Take a Hike! Staten Island's Greenbelt Park

Alek and I enjoyed our hikes in Hawaii quite a lot (posts about those will come one day).  After we got home, we decided to try some day hikes near home.  With Staten Island's Greenbelt Preserve only about a half hour away from home, we decided to start there.

Prior to going to the park, we'd read about it in AMC's Best Day Hikes Near New York City.  The book rated the hike as difficult and recommended a longer path than we ended up taking.  The park itself rated most of the trails as easy-moderate with one labelled as moderate-difficult.  Alek and I weren't sure what to expect but we were hoping for a moderate-difficult hike.

We planned to start at the nature center and then take the blue trail to the yellow trail out to High Rock Park.  There we planned to have lunch, after which we would take the blue trail to the white trail back to the nature center.

Our hike went mostly as planned.  We had a little trouble finding trails at the start, as we weren't following the trail markers properly.  The trail markers were rectangles painted on trees. Once we realized how to read them we were fine.  There were a few times when we back tracked to make sure we didn't miss a turn-off.

Trail makers the red trail goes left here and all others go right

We purposefully deviated from our plans a tiny bit to follow the red trail out to Buck's Hollow to see the ruins of the Heyerdahl House.  The trail map was simply marked with ruins and since ruins are always cool to see we had to stop off.  

Ruins on the trail map?  We're in!

Ruins on the trail map?  We're in!

Part of the ruins

After seeing what remained of the old stone home, we were off toward the yellow trail and Moses Mountain.  Before getting to Moses Mountain, the trail goes out on to the street.  Here things got a bit confusing so we looked at a dam while we gathered our bearings!

Dam along the road.

We crossed the street and come to a fork in the path.  Immediately ahead of us was a somewhat steep rock scramble while to our left was a flatter path.  We knew the yellow path was marked moderate/difficult so we took the rock scramble up to the top of Moses Mountain.  It was good climb.  Not super difficult but I commented on the way up that I hoped we wouldn't need to come down this way.  

This photo doesn't show the steepness, but if you can see the rock in the top center we climbed up and over that.

The top of Moses Mountain was really nice.  There were many birds and beautiful views of the surrounding area from 260 feet above sea level.

birds and some views

We did end up having to come down a steep path with some loose rocks.  The descent was awesome but tricky.  After we got down we realized that we'd gone off the yellow trail on to something that was maybe more difficult.  It was definitely worth it though!

After some more hiking over foot bridges and through woods, we came to the parking area for Rock Hill Park.  This was a good area to stop for lunch and bathroom breaks once we found the picnic tables and bathrooms.  Here we had our lunch of goat cheese, walnut, and fig jam sandwiches followed by a girl scout cookie dessert.  Then we were off again.  By now we had hiked 3 miles in nearly 2 hours.  We originally thought we might go longer but changed our minds after the scramble. From here we decided to find the blue path to head back.

They way back was easier and mostly uneventful.  Most of this hike was through marshland.  We did pass by a cool pond with a lot of lily pads and a small pier going out over it.

There were also a bunch of fun foot bridges, including one that was a bit bouncy when you crossed it.  

I'm bouncing in the middle. What, that didn't become an animated gif??

We made it back to the visitor's center after having gone 5.5 miles in about 3 hours.  It was a great hike.  It's remarkable to have an area like this within the city limits.  Other hikers were far and few between and the hike offered up a lot of solitude!

I'm excited for more hikes like this throughout the summer and fall.  We'd love some recommendations if you've gone hiking near the city!

Race Recap: Brooklyn Half

I mentioned in Friday's post that this year's Brooklyn Half would be very different from the race I ran in 2011.  In some ways that was true.  I assumed the course would not change but when I checked where the race start would be I was in for a pleasant surprise.  This year's race began outside the Brooklyn Museum and looped around the park before taking a loop in the park.  I had been expecting two loops around the park. We didn't repeat any of the course!

When we got off the subway around 6:20 the station was packed with runners.  After we got above ground it was still crowded but no longer felt like a sardine.  The port-a-johns were in the corral with quick moving lines.  The entire pre-race setup was fantastic.

Crowded subway station

In the corral

The new course offered a change from what I'd expected.  This was also the weekend of the 2nd annual Great Googa Mooga in Prospect Park.  While it was too early to see any partakers, the signs for bike valet were amusing.

The great pre-race organization continued during the race as there were many water stops and the course was consistently wide enough for the runners.  It started wide, narrowed a bit in the park, then widened again as we went to Ocean Parkway.  There was never a problem with people clusters or passing.  I have to admit to being disappointed that there was no entertainment along Ocean Parkway.  We ran for nearly 6 miles down a long, straight, fairly flat street.  It got a little monotonous.

A dog passed me on the course around the 10th mile, and I saw him again at the finish line.  I'm not sure who he belonged to, but he seemed to have finished the race.

This pup is a runner too!

Even the weather played nice! The temperature was in the 60's (perfect for running) and the rain held off until later in the day.

I came in at 2:09:01.  Not my best time, but certainly not bad for not having run for 3 weeks leading up to the race.  We also got finisher medals to add to our collection!

Finish line photo

2013 Brooklyn Half Partaaaaay!

I'm back!  The last few months of wedding planning overwhelmed me quite a bit.   I had trouble making time for many things, including blogging.  I now have a ton of material from races and other activities over the past few months to keep me going for quite some time.

I'll come back to that later though.  I wasn't going to start the blog back up until next week.  Then I went to the Brooklyn Half Pre-Party to pick up my packet for tomorrow's race.  This is not the same race it was in 2011!

The Brooklyn Half was my first half marathon so it will always hold a special place in my heart.  When I ran in 2011 there wasn't much fanfare around the race. NYRR pushed it as a celebrate Brooklyn event with a Coney Island party after the race.  Other than that, it wasn't so different from any other NYRR race.  Packet pick-up was at the NYRR HQ, there was one wave for the race start, and no finisher medal.

For 2013, NYRR has pulled out all of the stops!  Packet pick-up is taking place at the Tobacco Warehouse in Dumbo.  We stopped by on Wednesday night.  The setup was very cool.  For those of you not familiar the Tobacco Warehouse is an unroofed 1 story brick structure with large open "windows" near the waterfront in Brooklyn.  It is open to the public as a part of Brooklyn Bridge Park and is usually empty except when hosting events.  NYRR gave it a transparent roof, had a DJ, and plenty of decorations to make the space feel completely different and well themed for Brooklyn Running.  Even if you're not running the race you can stop by to check it out.  The party continues today from 10 am until 9 pm.

T-shirt pickup area

New Balance was there selling Goods.  These treadmills belonged to JackRabbit Sports, who also had representatives and goods for sale.

What more could you want?

At the information counter, Alek and I donated money toward Hurricane Sandy relief and received a Brooklyn Half poster as well as a few temporary running tattoos with quips including "Run your meatballs off" and "Outrun the Subway".  I plan to sport one of the tattoos for the race tomorrow; photo coming on Monday!

Poster for a donation

race shirt with reflective NB on sleeve

Outside the Tobacco Warehouse the tattoo phrases were projected onto the wall above food trucks.  We had plans after the party so we didn't eat food truck food while there.

There will be two start waves for the race.  I'm in the first wave, which needs to be in the corral by 6:30 AM.  The second wave, where my new husband will start, needs to be in the corral by 7:05.  I'm not much faster than Alek, so I'll have about a half hour to cheer at the finish.

Based on the pre-race experience, the race itself will have to be more fun than it was 2 years ago.  Maybe simply because of additional excitement from the build up but I also expect more effort to have been put into on-course entertainment.