#runninginnewjersey

[paddyrunsforboston]

Jonathan and Janine Wentz Sponsored a 13-Mile Run!

Jonathan just got back from Colorado Springs where he designed and built the set for THEATREWORKS holiday show, The Lying Kind, a play about two London policemen, a lynch mob, and a Chihuahua.  He flew back to New Jersey last week, but he’s only here for so long.  In January, Jonathan will head back for THEATREWORKS’ next show, Detroit.  While he’s there, perhaps he’ll find an opportunity to drive to the top of Pikes Peak.  Dude, the donuts alone are worth it!

On Sunday, while Jonathan was baking cookies in Toms River, I was in Madison, New Jersey, plonking out a chilly thirteen-miler.  The day was sunny, but there was no warmth in the air.  A constant breeze made an already raw day seem downright frigid.

I started from the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey’s company house, followed the bike path along Madison Avenue, and headed over to the Traction Line trail, a recreation path that parallels the New Jersey Transit train tracks.  It’s not super-scenic, but it does provide a paved, car-free route from Madison to Morristown.  The path skirts the grounds of Fairleigh Dickenson University whose aristocratic-sounding name led me to assume it was founded in colonial times.  Turns out, the school was chartered in 1942.  Next door to FDU is the Convent of St. Elizabeth, whose campus includes a girl’s prep school and university.  Unlike its neighbor, this place has been here a while.  The convent was established in 1859.  It’s a peaceful place, with lots of trees and grass.  The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey stages its yearly outdoor production at the college’s Greek amphitheater, so both Jonathan and I have had plenty of chances to experience the convent’s bucolic setting firsthand.  As I ran pas the front gate, a set of belltower chimes rang out the tune of We Three Kings, which stayed in my head for the rest of the run.  I didn’t mind; I like those old-timey sounding carols.

Still proceeding, I made my way into Morristown.  Near the end of the path, a Blue Jay sat squawking on a barren tree limb.  It was reproducing the call of the Red-Tailed Hawk, which Jays sometimes impersonate either to trick a real hawk into answering and thus revealing his presence, or to frighten off other birds that are in the Jay’s territory.

The Traction Line brought me to Morris Avenue, which I followed past the train station and into Morristown proper.  On the way, I passed a veterans memorial, which reminded me that today was the 73rd anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.  I spent some time thinking about how that day changed the destiny of an entire generation.  It was our grandparent’s 9/11, a day when everyone woke up and faced the fact that a single event was going to alter their lives and the world around them forever.

I ran across the Morristown Green, which was decked out with holiday lights and garland.  There was a small line of people waiting to see Santa, who was receiving visitors inside a small, enclosed shed with blacked out windows.  Creepy.  Ft. Nonsense was a tough, lonely climb, but the view from the top rewarded the effort.  I could see for miles.  Even the Freedom Tower, or 1 World Trade Center as it’s now called, was visible poking up over Bergen Hill more than twenty miles away.

I could have enjoyed the view for longer, but I got cold standing still.  I ran back through town on South Street, heading towards the well-trodden paths of the Loantaka Brook Preserve.  The woods were quiet and still.   By the time I got to them at mile seven, I had slipped into the runners zen.  My mind sort of glazed over and I lived from one footfall to the next.  Before I knew it, I was crossing Woodland Avenue and turning onto the Giralda Farms bike path.  I barely noticed the climb up the hill and soon I was nearing my starting point by the house.  Only thing was, I still had two miles to go, so I set out for one more lap around the corporate office complex.

It was a strange day.  I’d had the running paths entirely to myself and even Morristown was unusually empty and quiet.  It felt like everyone had packed up and left for the winter.  Even the sun seemed reluctant to participate.  The entire day, it seemed to be on the verge of setting.  Nevertheless, it was thirteen miles finished.  They were chilly and a bit slow, but doing them made me happy.  I celebrated with a Clif bar, though I would rather have had some of the Tollhouse M&M cookies Jonathan was pulling out of the oven at about the same time!

