Well, this isn’t the blog I had planned to be writing about my three days in New York. The plan had been to blog daily about my time here and post race recaps from the Brooklyn Half Marathon and also the GFNY World Championship race, however, I was not able to take part in either race.

During IRONMAN 70.3 MALLORCA last week, I tore my calf muscle which has now put me out of running for two months. The physio did say that swimming and cycling should be okay but give it a couple of weeks.

Given the GFNY race is 101-miles with over 8,000ft of climbing involved, I decided that it was not sensible for the long term injury recovery to be doing the ride.

Pulling out of both the Brooklyn Half and GFNY ride meant I had a weekend in New York with zero plans. I did look at cancelling my flights and hotel reservations. Unfortunately, both of these were non-refundable so I may as well head out here and make use of the bookings.

I was able to defer my Brooklyn Half entry to 2020 but GFNY does not all refunds, cancellations or defers so that was money lost. It really frustrates me when races, especially big races like that do not offer deferrals.

Friday / Arrival:

So the trip to New York.

I flew out from Manchester on Friday and return back home tonight (Monday). Three nights / four days in the big apple. I dropped on really well with some really nice hot weather, peaking at 31’c today. In hindsight, it may have been tough running the Brooklyn Half in the warmer weather on Saturday morning, although it was early and not scorching hot.

When I arrived on Friday, I dropped my bags off at the hotel and headed straight over to Brooklyn to the registration and expo. I thought I would still go over and have a look around.

I had gained my entry into the 2019 Brooklyn Half via the 2018 NYRR Virtual 6 program, this meant I could register for the race just prior to general release and avoiding the mad dash to get signed up.

The expo this year was moved to a park just under the Brooklyn Bridge, I had never been to the previous spot out on the pier, but this location was pretty damn good giving great views of the bridge and the Manhattan skyline.

At the expo I brought a Brooklyn Half vest top, although I can’t run for a few months I still hope to get out running before summer is over. This top can give me some motivation to heal up quickly.

Walking around New York was tough, my calf hurt a lot still and I was still hobbling around slowly getting in the way of people rushing around the busy city.

I did hope to head to the GFNY registration straight from Brooklyn, but this expo and registration is held at Fort Lee in New Jersey which is over 11-miles away. With being a slow mover, I thought I would hold off until Saturday.

Saturday:

Saturday morning started with a 5:30am alarm call, despite not being able to run I thought I would head over to Prospect Park to watch the runners starting and then down to Coney Island to see the finish.

I wasn’t really looking forward to watching others doing what I can’t do, but I believe it is still good form to go and support the running community.

In the end, I did enjoy watching and cheering the runners on. At the start, I stood just by Grand Army Plaza where the runners do an out & back around the plaza. I stood in the middle of the road to get a good view of both sides. This turned out to be a schoolboy error as I was stuck in the road until the last corral of wave 1 had gone by. This meant the 40 min metro journey down to Coney Island meant I would miss the first runners finishing, but this is no biggie.

The finish is on the boardwalk right next to the beach and in this weather, it was a really nice finish.

I had a little walk along the beach before heading back to Manhattan.

After lunch, I went over to Fort Lee to the GFNY registration and Expo. As I was not able to cancel or defer this race I thought I would still register and pick up my race pack. The race pack was pretty good and included a race jersey and water bottle. Not quite worth what I paid to enter the race, but better than nothing.

After that grabbed some dinner and did the traditional tourist thing of heading to Times Square to get a few photos around sunset.

Sunday:

No early alarm set for today. Not like I needed it with jetlag waking me at 6am. I decided not to head to Fort Lee to watch any of the GFNY race, I would only be able to see the finish and didn’t see the point in that.

Today was just going to be a relaxing day or as relaxing as things can be in New York. I thought I would have a walk around and get some more tourist photos then spend the afternoon sitting in the sun in Central Park.

Firstly heading to Grand Central Station.

Then to the Rockefeller Center and up to the observation deck. Anyone who read my Tokyo blogs will know I love a good observation deck after heading up the Tokyo Skytree.

By the time I was back down to earth the shops had opened, so I did a little gift shopping for my wife and daughter and treated myself to a Nike running vest. Then spent the afternoon relaxing in the sun, sat in Central Park. This was just what I need to rest my calf. All of the walking around and general time on my feet had caused the swelling to go back up again, pretty much to the same levels as one week ago.

After a few hours of sitting in the sun, I went off for a walk around the park, coming across a bunch of turtles in the lake.

That was pretty much it for Sunday. One of the things I wanted to do whilst on this trip, was to get as much rest as I could, I didn’t particularly want to come here in the first place with not being able to race so I wanted to use the opportunity to get three nights of good sleep. Most nights I was in bed by 9:30pm at the latest, getting over 9 hours of sleep each night. This compares to the usual 6 – 7 hours back home when working.

Monday / Return:

I was on a 7:20pm flight back to Manchester and booked onto a 2:44pm train from Penn Station to Newark Liberty International station. This gave me the morning to get any last bits of shopping done and a load more hours to kill.

My wife asked me to get some more things for her which I picked up and decided to head downtown to One World Trade Centre. I have never been in the new tower and wanted to check that out as well as the observation deck.

After that, it was back to the hotel for check-out and then spent a few more hours sat in Central Park, it was really hot today for mid-May but also nice to sit out in the warm sun. This is my eighth trip to New York but only the first during the spring/summer months. I have always been in winter and wrapped up due to the cold.

By 2pm I was back at the hotel and heading over to Penn Station to catch the train to the airport, where I am sat now writing this blog post.

This is not the most positive of blogs and probably seems like I didn’t really enjoy my time here. I did enjoy it, but it is just not what I had planned when I booked this trip and when I wrote my BROOKLYN HALF MARATHON HOPES & DREAMS and GFNY NEW YORK HOPES & DREAMS blog posts a couple of weeks ago. I am still trying to come to terms with the fact that I cannot run for months, in fact, I can bearly walk at the moment. Spending four days in New York when you are struggling to walk has been very difficult. I am by no means disabled, but struggling with steps, up hills and long distances this trip has been very eye-opening to the difficulties that disabled people face on a daily basis.

I had expected New York to be easy to get around, but in fact, a lot of the places such as subways, have no lifts or escalators to improve access. This made my trip more tricky than it should have. Having spent five days in Tokyo recently, the difference in facilities and general cleanliness in comparison to New York is stark. New York is old, dated and dirty. Despite that, I love New York and will be returning in six months for my third consecutive running of the New York City marathon.

My hope is to make that my come back race, it will be tough and I am not expecting to match my time of 2018 but that is my motivation to recover and get back to running.