‘Go ahead, take a bite out of the Big Apple, don’t mind the maggots’ – “Shattered” - Jagger/Richards
Not being one to discuss training runs on this wankfest of a blog… I’ll do just that.
Last weekend I ran a tidy course in the City of N.Y... It was one of those adventurous and creative routes I’d been meaning to do for a while: five bridges along the southern part of the East River. The route had been vaguely mapped out in an old issue of New York Runner (a NYRR magazine that highlights race winners that got home before you finished), and I’d saved this particular article for a goofy day. Goofiness arrived early on Saturday, so off I went.
For those of you not familiar with the East River, the first bridge connecting Manhattan to Brooklyn is the one you know best, the Brooklyn Bridge. Just north is the Manhattan Bridge, then a mile or so above that is the Williamsburg Bridge. Even further away is the dreaded Queensboro Bridge of marathon fame, which takes you into mid-town and/or Queens. That makes four, and the other bridge and only one not connected to Manhattan is the Pulaski, famous again, as the halfway point in the marathon, about a mile or so before the Queensboro. Total mileage: 16 miles.
Sorry, I don’t live next to the Queensboro or any of the other bridges, so that means I have to run another couple of miles just to get there, and then I have to run a couple more to get home, too. What? 19 or 20 miles? Just suck it up, marathon training dead ahead.
Before I describe the course, let me give you some obvious math: Bridges = Hills. Now, I don’t mind hills so much, but when they do arrive late in a long run, R-rated language arrives, too. I turn into Joe Pesci waiting in line at the DMV. Anyway, for those of you who care, it takes about 6 minutes to run up the Queensboro incline to Manhattan at an 8-minute mile pace. Did I mention the views are spectacular? And can you guess that views don’t matter by the time you get to the 4th bridge?
Well, I survived well enough (or you wouldn’t be reading this) and I can tell you it kicks your tokhes, especially in the hot summer sun. If you make it to the city and you’re tired of the same old Central Park loop, I heartily and evilly recommend the Five Bridges. As Pinhead famously said in one of my favorite lines in Hellraiser II, ‘your suffering will be legendary’.
(Following is a description of the course since I haven’t had the time to figure out all the internet map technology, and when you do print it out that map and bring it along, you sweat all over it and the colors run, too, so just forget it.)
The Five Bridges: From the east drive entrance at 36th street, head south to the Brooklyn Bridge, take a right at the crack whores on Dover Street, run up to the bridge entrance, hang a right, crossing the bridge. Once In Brooklyn, take the first cross street left, look for Jay Street, take another left, which takes you right to the steps of the Manhattan Bridge (a run of less than ten minutes since the bridges are so close together). Cross this admittedly dingy bridge into Chinatown in Manhattan. Take a right on Bowery, try not to run over little old Chinese ladies out grocery shopping, they’ll kick your ass. Head up to Canal, take a right and go straight across the scenic Williamsburg Bridge, where you get to run directly above the traffic for a change. Again in Brooklyn, do an immediate U-turn once you get off the Bridge and head behind it to Bedford a couple of blocks away. Go right at Bedford (heading north now), and run for a while, past McCarran Park, along the goddamn marathon route. Look for a major intersection where you can’t go straight (paging George Michael!), head left onto Manhattan Avenue and run for another mile or so. Thankfully, the cross street names run down alphabetically, so you can turn your brain off. Look for Clay Street, which begins with a ‘C’, that’s after ’D’, take a right and there’s the Pulaski Bridge a block or so away. Run across the bridge fast since it’s not much of a bridge anyway, and the scenery sucks. Take a right at the first intersection and head towards 21st St at another major intersection about 3 blocks away. Take a left on 21st and run north a few minutes to the #$%@ Queensboro Bridge. You’ll have to go under it and to the right to enter the bike/pedestrian lane, but once you’re on and at the top, the worst is over. Leaving the bridge, you have to veer right into a U-turn, then turn right and head south on 1st Avenue. Finish where you started, at 36th, or if you prefer, head west, directly to the park and finish where far more people can watch you collapse. Go to Starbucks, order a coffee frappachino, and tell them your name is Ivana Hurl.