[paddyrunsforboston]

Week Thirty-Four of Paddy Runs for Boston

This was the last week in New Jersey, friends.  It got hot; up into the mid-eighties.  Runs were enjoyable, though unremarkable.  One day, I saw a big Garter Snake in the Loantaka Brook Preserve.  That was the highlight of the week.  People in this part of New Jersey are always quick to inform me that I’m mispronouncing the Loantaka.  “It’s Low-WAAH-ni-kah,” they tell me.  I point out the spelling, but no one listens.

Giralda Farms, the corporate complex I run around in the early and late part of my run, has something of an interesting history.  Now a gated compound of corporate headquarters, the land was once the estate of Geraldine R. Dodge.  Yeah, that lady whose foundation underwrites most of the programming on NPR!  Born Ethel Geraldine Rockefeller, she was an heir to the Standard Oil fortune.  As if she didn’t have enough money already, she married Marcellus Dodge, owner of the Remington Arms Company.  Once married, the two of them proceeded to buy up as much of Morris County as they could lay their hands on, cobbling together two enormous and abutting estates, Hartley Farms and Giralda Farms.  Geraldine was a passionate animal lover and Giralda Farms hosted some of the nation’s most prestigious dog and horse shows.  She even donated part of her holdings to build St. Hubert’s at Giralda, a refuge for lost and injured animals that still operates today.  I run past it around mile two.  They’re offering free kittens right now, if anyone’s interested.

The town of Madison can thank Geraldine for funding the construction of it’s quaint and attractive train station as well as the municipal building across the street, built as a memorial to her son Marcellus Jr. who died in a car wreck in 1930.

When Geraldine passed away in 1973, her philanthropy was carried on by the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, which gives grants to cultural and environmental programs throughout New Jersey.  (If you go to the website, Here, you can see my Tempest scene partner Jeff Bender shaping young minds at Shakespearience.  That's him in the floppy hat)  Our production of The Tempest at the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey also benefitted from a Dodge Foundation grant.  So, Thanks again, Geraldine!

Geraldine’s manor was apparently quite something; built in the style of La Giralda, a renowned Moorish bell tower in Southern Spain.  After her death, the grand house was demolished and the land sold at auction.  While a corporate complex isn’t a great replacement, at least the land didn’t become a strip mall or tacky subdivision.  The developers even added a bike path around the perimeter.

My last run was Saturday, the show closed on Sunday, and by Monday night, I was back in Queens.

[paddyrunsforboston]

Jon and Lisa Butts Sponsored a 20-Mile Run!

Two weeks ago, I tried to do something special for the Butts, but I bit off more than I could chew.  I plotted a tough, twenty-mile course that would take me on a tour of historic Morris County, New Jersey.

I started at the Morristown Train station and made the climb up Fort Nonsense.  It was a warm, but clear day.  The view stretched for miles.  I ran back down and headed out of town on Western Avenue.  I’d only run two miles, but my downfall began here.  The road kept going up and I roasted in the searing, afternoon sun.

After four miles, the road began to slope down into the woods of Jockey Hollow, part of the Morristown Historical Park.  In 1779, the Continental Army camped here and endured the worst winter in living memory.  A series of brutal storms buried the area under twelve feet of snow.  It was so cold that ink froze on the quill before it could travel from the inkwell to the paper.  Roads were impassable and troops went hungry.  One soldier describes eating nothing for four days except some birch bark he gnawed from a stick.  One desperate soldier roasted and ate his shoe.  Most of the men lacked proper winter clothes and the campaign season had reduced many uniforms to threadbare rags.  It was not uncommon to see men turn out for drill wearing nothing more than a blanket.

To make matters worse, the army was broke.  Inflation had devalued the continental currency to the point where it was literally not worth the paper it was printed on.  Washington struggled to find farmers willing to sell him provisions.  And besides being unfed, the men were going unpaid as well.  Having escaped the British army, men now fell victim to scurvy, smallpox and exposure.  Desertions were common.  A couple units mutinied and fled.

I turned off the main road onto a trail through the woods.  The forest, though fully mature with towering oaks and tulip trees, is actually second growth.  Most of the original forest was cleared for farmland.  What remained was cut down to build the soldiers’ shelters.

