Why MTA is the bane of my existence

This past Sunday, Kim and I put on our gamefaces and braved New York's northern most borough for the NYRR Bronx Half Marathon. The race itself went remarkably well. The weather calmed itself down to the mid-70s, Kim didn't die of an asthma attack, and I restrained the urge to run fast, keeping a consistent, slow pace throughout all of the very hilly 13.1 miles. The course was a little...interesting. Took place mainly in residential neighborhoods, some sketchier than others, with quite a few turn-around points and unexpectedly lots of hills. Overall, it was solid training run and I would have given the whole experience a gold star if it weren't for the SUBWAY RIDE OF DOOM.


Now what should have been a straightforward, albeit hour long trip, to the Bronx turned into a two-hour one way ticket to transportation meltdown. Efficiency is not MTA's strong suite it seems. Things started off poorly when Trip Planner blatantly lied to us and left us stranded in the sweltering Union Square stop, waiting close to 30 minutes for the 4 train. Of course upon arriving, the 4 train is 1. packed and 2. going local. Yessssssss, nothing better than a 30 stop trip to the hood. At this point, my inner punctuality freak was stressing slightly that we'd be cutting it close to the start, but I reassured myself that as long as the rest of the trip went smoothly we'd have a few minutes before the gun went off to hit baggage check and stretch.

False. Two stops and 20 minutes away from the race's start, the train conductor announced that due to MTA's epic timeliness fail they were going to expedite the train's route and skip the next couple of stops. WTF. There were maybe a handful of non-runners on the train at 6:45am. So a few hundred NYRRs were forced to chill out on the platform waiting for a new train that would deign to stop at Bedford Boulevard. End story, Kim and I missed the start by 20 minutes and were just 10 minutes shy of them shutting down the starting gate.

Oh, and post-race there were no Manhattan bound trains at our station. Silly me, why ever would I want to go back to the island. So we had the "privilege" of going to the end of the 4 line. I'm just glad we're still alive.

To best express my RAGE towards MTA, I'm offering you a little photographic homage to Sunday's misadventures. Or I'm just looking for an excuse to dabble in Paint after reading waaaay too many Hyperbole and a Half posts. If you, haven't seen this blog, stop what you're doing immediately (well after you finish reading and commenting on my post) and go to this site. Guaranteed hours of procrastination.

1. Chaos after ALL the runners were kicked off the train two stops away from the race with less than 15 minutes till the start. Not okay, MTA.

2. Kim really didn't want her face in this one for some reason. And I was haterading on the world/SO SAD that we missed the start of the race.
3. Awww we've pulled ourselves out of the hate spiral enough for a loveydovey photo.

4. No idea. Whatever, bet this luchador knew better than to trust MTA to deliver his spandex clad ass to the race on time.