Bronx Week Part IV: Where to Drink Near Van Cortlandt Park

As I said yesterday, without any plan on my part this week turned into Bronx week. Since it's Friday, I figured I would end the week with something on the less serious side.
 
Van Cortlandt Park, New York City's 4th largest at 1,146 acres, is a runner's paradise. With its miles of trails, famed cross country course, and a full-size track, there's plenty to keep runners happy. Of course, all good runs must come to an end and what better way to end a run than with a beer or two (or three, or four). You've got plenty of choices in the area so here are four of my favorites:

Taps at the Bronx Ale House

Name: The Bronx Alehouse
Location: W 238th St and Review Place
Why it's worth checking out: First, they have an awesome beer selection. This was the first, and probably still the only, real craft beer bar in the Bronx. It gets pretty packed in the evenings but they just expanded so there's a little more breathing room. Another great feature? Free popcorn! And for those of you who are veg-heads like me, the Daily News recently names the Bronx Ale House veggie burger one of the best in the city. Only problem? If you're like me, with so many good beers to choose from you won't be able to stop at one or two.


Name:An Beal Bocht Cafe
Location: 216 W 238th St (b/t Waldo and Greystone Ave)
Why it's worth checking out: Although A Beal Bocht pours a mean Guinness, their drinks aren't the reason to schlep up a steap flight of stairs to Riverdale. Why go so far out of your way? For the great live music! An Beal Bocht features live music almost every weekend night plus with amble seating indoors and outdoors this is a bar that's just as much fun on sunny afternoon as in the wee hours of the morning (not that I would know...)  

An Beal Bocht's weekly line-up.

Name: The Punch Bowl
Location: W 238th St and Broadway

Why it's worth checking out: The Punch Bowl is a dive bar in the best sense. There is ZERO pretension here but the folks are all longtime Bronx locals. Sit down at the bar and you're almost guaranteed to strike up a conversation with someone who's been boozing since before you were born. This is the kind of spot you go to do shots or drink cheap beer so don't try ordering any fancy cocktails. If you really want to live life to the fullest, go on a Friday when Dawn (possibly my new best friend) is hosting karaoke.  You may regret everything you do once you get here, but you probably won't remember enough to feel that bad about it.

Name:Mr McGoo's Pub
Location: Broadway and W 231st Street
Why it's worth checking out: If the Punch Bowl is a dive, this is a double-dog-dive. Seriously, I'm not sure I would recommend this place at all except it's so unbelievably cheap. The problem with that, though, is that the clientele are cheap too. Also, I think this is where underage kids from Manhattan College (just a short walk away) go to drink because everyone in here seemed to be around 18. On second thought, I don't recommend this place at all.

Okay, so by now maybe you've realized that this is simply the pub crawl I did on my birthday (minus the pubs I went to when I got back to Manhattan). I'm surprised I have such a good recollection of my escapades given all the cheap sh*t I drank territory I covered.

A Bronx Weekend: Part I

Okay, so my posting has been a little off lately. I promise you I have a good reason, and one I'll go into detail on a little later. For now, I'm trying to get back into a posting routine and promise and least two posts per week.

I may live in Manhattan, but his weekend my running life was really all about a different borough--the Bronx. On Friday after work I hopped my usual train home, the 7th Avenue Express, but instead of continuing into Harlem I transferred at 96th Street. My destination? Van Cortlandt Park. Usually I head to VCP when I want to get in trail running but on this particular day I was there to take advantage of their track.

Runners warming up under ominous skies. Photo from MM.

The Metropolitan Milers, a group founded by Central Park Track Club member and USATF-certified coach Neil Fitzgerald, holds a "Friday Night Miles" series in the weeks leading up to the 5th Avenue Mile. Neil leads runners through a series of warm-ups, offers great advice on how to race the distance, and then gives runners a chance to put that advice to good use. The women's race went off around 6:40pm and then the men went in two heats of around 10 guys each.

The whole thing was a ton of fun! I was in the second heat with one of my teammates and in spite of having run Yasso 800s the night before, I ran a respectable 5:32 (my teammate ran a 5:23!). Hopefully in two weeks time when I toe the line on 5th Avenue, I can put that experience to good use.