The trail led me to a road, which took me to the Visitor’s Center where I gulped down what felt like a gallon of water.  I’d only run seven miles, but they’d felt like seventeen.  All the hills and trails were kicking my butt.

A park road took me north to a pair of reconstructed soldier’s huts.  A dozen men shared a log cabin built to a standard of 14 feet by 16 feet, according to Washington’s orders.  They were cramped and stuffy, certainly, but in the dead of winter, the shared body heat was probably welcome.  It was tough to picture all the snow and misery today.  The tall grass rippled in the breeze and the sky was a pure blue.  A buzzard soared over the road with nonchalant ease.

From here, I took another trail north into Lewis Morris Park, a forest area named for a signer of the Declaration of Independence who was also the first American Governor of New Jersey and heir to Morrisania, the family estate in the Bronx.  (Try not to confuse him with his grandfather, also named Lewis Morris, who was the first Royal governor of New Jersey, nor his uncle, yet again named Lewis Morris, who was a colonel in the British army)  The Lewis Morris trails led me to the Patriots’ Path, another trail system stretching thirty-five miles throughout the county.  Early on, the path rolled across the top of a gentle ridge, which was quite pleasant, but soon it dropped down into a humid swamp.  To make matters worse, the path went from dirt to coarse stones, which didn’t do the bottoms of my feet much good.  My left foot, still dishearteningly tender from that rock on Randall’s Island, took a real beating.  I had to walk.  Now that I couldn’t outrun the mosquitoes, they attacked me with abandon, which if nothing else, was good motivation to start running again.

As so often happens, the map online differed from the reality on the ground.  A spur trail from the Patriots’ Path didn’t really exist and I was taken more than a mile out of my way.  It doesn’t sound like much, but when you’re hot and tired, it’s a real drag to have to find your way back to where you’re supposed to be.  I made a long climb up Kahdena road and got myself back on track, heading into Morristown.  I walked some more, I confess.  I was so hot and tired!

I curved around the Morristown Green and headed down Morris Street.  I was thrilled to finally turn onto the Traction Line Path, the final leg of this sweltering torture-session.  I had to run and walk alternately.  While passing through Morristown, I’d bought a bottle of Gatorade, but it didn’t help much.  I was beyond help.  I shuffled along like a zombie baking in the sun.  The path finally came to an end and I managed to jog the final quarter up the hill to Giralda Farms, then over to my house.

Runs like these don’t help the body, but they do strengthen the mind.  They teach you how to keep yourself going.  Passing by the station in Morristown, I’d considered just hopping the train back to Madison, but then I reminded myself that I’d taken these twenty miles on for the Butts.  I wasn’t going to sell them short by taking the easy way out.  Fun?  No.  Satisfying?  Yes.  Thanks, Jon and Lisa!

[paddyrunsforboston]

Week Thirty-Three of Paddy Runs for Boston

 It was a wet and rainy week in New Jersey, friends.  Five days passed with barely a glimpse of sun.  If it wasn’t raining, it was getting ready.

I actually love running in this kind of weather.  It’s pleasantly cool and I sweat so much anyway that I take being wet for normal.  Thursday’s run was magnificent.  While running through the Loantaka Reservation, I found myself joined by a fox, who darted onto the path in front of me and trotted along for almost a minute.  He had emerged with squeaking chipmunk in his mouth, but the squeaks didn’t last long.  This guy wasn’t the sleek, rust-colored rogue you see leaping over logs in those old English paintings.  He was scraggly and ragged.  His coat looked like someone had spilled an orange whip onto a patch of new cement.  He ran in front of me long enough to gulp down his victim then shot back into the underbrush to look for a second course.

The sun returned on Friday.  I took it easy to save my legs for the next day’s race.

Saturday marked the 37th annual running of the Fishawack Run, a four-mile race through Chatham, New Jersey.  (Fishawack is the Lenape name for the Passaic River which runs through the town)  It’s a fun race and its $25 entry fee makes it a bargain, especially since the race shirts are really nice.  I actually wear them in daily life.  The course itself is surprisingly tough.  The first two miles are uphill and the final mile is a crashing descent.

