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Instead of going to run up and down the Highline six times, I went further west to the edge of the Hudson, where there's a bike and jogging path. The two are parallel to one another, and although there are lots of signs telling you one is for cyclists and rollerbladers, and the other for pedestrians, almost every person out running seemed to insist on running on the cycle path. This seems a ridiculous thing to do; you're given the option to run on a path with people doing the same speed as you, but instead you reject it to run along in an environment where other people are going twice as fast and are attached to metal objects with sharp edges.
Possibly this is another example of New Yorkers not giving a toss about anyone else; the streets are covered in the black slime of discarded chewing gum, smokers don't both to find a receptacle for their cigarettes but just toss them on the street wherever they are, and joggers ignore signs that are there to help them and get in the way of cyclists.
You could argue by the analogy of cyclists vs cars that they shouldn't take the separate path; cyclists are often forced into debris strewn, potholed ghettos of cycle paths instead of better maintained roads, and then it's implied they shouldn't be on the road anyway, but the bike and pedestrian paths don't vary in terms of quality or parked cars; it just seems like bloody-minded ignorance of helpful directions, not rational libertarianism. And they're jogging for goodness' sake - wobbling along in unfashionable clothing, doing that daft 'powerwalking' thing with their arms is not an acceptable means of political progress.
Actually, never mind the power walkers - there was one guy running in the opposite direction, and I swear he was skipping whilst contrarotating his arms perpendicular to the direction of motion, all while wearing blue lycra. There's no need to look more ridiculous than you have to. I'd have thought he had something seriously wrong if it wasn't for the regularity of his motion. Actually, I do think he had something seriously wrong, but I'm not sure what the exercise fad is called.
So having indulged my misanthropy at everyone as I ran along (and strangely, none of the cyclists made any protest at the runners that they passed) I turned south at around 104th street and ran back to the hotel, growing slower and more incapable as time went on, getting back into the hotel room to find that my wife was just waking up, which ruined my nefarious scheme of staying out running late enough to ensure she'd done all the packing and I could just collapse into the shower and then leave.
So she packed for a bit, while the sound of the bowling ball continued to resonate through the room, and I went over to Bagel Express to get breakfast (unfeasibly large bagels, plus an espresso and a small orange juice that the server thought was an iced coffee and two orange juices - I know my accent is bad, but come on, people), and then I came back and sat there for half an hour quivering, and then we both packed, and then we jammed all our gear into a taxi and headed over to our friends' place in Chelsea.
And then a few hours later I realised we'd left our passports in the safe in our room.
Well, I suppose it kept them safe.
Hooray for the honest staff of the Marcel at Gramercy, who when they discovered a big wodge of cash, an ounce of silver and some passports, moved it all to their safe and didn't try to make off with it. Although I suppose a British passport isn't worth that much these days, unless you want to go looting and burn down a warehouse that used to have Playstations in it.
Valuables secured, we went to the Chelsea Market to meet up with an old friend of mine from the lastminute.com days and spent a pleasant couple of hours walking around catching up, although I'm now very dubious about the wisdom of doing this on already tired legs, as now I feel even more like a broken wreck; shambled back to base, passed out and woke up an hour later, feeling demolished.
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