Holy crap, watch out for that car!

2.2 inches. That's how much clearance our taxi had on either side while driving 50 mph through the crowded streets of double parked cars in rush hour on our way from the airport. I only took a couple of taxi rides in my last trip to NYC, so I'd completely forgotten just exactly how exciting (and life-threatening) they are.

Once we finally made it to our hostel (Jazz on the Park) and got all situated, we did a rush rush rush trip across the city to get to the New York Road Runners office where I had to pick up my bib for Saturday's race by 7PM. We took subways most of the way, but we had to run the last 3 blocks. And... well,... if that's a preview of Saturday's race, it's going to be a VERY depressing race report. We did make it there in time, and I'm happy to report that my race t-shirt (which is a lovely navy blue with a cool logo on the front, rather than some hideous lime green atrocity forced on participants of the Denver Marathon) is a LARGE rather than an X-LARGE! And it actually FITS! Yay. Oh! And my green singlet (that's just a fancy word for technical tank-top) is LOOSE, whereas it used to fit so tightly that I would ne'er be seen in public in it. I plan to post picture-proof of this come Tuesday.

Other good news: I am officially not the only slow runner in NYC. On the way back from picking up my race packet, we walked all the way across the park, exposing us to a LOT of runners. Some of these runners are MY PACE! I know it's irrational, but for some reason I'd figured that everyone in NYC must be fast and thin and fit and PERFECT. Now I know that just simply isn't true.

The bad news: It is hot like the devil's butt here. The humidity is definitely going to play a big role in my performance (or lack thereof) on Saturday. In fact, just while waiting to use this computer, I ran across an article that said that NYC is one of the "sweatiest" cities in the country. Apparently, if every person in NYC took an hour long walk on a typical summer day, they would produce 1.3 million gallons of sweat. Well... NYC doesn't know from sweat yet. That's all I've got to say about that.

Tomorrow morning we head out for our bike tour. I think it's going to be a lot of fun, really. I just hope I can still walk/run on Saturday.

More updates to come! Have a great weekend!