Grateful

Original subject lines:

Dual city runs and museums
Tri city runs and museums

See I do try to post even when it doesn’t ultimately happen. I swear there was running, even if it wasn’t explicitly worth talking about in depth. We’re in that part of the cycle of “the runs happened”.

Another whirlwind week two weeks ”’three”’ weeks, full of art, friends, family, fall leaves and.. fun for which I’m grateful for every piece of. Linking up with Deborah and Kim, to talk, in part, about an IRL linkup with Deborah and Coco.

Friends and Family

In addition to existing friends, so good to finally meet Darlene’s friend Heidi while celebrating Darlene’s amazing race. Darlene introduced Heidi and I when I was looking for a bib for the Mohawk Hudson Half and we subsequently realized we shared a birthday. This was the first time we properly met and hopefully it won’t be the last. That kicked off a great few weeks that followed with:

• Unpictured, evening coffee with another friend who I don’t get to see nearly often enough but a meeting commute left me outside her office.
• A trip to DC for another friend’s birthday coincided with an early celebration Coco and Deborah’s birthdays and a chance for a lovely lunch catchup. November lunches were a COVID thing when I’d stop on my drive to Florida, but this was much more relaxed.
• An on time train (!) back to NYC meant I could catch up with Hil before her flight back home.
• every single one of you, even folks whose schedules meant they couldn’t collage. I love this tradition, I am so grateful for running and blogging bringing each of you into my lives, and I hope 2024 means the chance to meet more of you in person. Special shout out to Kim for this gorgeous collage
• Spending Thanksgiving and my birthday with Mom & Bob in Florida. It’s a tradition that grew out of COVID and while I think every year is its last year, it’s one I enjoy.  It’s a different kind of holiday, and that’s wonderful. The weather wasn’t spectacular, but beach runrise is just magical.
• Running with Mom. Yep, she won her age group. It doesn’t matter that it was because she was the only one — she was still out there and moving quickly. She told me I was slowing her down when I went out to bring her in. So much fun, and this Trot is inclusive pace wise in a way the Rockland one never was. Plus it’s not on Thanksgiving so accessible to those who might be cooking.

Mother Nature:

I’m not anti gym or treadmill, but there’s just something medicinal about fresh air, and I will forever love fall.

Although we’re far from drought, this has been a weird autumn, leaf color wise. They’ve happened, but they haven’t hadn’t been particularly exciting until later than normal. Or, I guess, later than the old normal. I had fun on this last week’s run commutes watching the tree in Central Park change and then enjoyed the path as I circled back from my monument run when in DC. And then when I got home from Florida this morning, I found that the Great Lawn was more than living up to its name with this beautiful, vibrant red.

That rainbow over the marina was just something else. I truly don’t recall ever seeing one there, but also we had the rainbow before the rain came around, which was slightly surreal. I wish I had photos of how it evolved, but it was mesmerizing to watch even if it meant I got damp when the rain did catch me on the T dock.

Art:

 

As always, DC was a museum marathon. Somehow I’d never been to the botanical garden’s train show and we hit that with a small window before the train. Since I’m forever in love with the National Mall, seeing it in miniature and made of floral and bark was just magical. I think mostly because it was so unexpected and uncrowded so we could really take in the details, such as Abe within his monument.

I haven’t made it to a ton of museum events here because work has been bananas, but I couldn’t miss the reopening of the Met’s European Galleries. So wonderful to have so many masterpieces back on view just down the street.

Three State Runs:

I don’t have strong feelings about Veterans Day — but there was something absolutely magical and quiet as Washington DC woke up and I ran from the hotel to Lincoln via the reflection pool and all the monuments. WW II has long been my favorite, but Vietnam grew on me this trip. Thank you again to Deborah and Coco for that tour last September so I knew where to find them all.

And my beloved beach. I travelfess that I am not remotely a beach person. I love looking at them, but after half an hour I’m too hot/sticky. But they’re my favorite Florida run and this is the first trip where every single run was to/near (in the case of the Turkey Trot) the beach. Trust me, I was tempted by the gym’s AC, but I couldn’t resist the lure. Typically on my birthday I either run 11.23 KM (thanks, Liz, for that idea all those years ago) or double my age-akin to one more for good luck. I wasn’t feeling double this year, but knew I could do more than 7, which is roughly what 11.23 KM is and ended up around 7.5. No rules on your birthday, which is also why I had a birthday cinnamon roll for breakfast.