New York moments

After days of hobbling precipitated by my first visit to the weight room in months, I went on a fairly short, light run this afternoon. The sky had that beautiful blue that you only see in NYC after it's been raining for several days straight. I think of the air around here as a big sponge that gets coated with brown smoggy soot till it gets completely soaked and wrung dry with a giant rain storm. Unfortunately, there are no such cleansing rain storms for my lungs, so I can only imagine what the brown air is doing to them! But, I digress...

It was the perfect day for my first run in over a week. I strapped on the HR monitor to keep my ego from pushing me too hard, and pranced down Riverside just letting my mind wander.

When I saw a boy sitting in the grass park behind the Grant Monument playing his trombone, I couldn't help but smile. This is another one of those "only in New York City" moments that seem to happen so often when I'm out running or on my bike, or even at the pool. Now I've seen people playing instruments outdoors before (I was in marching band for years), but this was a particularly amusing set up. He was sprawled out in the grass -- clearly not a serious musician -- but had taken the time to lug a music stand out there with him and was playing off sheet music. On my way back up Riverside he was no longer playing, but rather sitting in the grass flipping through his music while smoking a cigarette and listening to his ipod.

For the rest of my run I thought of all the people and places I've encountered simply through training for a triathlon. Training for a race has been an amazing way for me to become acquainted with this crazy, huge city and make it my home. The breadth and scope of this place is amazing and as long as I keep training, I'll keep finding more reasons to love and respect it.