to play Omaha.

New Camera, Old Neighborhood

I took a walk south and brought the new camera along, walking through SoHo and Tribeca.



Perry Street at the intersection with Greenwich, looking towards the Hudson at cobblestone level.

Jersey Street, one of the shortest named streets in Manhattan. This is behind the Puck Building.

The defunct bakery across the street from my old apartment on Elizabeth Street. Someone is building a very luxe home inside.

Two very cute Bassets, the little one is a year old, and the bigger one is two. This is on Macdougal, I believe.

Very old American Express stables and garage, being refurbished

"One of the rare TriBeCa warehouses remaining in near-original condition, the 3-storey building was built by American Express in 1860 to house horses and carriages for telegram deliveries. Evoking the history of SoHo and TriBeCa as neighborhoods originally settled by artists who converted abandoned neighborhood warehouses into their studios and residences in the 1960s, the third floor of this landmarked building was 'colonized' for the duration of the exhibition before it underwent subdivision and transformation into condominiums in late Spring 2004."

A closer view at the American Express sigil, which looked very much like a dog to me.
Before getting into money orders and other financial services, American Express actually did truck things to and fro, running an express service. This building dates only ten years after the company's founding in 1850.

Old Saint Patrick's Cathedral

This is the old Saint Patrick's Cathedral, on the corner of Prince and Mulberry two blocks or so from my old apartment on Elizabeth Street. It was built early in the 19th century, and was superseded as the seat of the bishopric by the newer St. Pat's on Fifth Avenue in the mid-1800s.




Corner of the wall around the Old Saint Patrick's graveyard. This is at the northwest corner of Prince and Mott.



You can see that there's a pronounced curve to the wall along Prince.



Here the bulwarks on the interior side of the Prince Street wall, preventing the wall from collapsing further inward.




Peering through a hole in the door into the graveyard at Old St. Patrick's cathedral.



The north graveyard.

This building on the north side of Bleecker between Sixth and Seventh was put into a wooden box today, for some reason.

This is where I live, Leroy Street, off Bleecker in the Village.

New Digital Camera

I just bought a new camera today, a Canon Powershot SD400 Digital Elph.


Don't know what Jeff's looking at here... probably the panda-cam.

My bookshelves.

Manhattan Half Marathon

from my workout journal for the day:

Sun, August 28
 1:25:17 (6:30 per mile)

 I finished 27th out of 701 in the 19-29 age group for men.
 I finished 89th out of 3570 men, total.
 I finished 94th out of 6328 runners, total. (Five women beat me.)

 [Felt pretty strong. Could've pushed harder, didn't know the distance
  all that well. Saw Gabe Winkler at the finish line, ran past Leah
  about mile 4 or so. Actually didn't really have any aches and pains
  afterwards. I don't have splits, but I think I was very consistent
  speedwise.]

Leah asked if I wanted to run this with her, a few weeks before. I figured, "What the hell? Could be fun." I hadn't run in a race in four or five years, and those were only 10k, which is a bit less than half this distance.
I came in worried that I wouldn't be able to do very well. I figured a good guess would be to run about 7:30/mile pace. I just trusted my gut and ran without paying much attention to other runners or time, and only realized how fast I was going about six miles in.

Coming into the last few hundred yards. (I started about 19 minutes after the gun, but had a ChampionChip in my shoe which determined my accurate time electronically. That's why the sign says 1:42, though I finished in 1:25.)

Swimming Heart Lake, end of second day's hike

Gwen is reading Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Silas is taking the picture, and I'm in the middle of swimming the long way across Heart Lake at the end of our second day of hiking. It took about 12 minutes to swim over, and then another 12 to swim back.

Descending Algonquin. It was slippery as holy fuck, and I was half-blind from lack of spectacles, and the other half blind from the fog. Less than ideal, but I had a great time.

As can be seen in this photo, the weather for the second day's hike was not as nice. It was socked in pretty good towards the summit, with high winds and zero visibility. I don't have my glasses on in this picture, because I was afraid they were going to blow off my face and be lost forever.

Hiking in the Lake Placid Environs

This was a fun trip.

Silas Alben, Gwen Taylor, and I took a weekend in late August to do a little hiking and camping in the Adirondacks near Lake Placid.

We hiked Giant mountain on the first day. The weather was not that warm, but agreeable, and it didn't rain during the day.

That night, however, it did rain. We had two tents; the one that I was in alone stayed bone dry, the other that Gwen and Silas shared got pretty soaked. That put a damper on any plans to camp out the second night, but we did do the hiking that was on the docket for the day: Algonquin.

Gwen and Silas, top of Giant.

Me and Silas, Giant mountain. You can see the nice bowl behind us, and Chapel Lake.

Silas was two years ahead of me in high school, and was editor in chief of the Niskayuna Warrior when I was assisting Focus and when I was editing Sports. He actually ended up being on my floor at Courant, while he did his last year of PhD studies and I my first.

I'm dogged by coincidence.

Top of Giant mountain. There was a pretty nice view of Chapel Lake behind us, which was where the trailhead was. Clothes went on and came off a few times due to changing conditions and general overheatedness as we ascended. This is why I'm wearing entirely different things from the earlier photos, though this is in fact the same day.

Partway up Giant. This is about an hour, at most, from the summit. It started to be more bald here; the trees were very stunted and there was mostly alpine vegetation, which signs admonished us to keep off.

There was some nice terrain for scrambling up on hands and toes. A good, fun hike.

A toad I found on the way up Giant.