The race starts and finishes at the train station, which makes it handy for me, being as I am, without a car.  More than 350 people had signed up, a pretty big field for a hometown race.  I started out at a decent pace, kept myself from going out too fast on the hill, and gradually worked my way up the line of guys ahead of me.  Chatham is a pretty town, but I was working so hard, I couldn’t take in the surroundings.  Folks in the neighborhood come out to watch and near the top of the hill I passed a family blaring the Rocky theme from a pair of speakers.  In the third mile, I leapfrogged a couple of kids from the high-school track team and on the long descent of mile four, passed the lead woman.  Near the bottom, I felt someone moving past me on my right.  Assuming it was the lead woman making a final surge, I shouted, “Go, girl!  You’ve got it!”  Turns out, it was a thirteen year-old boy.  Oops.  If I hurt his pride, he got his revenge by beating me.

I’ve run this race three times now and for some reason, the faster I run, the further back I finish.  In 2012, I ran it in 24:49 and finished 6th.  The next year I did it forty seconds faster and came in 8th.  This time, I set a new personal record, finishing in 24:03, and only managed 12th.  I wasn’t even the first forty-year old.  As it turned out, my entry wasn’t recorded anyway and bib number 854 was logged as (NOT REGISTERED).  Nevertheless, It was a good way to start the morning and since I didn’t have to wait around for the award ceremony, I got to my eggs benedict breakfast that much sooner.

[paddyrunsforboston]

Cindy and Stuart Manning Sponsored an Eighteen-Mile Run!

Eighteen miles has always been a bugaboo distance for me.  I’m not sure why.  Being able to stop right at the time one normally hits the wall should be appealing, but for me, eighteen always ends up being a struggle.  I figured I was really in for it on Monday, since I’d only been running three milers the week before.  In addition, I was tired and beat up from my show, which requires me, on top of being kicked, smacked and ridden by another adult man, to do a pratfall down a series of stepped platforms.

Nevertheless, I woke up Monday morning, plotted my route and headed off, fully prepared to be flattened by a truck that was eighteen miles long.  I wasn’t as stiff as I’d anticipated, though, and bounced into downtown Madison in good time.  Madison, New Jersey is a cute place.  With it’s quaint stone train station, gothic public library and appealing high street of shops and restaurants, it reminds me of a small country town in England.  I turned onto Green Avenue, crested a long slope, and ran briefly on Shunpike Road.  Shunpike dates back to colonial times and was preferred by local farmers because it allowed them to bypass the royal toll assessors on the Kings Road further north.

I turned onto Green Village Road, which led me to the trail at the southern end of the Loantaka Brook Reservation.  It was a cool, drizzly day.  Water dripped down from the forest canopy, tapping every stratum of leaves with a satisfying Splat!  One thing I like about running here on rainy days is that it feels like you’re in the woods alone.  It’s all yours.  And when you do encounter people, you know they’re hard-core.  The kind of people who won’t let a little rain keep them inside.

I’ve seen a lot of wildlife in the Reservation and I got to add a new species to the sightings list.  Just south of the Loantaka Way crossing, I passed a plate-sized snapping turtle basking by the side of the path.  Snappers have a nasty disposition, but this one was pretty chilled out.  She let me get really close and take a look at her.  I’d never been close enough to see that they have plates running along their tails like a stegosaurus.  Amazingly, after mating, female snappers can retain a male’s sperm for up to several years before choosing to be fertilized by it.

I left the obliging turtle behind and continued through the woods towards Morristown.  The Reservation took me as far as South Street and from there I ran into Morristown proper.

Though originally settled as New Hanover in 1715, Morristown got a name change in 1739 to honor the New Jersey colony’s first royal governor, Lewis Morris. (Not to be confused with his better-known grandson, also named Lewis Morris, who signed the Declaration of Independence)  George Washington came through in 1773 on his way to New York and returned again four years later, this time with the Continental Army in tow, fresh off their big victory at Trenton.  Washington set up his headquarters in a tavern on the village green.  In 1779, Washington’s army once again resorted to Morristown and made their winter encampment in nearby Jockey Hollow.  Henry Knox, Nathaniel Greene and Alexander Hamilton all dropped by at various times, as did the Marquis de Lafayette and Benedict Arnold, who was brought before a court-martial to answer charges of war profiteering.  While most of the revolution-era buildings are gone, the village green remains the town’s focal point.

