Snow, slippery, WINDY New Year's Eve sprint

So my planned run with M in Prospect Park didn't pan out. She wasn't feeling well, and though I did go out for a run, it quickly got truncated. Apparently, I just picked a bad time of day for it - the temperature was dropping, it was snowing, and was very windy. I couldn't see well for all the snow blowing into my eyes. So I made this a short, hard 1.25 mile run from my house to the grocery store. I don't recall any walk periods, though I had to stop a couple of times for severe coughing. My wheezing is getting more and more audible, and I simply couldn't breathe while I was out there. I'm not sure I could've lasted 6.6 anyway, not with my lungs like that. Very disappointing.

But that wasn't the end of the day! As you'll see in the next post, I volunteered for the Emerald Nuts midnight run. All I'll say about that in this post is that my asthma was full on and I had a very difficult time walking up from the start area (to which I'd escorted my tenant, who has recently begun running) to the champagne tables up on the 102nd street crossover. Still, I beat most of the volunteers there.

Before I get to that post, though: some end-of-year wrapup pictures! The first two are of my Hanukkah gift to my Mom and Dad.




Yep, that's the real deal - my marathon medal. I had a plaque engraved and put together this shadow box. I cut a hole in the back so they could see my name and time engraved on the medal. Perhaps this isn't as cool as Marci's use for her medal, but it was the best thing I could think of to do with it.

These are of Mom at the Union Square shops.







And these are some random pics I've been getting with my D700. I love this camera. This may be the last camera I ever buy. Nikon would have to seriously up the ante and bring some magical capabilities to the table for me to upgrade. I'm not using the best glass in front of it, yet - can't afford it - but I'll get there. Actually... all my old Nikon lenses fit the camera, but of course the old manual lenses don't have any automatic functions. I do have a newer 80-200mm f/2.8 that works well on the camera, but the resulting rig is so heavy that my cheap consumer-grade tripod is not up to the task. I'll worry about that more as I get closer to photographing my next dance concert. Anyway, yes, the D700 is enabling me to get much cleaner high-speed in-the-dark shots. The noise level is WAY down. I like the camera's layout, functions, and flexible capabilities with flash on- or off-camera.