There's one more Friday Night Miles event schedule for this week and if you live in the 5 boroughs (or Westchester) and: (a) love racing miles; (b) hate racing miles; or (c) have never raced a mile, I really recommend it.  For just $10 you get a great opportunity to learn something and race with a bunch of really fun people.

Stay tuned for Part II of my oh-so-exciting Bronx-centric weekend.

Track Woes

I know President's Day was last week, but allow me to invoke our founding fathers for a moment (God knows the presidential candidates have been invoking them on an hourly basis). Our founding fathers recognized that we have certain unalienable rights--the right to due process of law, the right to just compensation in cases of governmental takings, the right to religious freedom--but it's obvious none of our founding fathers was a runner.

If there had been runners in that first Congress at Federal Hall in New York, surely one of them would have included the right to a track!

What am I talking about? It can be really difficult to find a good all-weather 400 meter or 440 yard track. In New York City, there are a handful of tracks, but most of them fall into one of four categories:

(1) Weird distance - It's hard to run 800 m repeats on an unmarked 330m track!

(2) Weird shape - It's tricky to maintain speed on a track with 90 degree angles (plus, these tracks usually also fall into category (1))

(3) Limited Hours - Some of the nicest tracks are only open certain times of day, times that don't really allow people with jobs good options for getting in a workout.

(4) Pay-per-use tracks - There are a handful of indoor tracks in the city, but these require you to pay each time you want to use them and they usually fall into category (3) and sometimes categories (1) and (2) as well.

There's also a fifth category for tracks that are just too far away for me to get to on a weekday. There are great tracks at McCarren Park, the Redhook Recreation Area, Van Cortlandt Park, and Forest Park, but there is no way I can get to those places before work. There are two tracks close to me, one that's approximately 320 meters with 90 degree angles and one that doesn't open until 6am. I guess when you have Manhattan real estate prices to deal with, tracks just aren't a winning proposition.

For now, I'll continue to make due with the Central Park reservoir loop but I'm not going to stop dreaming about a day where I can live across the street from a pristine all-weather track!

...and it begins with you.

This morning I did 9 miles in the park with 10x100yd strides (they should have been 100m strides, but I used the reservoir which has 20yd markers). The run wasn't anything exciting so I won't bore you with any more details. Instead, I'd like to bore you with something else--running related--that I've been thinking about the past couple of days: acknowledging other runners.

There has been plenty of ink spent on this topic already, I know, but it's one that never goes away. Here's the scenario. You are running and you see another runner approaching you going in the opposite direction. As he or she gets closer, you wonder to yourself, Do I say hi? Do I waive? Do I sheepishly smile? Do I nod? By the time you get to the end of this list you and the other runner are within inches of each other and you give a halfhearted Charlie-Brown look that falls somewhere between "I really need to use the bathroom" and "I spend my spare time memorizing dialogue from Silence of the Lambs." The other runner, however, just gazing in the opposite direction pretending not to see you (or maybe he or she really does need to use the bathroom and that internal struggle requires all of his or her concentration).

Anyway, the point of the above rambling is that, at least in New York, there is no real protocol for greeting other runners. Generally, there is little to no acknowledgment. I don't know why this is. I've noticed on my runs in Van Cortlandt Park that as soon as I cross the county line into Westchester, the number of hellos and waives I give and receive jumps exponentially. It must be something about city living. I guess it makes sense when you're running in Central Park at 7pm on a Tuesday when the roads are choked with runners, walkers, and even "joggers" moving in every direction. But what about at 5am on a Friday when there are four people on all of East Drive?

My theory: we city runners view these interactions as a game of chicken. No one wants to be the first person so say or do something polite in case the other person doesn't return the gesture. One of the announcements on the subway ends with the following, "Courtesy is contagious and it begins with you." Maybe I'll make that my goal for the rest of the week, spreading a little courtesy to other runners. It's possible nothing will change. But then again, who knows how many I may be able to infect?