Baltimore Marathon Relay

West Side Highway Run

Just an archway that I like, off Bedford Street on the way north to Christopher. There's a small courtyard that's very nice, which I didn't take photos of because some tenants had their front doors open to the yard and were doing work on their interiors. When I hit Christopher, I turn west to get to the Hudson.






This is a pier at West 26th Street which is designed to allow loaded rail cars to roll directly off the decks of cargo ships. There's a lot of old iron gearing, probably to raise or lower the end of the pier to the proper deck height for whatever ship is in port.



Iron wheels for hand-powering the works.



The gearing seen through a pair of timbers.

These gears were in reasonably good shape considering how long they'd been in disuse.



A gargoyle in a garden on the West Side park that's been under development the past few years.



A ruined shipping pier. This one had caught fire in the 1970s, and the framework was twisted and warped from the heat.


Another shipping pier. I like the crows nest above the water-side end of the rails, which seems like it controls the raising and lowering of the pier to deck level.

A tunnel which takes the West Side Highway path under the road and up a hill, to where it flows into the promenade of Riverside Park. This is about a quarter mile north of the 79th Street boat basin.



A Civil War memorial off Riverside Drive, seen from the rocks at the top of the running path at 91st Street. This is where I usually turn around, if I'm doing a ten mile run.



Claremont Riding Academy, on 89th Street off Riverside Drive. The club is near the bridle paths of Central Park. From the sidewalk outside it smelled pleasantly of horse manure, hay, and animals.



A ramp and hay elevator in the club, for taking silage to all the levels of the stables.

Looking up the shaftway of the hay elevator. I assume that it's just for hay; I have no idea if it's sturdy enough to take horses up and down. I very much doubt it, considering the elevator lines are rope rather than steel cable.



The running path around the reservoir in Central Park. The circumference is about one and a half miles.



This is Alberto Arroyo, the Mayor of Central Park. He played a large part in establishing the running culture in the Park, and in particular the establishment of the path around the reservoir.

West Side Highway Run

Here is an album with the rest of the photos, about 80 in all.

Boston Marathon

At the finish line with Mom and Kate.

Daniela ran me in the last six miles, which was crucial. I wouldn't've finished otherwise.

Crossing the finish line.

Coming up on the line.

Making "the turn" in the homestretch into Boston proper.

You can see I'm significantly less pumped about Mile 19, as compared to Mile 9.

More Jumbo marathon watchers.

Tufts marathon spectators.

Crossing mile nine in the Boston Marathon... rockin' the Tufts baby blues and feeling good.

These are some photos I got off a CD that the photographers sold me. I'll go through and write some better captions later... the girl who's flogging my sorry ass through the last six miles is Daniela, without whom I probably wouldn't've finished.

Mile nine.

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.