Saturday was a pretty quiet day - a lot of wandering around SoHo, then dinner at Vandal. Sunday was a short day, with our flight home in the early evening. But it was Marathon Sunday, and the New York City Marathon holds a special place in my heart.

Saturday was a pretty quiet day - a bit of recovery after the craziness of the night before. We slept in, had breakfast at the hotel and headed out to wander a bit. We headed down to SoHo, which is always a favourite for both of us. We walked the main shopping street and some of the small back streets. It was a pretty relaxed day - and not a lot of photos.

Latest Obsession - Tall Skinny Buildings

One of the biggest changes around midtown Manhattan over the past few years has been the development of the “super high rise” - these massively tall, skinny, super high end luxury condo developments. Three of them in particular - 432 Park Avenue, 111 W 57th Street and Central Park Tower stand out at the south end of Central Park.

432 Park Avenue is a residential skyscraper that overlooks Central Park. The building topped out at 1,396 ft, and features 125 condominium apartments. Construction began in 2011 and was completed on December 23, 2015.

When built, it was the third-tallest building in the US, second tallest in New York and the tallest residential building in the world.

Cool fact - in order to reduce the potentially uncomfortable effects of swaying due to wind vortex loading on such a flexible tower, the window grid and interior space of 2 floors between every 12 occupied floors are left open to allow the wind to pass through. In addition two tuned mass dampers are located at the top of the tower and in the outriggers of some of the mechanical floors to help damp the motion.

111 West 57th Street, also known as the Steinway Tower, is an 101-story, 1,428-foot supertall residential tower. When completed, the tower will be one of the tallest buildings in the US, as well as the thinnest skyscraper in the world with a width-to-height ratio of about 1:23 or 1:24. The north side of the tower rises directly up to the pinnacle of the building. On the south side of the tower, a series of setbacks appear as the tower rises, thinning out as the height of the building increases.

The Steinway Tower dominates the skyline.

Central Park Tower (also known as the Nordstrom Tower) is a mixed-use supertall skyscraper being developed along “Billionaires' Row” on 57th Street. The building rises 1,550 feet and will be the second-tallest skyscraper in the United States and the Western Hemisphere, the 15th tallest building in the world, the will claim the title of the tallest residential building in the world.

During our wandering, we stopped by the market in Union Square

After wandering most of the afternoon, we headed back to the hotel and chilled out for a bit before heading for dinner. We had booked dinner at Vandal, our new fav restaurant, since Spice Market had been closed down. We had a nice meal, and spent some time in SoHo wandering a bit afterwards. We finally made our way back over to Blind Tiger, and and a drink in the bar. It was almost as packed as Thursday night, but we lucked out on a table and enjoyed the atmosphere for a while, before calling it a night.

Marathon Sunday

The first Sunday in November is always Marathon Sunday, for what I think is the world’s greatest marathon. I’ve had the privilege (I won’t say pleasure - it’s a killer) of running it twice, and I had mixed emotions about being a spectator rather than a participant.

As we were flying out that evening, we only had about 3/4 of the day to enjoy. We were up at a reasonable time and again had breakfast in the hotel. Food was good, service was another matter. From there, we grabbed the subway north to head over to First Ave to watch the runners come off the Queensborough Bridge into Manhattan.

It’s probably the most inspiring part of the race - you come through the covered bridge, where it’s silent other than the sounds of laboured breathing and runner’s footfalls, come back into the sunlight and into a mass of screaming humanity 5-10 people deep along the sides of First Avenue.

Having just gotten through the halfway point, you need that rush of adrenalin. It’s not my favourite part, but it is a thing to experience.

We took the subway a little further north, so we could watch for a bit on First Ave then walk back across to Central Park to watch more of the race as they closed in on the finishing line.

After watching for a short time, we walked over to Central Park. We alternated between walking the paths and working our way back over to the race course. We stopped at the 24 mile marker (the race is 26.1), which brought back a flood of memories.

The last time I ran it I was nursing an achilles injury from training, and was in rough shape at this point, having to walk a fair bit. But seeing that I was two miles from the end, I vowed to run the final stretch and did. Funny what comes back to you.

We spent a good part of the afternoon in Central Park, enjoying the sunshine and the nice fall weather. Eventually we made our way out, and found a place to have a late lunch and watch a bit of the afternoon football games. Soon enough, it was time to head to the airport. We were taking the train from Penn Station, so we collected our bags at the hotel and walked up to the station. The process for getting on the train is borderline dangerous, but eventually we were on our way, and made the uneventful flight home to Vancouver.