For the past 2 years, my dad and I have traveled to NYC for the annual Tunnel2Towers 5K.  Early in the summer we registered for the race, booked a hotel room and waited for the Tunnel2Towers weekend to arrive.  As this past weekend approached, we started to brainstorm other things to do while in New York.  I logged onto the Ticketmaster website and sure enough Billy Joel was scheduled to play at Madison Square Garden the night before the race.  My desire to see Billy Joel serenade a sold-out crowd with “Piano Man” or lead a rousing rendition of “New York State of Mind” gave me enough motivation to purchase a pair of over-priced tickets from StubHub as there were no longer tickets available on Ticketmaster.  Although the seats I purchased were side stage, my prior last minute ticket purchases proved that seats not head-on to the stage can still provide you a magical night with a perspective that most would shy away from.

On Saturday, we took the MetroNorth commuter rail from Union Station in New Haven to Grand Central and hailed a cab to The Holiday Inn located in the financial district.  After picking up our packets for the 5k, we ate lunch at P.J. Clarke’s while taking in scenic views of the Hudson River.  Following lunch, we walked along the Battery Park Greenway and made our way back to the hotel.  During our walk back I voiced the idea that we should take the subway to and from the concert as taxis may be hard to hail after the show.  We talked to the concierge and he recommended the R train from Rector street to Herald Square.  From there we would be one block from Madison Square Garden.  This would be my first time riding the subways in NYC and I knew I needed to get used to navigating public transportation systems as I will rely upon them heavily during my upcoming trip around the world.

We left our hotel , walked to Rector street and descended the stairs into the subway station.  The first thing I noticed was the barrier that divided the tracks that carried trains in opposite directions.  Was the train on our side of the barrier heading uptown towards our destination or south out of Manhattan into Brooklyn?  We asked a bystander who informed us that we were on the right side of the barrier.  He described that subway staircases descending from street-level and trains correspond with the flow of vehicular traffic.  If you’re looking to head uptown, descend the staircase on the right side of the road.  We successfully arrived in Herald Square and made our way to the arena.

We sat in section 213, row 19 which was only 5 or 6 rows from the back wall but you wouldn’t have known from the atmosphere of our section and the arena as a whole.  Billy took the stage and opened with “Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)” and continued non-stop for the next 2.5 hours covering such hits as “Downeaster Alexa”, “Vienna”, “The Longest Time” and “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant”.  The ticket markup was worth it and I would sit in those same seats for another concert.

By the time the concert ended, the R train had stopped running for the night.  We walked a couple blocks away from Madison Square Garden and successfully hailed a cab back to our hotel downtown.  I pulled out my running clothes, pinned my bib to my shirt and got ready for bed as I had to be awake at 5:00 am.

The alarm seemed to sound mere minutes after I closed my eyes and I knew it was no time to hit snooze and roll over.  We got ready, stopped for bagels at a local cafe and walked to Pier 11 on the East River where we boarded the ferry to Brooklyn, the starting line for the race.  One of my favorite parts of the race is the ferry ride over to Brooklyn where, on a clear morning, you see the sun rise over the Brooklyn Bridge and view lower Manhattan from a very different perspective.

The race began around 9:40 am and tens of thousands of runners entered the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel and progressed towards Manhattan.  I was very hesitant when taking my first strides as I was recovering from an ankle injury I suffered on a previous long training run.

My nerves were unfounded as I felt no pain during the first moments of the race.  At that point, my thinking turned to my upcoming marathon and my lack of running over the previous two weeks.  I decided to push myself to the finish line while weaving in and around thousands of others.  All in all, I was very pleased with my race and the weekend in New York I shared with my father.  If all goes as planned, I will be somewhere around the globe for next years T2T so this years race took on a certain significance that was not previously felt.