Posts Tagged ‘Sports’
Harlem River Ride
Many, many July Fourths ago, before Google Maps or Garmin GPS, before to the city’s best efforts to develop greenspaces, and well before being a husband or a father, I set out to circumnavigate Manhattan on my bike. I managed pretty well below 125th Street, but was thwarted by the vast complex of unknown bridges,…
Read MoreCity Island
It took me less than an hour back in the city to spot a dead body. I opted to shake of my sixteen-hour commute from Yemassee, SC, to New York, NY, on Amtrak’s Silver Meteor last week with a bike ride (inspired secondarily by a rapidly approaching triathlon in July). I pedaled my Cannondale north…
Read MoreGolf In The Kingdom
Say what you will about what Justin Timberlake’s done for the sport, golf still isn’t very rock ‘n roll. I play once a year nonetheless, always with my father. Perhaps its the long walk, or the inherent futility of knocking that tiny ball all that way into that tiny hole, but the sport is rife…
Read MoreMy Actual 3:51:05* New York City Marathon Playlist
A friend of mine emailed me a page from The New Yorker yesterday. The black-and-white cartoon showed two PacMan-like faces staring at one another. The face on the left’s speech bubble said “Marathon, Marathon, Marathon, Marathon, Marathon.” On the right, it simply said, “Zzzzzzz.” That pretty much sums up the days following any marathon, let…
Read MoreThe 3:51:05 New York City Marathon Playlist
With over 40,000 runners making individual Odysseys across 26.1 rust and wind-swept miles, the New York City Marathon is nothing if not cinematic. Add some stakes (like shattering an eight-year-old personal best) and a throbbing soundtrack, and the race is truly epic. I’ve run to the music of this city for years. The rush of…
Read MoreRun This Town
If I could run the marathon right this second, I would. Sunday marks my tenth New York City Marathon in a row (and my eleventh overall). For the last four years, I’ve run with Abbi. I love running with her (though I’m not sure she’d always say the same about me). Our pace is governed…
Read MoreRockaway Beach Or Bust
I’ve lived in New York City for nearly fifteen years, but have only recently begun to gain some sense of its true cultural and geographical diversity. Once again, I spent Sunday morning running the city. Last week, my goal was Hell’s Kitchen to Coney Island. This week, it was Rockaway Beach or bust. Our friends,…
Read MoreConey Island Or Bust
As the crow flies, Coney Island is a mere fourteen miles from Midtown Manhattan. Unfortunately, I am neither a crow, nor do I fly. Last Monday morning, NY1’s Pat Kiernan forecasted Sunday as a “perfect beach day.” Which is when I hatched my plan to run to Coney Island, meet Abbi there, and spend the…
Read MoreThe 2009 Brickyard 400 (Or, Speedway Nights: The Ballad Of Jimmie Johnson)
First rule of Nascar is you don’t talk about Nascar. It’s not that facts, statistics, cultural judgments, stereotypes or general biographical data aren’t valuable. They are. Of course (like you), I knew nothing of Nascar until last year’s Brickyard 400. This (now seasonal) confab was born of a conversation at my bachelor party and the…
Read MoreAll Stars
I’m pretty sure it’s the oldest thing I own: a tattered, No. 80, nine-inch, horsehide-covered, cork and rubber-centered regulation baseball with with seven faded words written in capital letters: 1981 Pinto North All-Star Ben Wagner. I hit the first RBI in that all-star game, a triple. It was a scorching-hot July Fourth at Ridgeland Common…
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