Kids......DON'T Try This At Home!

There's an old rock and roll cliche that being on stage for however long your performance is that night makes up for all the crap you go through during the day,I guess a similar parallel can be made w/ running but b4 I go there I need to draft a strongly worded letter to my lawyers to check the fine print of my Luck of the Irish agreement cos frankly there seems to be some major loop holes in that.
Also St Christopher and I need a sit down meeting sometime soon,as Patron saint of Travellers he seems to have left me off his list of those needing safe passage.

It's coming up on three years since I got stranded for almost 24 hours at Logan airport in Boston after snow in Philly grounded all outbound flights then a couple of weeks later I missed the last connecting train out of Penn Station in New York back to Philly and spent the night on a bench in the waiting room at Trenton.....
Back home in England back in the day British Rail used to have a slogan "Let The Train Take The Strain" sadly here in America the only strain taking either Amtrak or regional rail Septa/NJ Transit anywhere is the strain on your wallet!!!
A round trip from 30th Street in Philly to Penn Station via Trenton on a week day is $48.90 my round trip on Megabus on Thursday was $15.50 so you can see why I favour the bus.....................
However! my last four bus trips up to New York have all taken longer than the two hours they are scheduled to,September for The Human League/5th Avenue Mile took 4 hours,November for The Cure took 3 hours,December for the Armory Holiday Meet took 3 hours and yesterday for the Thursday Nite @ The Races it took 4 hours!!!!!!!

I learnt the hard way in 2010 on my first Tuesday Speed Series at Ichan that taking the 3pm bus is not the way to go,everything was going all tickety boo till the approach to the Lincoln Tunnel b4 getting snarled up in traffic we crawled through the tunnel and I still had to get from midtown to Randall's Island b4 7pm when we arrived at 34th and 8th Ave at 6pm an hour later than scheduled,since then I've made a point of catching the 2.30pm bus,even if I lose an hour like I did for the Holiday Meet I should still make it on time to register and warm up.......
Things were ticking along nicely I took a nap on the bus and woke up as we were approaching Newark airport around 3.45pm,I figured we were a little behind schedule but even arriving at midtown by 5.30pm would allow me ample time to take the A express from 34th St to 168th St and still be at The Armory by 6pm an hour b4 the meet began........

If you've ever taken the Lincoln Tunnel you'll know when you get to Weehawken in New Jersey there's a downhill to the tunnel and on a bad day you can see all the traffic in front of you......after counting the first 30 vehicles ahead of my bus I stopped counting!!!!!!
Realizing there was nothing I could do I tried to occupy myself listening to my ipod{thank you Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music!!!} while writing my yearly running review in my running log there was little or no point using up nervous energy dealing w/ a situation I could do nothing about but w/ each look at my watch from 5pm when we got to Weehawken I began to wonder if I'd get to The Armory by 7pm???
It was 6.35pm when the bus got to 28th and 7th Avenue,two choices make a mad dash for it and hope I'd get to 168th and Washington in 35 mins or cut my losses find a Starbucks and drink a Venti Green Tea and kill 2 hours b4 my 8.40pm bus back to Philly?????

I opted for the former and by 6.45pm I was on an uptown express A train which got me to 168th St by 7.05pm,my warm up was a run along 168th from the train station at Broadway to Washington Ave,by now heat two of the women's mile should be on the line......
To my amazement the meet hadn't begun I never considered the knock on effect Saturday's Millrose Games would have on tonites meet and while I'd at least gotten here in time to run now another clock ticking issue had arisen.....
I had opted for the 8.40pm bus back to Philly rather than the 9.40pm so now I had to get in and get done w/ the swiftness and w/ the meet running behind and three heats of the women's mile I was once again racing against the clock......ever had the feeling it just isn't your day??!!!
I jumped in heat #1 knowing it would probably be a tad rich for my blood period but w/ no time to warm up this was the hand I'd been dealt.

A reasonable reaction to the gun but I found myself on the rail going into the first turn,rather than swing wide I held my ground believing space would open up as I found myself 8th in a 12 man field.
34 seconds after the opening lap.....eureka a clock tonite at least I was on pace,68 seconds at 400m and through 800m in 2.16,4.32 pace.
Sadly I lost contact w/ the seventh place runner on lap 5 as he pulled away from me,9 through 12 were well behind me so when I most needed someone to push me I was in no mans land.
I forget my times on laps 5 and 6 I saw 4.05 at the bell,I was 7 seconds off pace now and had to settle for a 4.42 finish a 2.16/2.26 split,so much for improving my mile time b4 Indoor Nationals!!
Adding further insult to injury heat two was won in 4.32,this would've been a much better heat for me to have been in but now the rush was on to be back at 34th and 9th Avenue by 8.40pm in time to catch my bus to Philly.two words sum up today.......cock up!!!!!!!

Let's just hope for better things on Feb 20th back here for the USATFNY C'ships over 3,000m,at least the 3,000m isn't scheduled to begin till 8.35pm and the last bus is at 10.30pm....St Christopher,my lawyers and I will be talking leading upto and including that day trust me!!!!!