I jogged across the green’s southern side and headed up the slope to Ft. Nonsense, a hilltop earthwork built in 1779 to defend the town from British attack.  It’s a grueling climb, but the view is worth it, even on a foggy day like this.  And if I’m going to tackle Pikes Peak, I need to climb every hill I can put my feet on.  The fort’s odd name came from the grumbling soldiers who built it.  Instead of a defensive measure, they believed the fort’s construction was ordered simply to keep their idle hands busy over the long, cold winter.  There’s not much at the top nowadays, just some signs and a few stones showing the outline of the ramparts.

The run back down the hill was much easier and I headed out of town on Morris Avenue, which led me to a big, white, colonial house called the Ford Mansion.  While his soldiers were freezing their butts off down in Jockey Hollow, General Washington and his staff spent the winter here.  Even Martha stopped by for a few months.  The mansion’s owner, Jacob Ford, was a colonel in the continental army who distinguished himself during the battle of Princeton, but caught pneumonia during the campaign and died at the mansion a week later.

Across the street lies the northern end of the Traction Line Path, a paved recreation trail built over an old trolley line.  The path is poker-straight and runs alongside the modern New Jersey Transit railroad, but it beats running in the street.  At this point, I’d run about fourteen miles.  Strangely enough, I was feeling really good; so good in fact that I actually picked up the pace!  Before I knew it, I was off the Traction Line and turning onto the path around Giralda Farms.  With just three miles to go, I was flourishing!  It’s been a long time since a long run felt this good; and an eighteen-miler, no less!

It was an easy glide down the Treadwell hill to Woodland Road and even the climb up to Loantaka wasn’t that bad.  My house was just up the way, but to make up the full eighteen-mile distance, I turned onto the Drew University Campus and did a lap around the Zuck Arboretum, a small nature preserve centered around two glacial ponds.  I sometimes come here to work on lines, walking around the path for hours mumbling to myself, but today it only took five minutes to make a full circuit.  Before I knew it, I was back out on Loantaka and heading for home.  I pulled up in front of the actor house and looked at my watch, two hours, fourteen minutes.  Not bad!  Most importantly, I didn’t feel completely wrung out like I had last week.  These had been the best eighteen miles ever!

So thanks, Stuart and Cindy!  There’s nothing like finishing a run and actually feeling better than when you started!  It’s like drinking a twelve-pack of beer and then discovering that you are smarter, funnier and better looking.   No, wait…that always happens….

[paddyrunsforboston]

The Joneses sponsored a Sixteen-Mile Run!

It’s getting harder and harder to keep up with the Joneses.  They just keep running!  Last month, all three of them took part in the St. Michael’s Running Festival, a mulit-distance event on the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay.  Jason and Josiane ran the Half-Marathon, young Gwendolyn tackled the less daunting 1k Fun Run.  All three finished their races, with Jason and Josiane posting a simultaneous finishing time of two hours, fourteen minutes.  I couldn’t find results for Gwendolyn’s race, but I assume she finished slightly faster.  (A captive audience of spectators may have inspired an impromptu performance, though, in which case all bets are off)

Kids runs can be fun.  Though sometimes, they’re not.  I once watched my cousin’s four-year old run a 100 Yard Diaper Dash.  He got about twelve steps into it and had a meltdown.  Staci had to run out and rescue him.  She carried her bawling son across the finish line by the wrists, while he, legs lifted off the ground, wet his pants.  He got a finisher’s medal anyway.

Monday’s sixteen-miler took me over ground familiar to both the Joneses and myself, Giralda Farms, the Loantaka Brook Preserve and the shaded drives of Drew University.  I have to admit, I was in poor shape.  My show, The Tempest, was in tech the week before and opened Saturday.  In it, I play Trinculo, a craven jester from Naples who is shipwrecked on a mysterious island.  Once there, he gets drunk, falls into a septic tank and is chased by invisible dogs.  At various times I get kicked in the butt, smacked in the face, ridden by a full-grown man and, as a finale, I throw myself down the slope of our raked set.  It’s fun, but by Sunday night, my hair was the only part of me that didn’t hurt.

