4 posts tagged “central park”

itness Games 4M - Men

Fitness Mag 4M

Distance:  4.0 Miles, 6.4 Kilometers
Date/Time:  Sept. 9, 2006, 8:30 am
Location:  Central Park, NYC
Weather:  71 deg,. sunny, 76% hum.

My best pace and overall time yet. Wouldn't believe that I was out late the night before. Don't ask why. Jason had a great performance as well, sub 8 minute miles. Well done.

The temperature was perfect, everything was ideal. I actually stuck to a semi-solid diet pre race and this worked out the best of all my experiences thus far. Just Goo and bananas.

Concert in CPK

Last Thursday, I had the good fortune of seeing Gnarls Barkley in Central Park's Summer Stage. I have to admit, the duo of Cee-Lo and Dangermouse have created a magnificently unique and genuine sound. Everyone can appreciate their mega hit Crazy, but to have seen them in concert was an absolute pleasure as their stage presence was deafening.

Dressed as a uniformed schoolchildren, they opened with a cover of Pink Floyd's - Another Brick in the Wall. Yeah, they pulled it off. They killed it.

As each song poured through in a rockish remix, when contrasted to the live album, all fears of a dainty, prerecorded, MC and DJ duo faded. Nope, no Beastie Boys lameness here - we're talking full on 12 piece band complete with strings and synths.

Now, the most surprisnig aspect of the concert was how in tune everyone was with the raw emotion dripping off stage. Everyone present agreed: Cee-Lo was best descrived as the next James Brown. His understated charisma, gospel-like lyrics and genuinely wild passion for his music was unmistakeable. Everyone sung aloud in unison to the words, no missed verses to be found. His humor and generosity disarmed us, and his talented cast kept us in awe. 

Simply amazing. And so completely different from the album. The album has a distinctively poppy, studio-perfected feel, while the concert had a hazy, gritty Doors feel that fit just right live, but you would have never guessed was even possible from the sounds of the album.

St. Elsewhere is about a place so far from reality, not becuase it's impossible, but becuase we as a people have lost touch with the human factor. Without sounding too much like the hippies of yore, Gnarls gets the message across: life is about love, friendship, family and good times. It's just so refreshing, isn't it? 

Distance:  5.0 Miles, 8.0 Kilometers
Date/Time:  August 6, 2006, 8:00 am
Location:  Central Park, NYC
Weather:  Cloudy, 73 deg., 69% hum.

Hope and Possibility 5M

Although not as satisfying as the last race, I had a great time keeping up with Vanessa for the irst 3 miles at what seemed like a sub 8 minute pace. Then, my body reminded me that I'm no where close to her conditioning level! Man, can she run. :)

Note to self: don't eat bagels a half hour before running, unless you like gagging in the middle of your run. 

Oh well, thats the fun of learning a new sport, overcoming a new challenge.

Run for Central Park
Distance:  4.0 Miles, 6.4 Kilometers
Date/Time:  July 22, 2006, 8:30 am
Location:  Central Park, NYC
Weather:  73 Deg., 94% Hum. and Cloudy.

A few weeks back I entered in my first organized race ever. Anyone who knows me, knows I used to loathe running. Not much of a surprise I decided to become a hockey goalie, versus other more cardio-involved positions.

All that has changed since I've been inspired by Vanessa to take up running. More than just to relate to her conversations about the sport, I chose to pick up this form of cardio out of necessity since my bike was stolen this winter. 

After running a few weeks, I developed some annoying knee pains and gave up shortly afterwards. Months of agonizing pain prevented my progress as a runner, until I flat out gave up running. The reall kisser was that by this point, I had developed a joy for running after gaining a respect for its many positive outcomes, that were completely new to me.

After researching the possible causes, I narrowed it down to IT Band syndrome, a common malady for the desk-job prone. After learning the simple stretches to target this tendon, commonly using a Margarhita Mix bottle as a make-shift therap roller, I was able to recover fully within a week.

As a result, I've been able to work up to about 15 miles a week total, spread over three or four runs over the week. Again, I can vivdly recall the "Mile Run" gym days of my high school career, and beeing happy to simply finish in one piece.

I'll let the stats speak for themselves, as I was completely surprised by my times. Here are the chip times from the event.

Also, some great snaps courtesy of NYRR.

This was an amazing event. Having played collegiate sports, I missed the competitive nature of athletics, as there isn't much hockey to be played on Manhattan. (Ok, there is at Chelsea Piers, but I'm too lazy to drag my goalie gear on foot.) The minute the race started, I snapped back into an "athletic flashaback" if you will.

The most memorable moment was the start of the race. As the foghorns sounded, you could make out the tops of the heads of those in front of you - the faster packs - as the wave of bouncing heads approached, signialling it was almost your time to begin, to run. Completely awesome.

Another highlight was being able to run with Vanessa and her sister Cheryl, who was visiting from California. Pictures are upcoming, but the funnies part was that I had run the whole race, trying to catch up to Cheryl and Vanessa, only to realize that, unbeknownst to me, I had passed them early on. How's that for motiviation?