Another Williamsburg Sunday

Sunday 1/14, Run #109: Greenpoint & Williamsburg

Distance: 9.82 miles
Time: 1:15
Pace: 7:38
Temp: 44
Wind Chill: 39
Weather: overcast & foggy

click on image for interactive map


Unique Miles Today: 8.68
Total Unique Miles: 848.52
Percent of Brooklyn Run: 48.70

For the complete route, click here

Notes: As with the previous two Sundays, I stayed close to home today and once again followed a route that allowed me to start and finish within a few blocks of the Runs Brooklyn world headquarters here in Greenpoint. So despite the lousy weather out there (and the forecast for more rain to come), this morning's run was a good one from the moment I started for that reason alone. But I also passed a significant milestone, though not one that shows up in any of the numbers I post here on the blog: I hit the 1000 total mile mark since I started this whole thing last June. I know, it's more symbolic than anything else since it's the unique miles that count toward running the whole borough, but still -- a thousand. That's a lot of sidewalk, a lot of dodging drifting pedestrians, a lot of darting through traffic across busy city streets, and a lot of strange looks from my fellow Brooklynites. And while it looks like I'm now within just three more runs from hitting the halfway mark (only 22.66 unique miles to go!), there's something immensely satisfying about having run 1000 miles over the last 29 weeks. Interestingly enough, that's almost the exact distance from my previous home in Iowa City, Iowa, to my apartment in Brooklyn -- in fact, if you were to drive from my old address to my current one here you'd cover precisely 1001.42 miles (at least according to Mapquest). Of course, that'd only take sixteen hours or so, provided you didn't hit any traffic south of Chicago.

Like the previous two local Sunday runs, my excursion today took me through a pretty diverse cross-section of the borough, from working-class residential streets to the edge of the East River to some heavily industrial areas to the (increasingly gentrified) hipster chic of Northside Williamsburg. I ran under both the BQE and the Williamsburg Bridge, alongside decaying nineteenth-century warehouses, beside the enormous old Domino sugar factory, and past new buildings with million-dollar condos. And I made my way through neighborhoods that are mostly Polish, predominantly Hispanic, or in which Orthodox Jews comprise the majority. All this in under ten miles, too. A pretty great run on a pretty lousy morning, weatherwise at least.

So there. I made it through a whole post without complaining about anything besides the weather! Anyway, I'm taking tomorrow off to rest up for the final push toward 50 percent, and will hopefully be back on the road Tuesday and then either Wednesday or Thursday, with Friday tentatively penciled in for hitting the big milestone. The big milestone that really counts, that is.

Given the low light and gloomy conditions, here's the best I could manage with the camera:


Driggs Avenue


Also on Driggs


Broadway


Metropolitan Avenue


Looking southwest from the end of S. 4th


Broadway