Nevertheless, I set out on Monday morning determined to get the Jones’ miles run.  It was a slow, achy start but I got a boost from the long slope on Treadwell Avenue.  A house at the bottom of the hill keeps a flock of peacocks and their shrill caws cut through the morning air.  The peacock is the symbol of the Roman goddess Juno, who makes an appearance in our show.  In Act IV, the “Queen of the Sky” is summoned to bless the marriage of the play’s romantic duo, Ferdinand and Miranda.

From Woodland Road, I turned into the Loantaka Brook Preserve and ran down to South Street in Morristown.  It’s always a pleasure to run through here.  You never know what you might encounter.  I’ve seen snakes, owls, raccoons, and lots of deer, as well as redwing blackbirds, thrush, and, once, hammering away at a rotting tree trunk, a mighty pileated woodpecker.  Last week, a huge Redtail hawk suddenly swooped across the path right at eye level.  In a heartbeat or two, he’d flown back among the trees, careening among the trunks like an Imperial speeder bike on the forest moon of Endor.  Even without interesting nature sightings, the forest, with its 100-foot beech trees provides a setting that exalts any run.

I ran back to Woodland road and climbed the hill to Drew University.  Founded in 1867 as a Methodist Seminary, Drew is now a co-ed Liberal Arts college, the most expensive in New Jersey.  While the school has strong ties to the Methodist church, producing twenty-one bishops and housing the faith’s official archives, the University curriculum is non-religious.  The campus was once part of a swanky estate called “The Forest” and indeed, the grounds are copiously shaded with oak, maple, beech and fir.  The University is also home to the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, where my show is currently running.  (Six nights a week, matinees on Saturday and Sunday, call for tickets)

There are two nature preserves on campus, as well, and I ran through one of them.  The Pikes Peak Marathon is a trail race after all and even though the hill behind the Drew tennis courts doesn’t compare, I’ve got to get in as much trail time as I can.  Anywhere!

Soon, though, I was out of the woods and back on the Giralda Farms bike path.  I stopped in front of the actor house to eat a banana and gulp water from a bottle that I’d stashed in a tree.  The past eight miles had felt like eighteen.  I was a sweaty, aching mess.  One of my fellow actors was sitting on the porch and waved to me from across the street.  I straightened up, smiled and waved back.  “Got to make it look easy”, I thought to myself, “or they’ll start to think anyone can do this.”  And of course, anyone can.

Lately, several people have told me they want to start running.  They ask, “Where do I start?”  And I’ve realized that the most important thing, more than a training program or shoes or anything, is to have a reason to do it; something that lives at your core that will always make it worthwhile for you to get out and run.  For me, it’s the obligation to all the Paddy Runs supporters.  If I don’t give my best, I feel like I’m taking their trust for granted.  I wouldn’t be able to look them in the eye.

With that in mind, I set out on another lap.  It was slow.  It was sweaty.  My body hurt.  But it was worth it.  Now that it’s done, I can look the Joneses in the eye.

[paddyrunsforboston]

Week Thirty-One of Paddy Runs for Boston

Last week was tech for my show, Shakespeare’s The Tempest, which opened Saturday at the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey.  Tech is tough on everyone.  For a week straight, we spend most of our waking hours inside a dark theatre coordinating lights, sound, costumes, and in this show especially, sets.  In addition, we’re honing our performance to a frustratingly remote precision.  An incorrectly-timed cross or an uneven hem can provoke an angry tirade or reduce someone to tears.  Everyone working on the show is grouchy, frustrated, and fragile.  Opening the show, though, is like giving birth.  Painful, but the joy of the product (usually) erases the memory of the process.

I tried a seven-miler early Tuesday morning, but it left me worn out and groggy.  At that night’s dress rehearsal, every moment I performed correctly was erased by a mistake a moment later.  Even after this many years, I’m always amazed at how much running exhausts the mind.  For the rest of the week, I just did short, three-mile laps around Giralda Farms early in the morning.  My on-stage performance improved.