So. Because NYRR now requires a volunteer commitment from each of its marathon hopefuls, I had to squeeze in a volunteer opportunity before the end of the year. I signed up for the very last opening - the Emerald Nuts midnight run. (This was before NYRR extended the qualifier window through the end of January.) I got to volunteer at the champagne tables.
My tenant has taken to running and I talked her into doing the midnight run, so she and I took the train to Central Park together. We got out at Columbus Circle, then walked up to the start/finish area, where - 90 minutes before midnight - the party was in full swing. Emerald Nuts people were handing out glowing green light sticks, 2009 foam hats, and awesome awesome cocoa-roast almonds. Man, I loves me some cocoa-roast almonds.
By the way, before I forget, you can click any of those links that say "From Emerald Nuts Midnight Run" and go directly to the whole Picassa album I set up with all the shots worth seeing. Lots of costumed runners!
So, suffering a good deal of asthma, I trudged up to 102nd street crossover. It was pretty cold, and maybe that didn't help the asthma, but I don't think the new HFA albuterol inhaler was at all helpful. I wasn't carrying all that much, but I could feel the weight: my DSLR and a thermos full of hot coffee.
So I got up there and immediately went to work pouring little plastic cups full of sparkling apple cider. It took about 30 of us almost an hour to get ready. Right about the time we were opening a couple extra bottles in case we ran out of filled cups, I noticed we had 4 minutes left 'til midnight. We counted down the minutes, then heard a canon boom and saw the fireworks.
Less than 10 minutes later, the fist of the runners came flying through!
These people were running under five-minute miles! I managed to get a lot of shots 'til my speedlight's batteries buckled under the load and I finished up the night with the pop-up flash. Almost all of these shots, by the way, are here presented as-is. I did no digital darkroom work on them, aside from cropping one or two and downsizing them all for posting on the web. I am super impressed with how well these shots come out, how well I can do stop-action. Some of these shots were with flash, a couple without. All were with the ISO set at 3200, which would be an unusable setting on my old D70, but the blacks are crisp and clean even at this ISO on the D700. And all were shot with the Tamron 28-300 zoom lens, which is really the weak point in my setup, but a damn handy lens for general shooting.
It was great catching runners in all kinds of dress drinking Champagne Slushies and having a great time.
The run wrapped up, we cleaned up, I grabbed one of the open, but unused bottles of cider, and headed home. I got in about 2:30 a.m., ate a little bit of desert, got to bed about 4, and slept 'til 1. What a great New Year's Eve!
Here's to all the great things that surely must come our way in 2009!
6 comments:
So YOU were the one who was saying hello to me at the champagne table! My eyeballs were frozen over, or I would've seen you!!
Wow so here is what i missed huh? I definitely missed an awesome time! Perhaps, next year will be my first time running the midnight run???
I finally was able to sign up for the Half! My membership # is now official!!!
Champagne slushies! And I missed it. Loved the pictures and it must have been fun. Truck onward,
Love Mom
By the way, gorgeous photos dude!
By the way, gorgeous photos dude!
the new hfa inhalers DO NOT work. get the facts and sign our petition to bring the old ones back.
www.savecfcinhalers.org
Jen Lee
the national campaign to save cfc inhalers
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