Training in New York City

Mon, Jul  13, 2009 - By Megan McTavish

Megan has had a very colorful ski career so far and is arguably XC Ottawa's most experienced racer.

I recently went to New York City to attend a conference for work.  I had never been to New York City before and so I was really looking forward to going and spending some time exploring the city.  However, it also happened to be a 16 hour week of training for me.  I figured that it would be pretty difficult to get all that training done on Friday, Saturday and Sunday (even though we were going to our OWL training camp) so I knew that I should get at least 4 hours done while in New York.  This sounded like a feasible goal, but it would also be pretty tough since I would be at the conference from 9-4 each day  and I had to get to New York and back.

In the end, I took the first day off and did a lot of walking in the city, went up the Empire State building and out to eat at a Korean restaurant that was recommended to me by someone at the conference.  I got to see famous places like Macy's, Tiffany, FAO Schwarz (the big piano from the movie BIG), Rockefeller Center, the Plaza Hotel, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Times Square and Broadway. 


Times Square...not a good place to go for a run!


New York at dusk - from the Empire State Building (forgot my camera, so I had to use a disposable)


The BIG PIANO - from Big (Tom Hanks)- one of my favorite when I was a kid.

The next day I decided to combine "being a tourist" and training and went for a long "city run".  I ran
from my hotel to Central Park and around the "running track" which goes around a big reservoir close to the North end of the park.  It is a pretty neat place and there are lots of people running and riding there!  That evening I went out "On Broadway" and saw CHICAGO.  I also walked around Times Square late at night with thousands of other people!


Central Park - a good place to run!  Most of the city streets are impossible to run on, so this park was great.


The Running Track - or so it was called.  Neat views of the city from Central Park


Another view from the running track

Endurance strength and some running pickups were on the menu for my third day.  This is an easy workout to do while traveling.  I ran down the bike path by the west shore of Manhattan and did some strength in my hotel room afterward.  This workout was a bit shorter and gave me lots of time to explore Soho and the West Village (and to get a cupcake at the Magnolia bakery:).

On the last day, I had enough time to rent a bike for a quick tour of Manhattan before catching the end of the trade show and then heading home.  This was a neat way of seeing a lot of the island, and getting in some Zone 1 training.  Although it took about 2.5 hours, I figured it counted as about 1.5 hours of actual training.  I rode past the World Trade Center site (which is now under construction), past the Statue of Liberty (although it was too foggy to really see it), over the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge, through some of China town, and along both the East and West coasts of the island. 


World Trade Center site - a lot of construction around this area....made for some slow riding


The Brooklyn Bridge - this was really cool.  The bike/pedestrian lane was actually above the cars.

In the end, I had a great trip and was successful at multi-tasking: attending a 4 day conference and trade show on Medical Devices, being a tourist in a big city, and also getting in 4.5 hours of  interesting/productive training, making it so that the weekend of training was not too crazy!