Marathon XXI

The Louisiana Marathon knocked me out pretty hard.

I took didn't run for about a month afterward, instead focusing on stretching and strengthening. My leg needed time to heal, so I tried to work on my core and did some dumbbell work. Nothing too hardcore, but enough to get some decent exercise while not running. Heck, I even gained a few pounds.

Gradually, I worked my way back into running, and the only way I know how to do that is to follow a schedule. And if I'm following a schedule, there's usually a race at the end of it.

So I picked a marathon, hoping that my strength and stamina would come back as I increased the mileage. No speed training, nothing too intense; just mileage.

Most of the time it goes pretty well, but too often, I am experiencing the kind of back pain that I haven't felt since 2015; and on my long, hilly runs I tend to get gassed.

Is my fitness level declining, which I suppose is inevitable as I get older? Am I expecting too much of my body? Should I be incorporating speed training in order to gain more strength?

I do not know, and part of me does not care. The days of PR-chasing are over. If I can get out there, run some miles, have some fun, and see some more of this big, beautiful country, that has to be all that matters. On the other hand, I do not want my fitness level to drop so much that I can not comfortably finish a marathon in less than four hours (or at all). At least, not yet.

In a sense then, approaching this next race feels like I'm back to the beginning, training for my first marathon.

Regarding that part about seeing the country - as per usual, this next marathon will be in a new state, my 20th. So far, we've got PA, NJ, KS, MA, MT, RI, DE, NY, UT, FL, MD, NH, SC, ME, NV, TX, OH, MS and LA.

What's next? Stay tuned...

Ten years later - Eisenhower Marathon - April 11, 2009

Wow.  Has it really been 10 years?

A decade ago last month, I ran my fastest marathon ever and, in the process, fell head-over-heels in love with the Midwest.

Since the previous year, I had been on a mission to qualify for the Boston Marathon.  Falling mere seconds short at the New Jersey Marathon in 2008 (my second 26.2-miler) bummed me out but also made me more determined. I did some research and found a tiny marathon in the middle of nowhere in Kansas.

Kansas!  Hey, it is flat there; and if it is flat, that means I could run a fast race.  And if I could run a fast race, then I could go to Boston. It was, I did and I did.

In the decade since, I have qualified for Boston nine more times.  Yet, despite some valiant efforts, I never did best that PR time of 3:04:42 (though my result at the Mississippi Gulf Coast Marathon is debatable).  So, here is the tale of my journey through Abilene, KS, as written in the weeks after the Eisenhower Marathon, 10 years ago.  I have also included some video clips from that first adventure to the beautiful Midwest.

April 11, 2009

The start was delayed about a half-hour due to late registrants, so the 556 runners (the total for the marathon, half-marathon, 10K and 5K) had to wait in the chilly morning air before the start of the race. Still, it would be hard to complain - the sky was clear, the wind was calm and it was forecast to be a beautiful, sunny day. We were more than ready to go when we were finally given the start command.

I took my first few steps and pressed "play" on my iPod, which was set to play Phish's entire show from Aug. 26, 1989 because it was exactly the length of my goal time - three hours and 10 minutes. "Fluffhead" began the show in my headphones and, after heading south along Buckeye (the main drag through town) for two miles, the course took a turn into Brown Memorial Park and on its winding pedestrian path.

There were no mile clocks but there were mile markers, so it was up to me to manage my pace. To keep from being too obsessive about it, I only allowed myself to look at my stopwatch every three miles. The goal pace was 7:15, so 21:45 was the magic number for each chunk. At the three mile mark, I looked at my time - it was under 21 minutes. Too fast, as usual. I remembered the advice from that girl I had met two years before, spoken in a very measured tone: "Don't. Start. Out. Too. Fast." I had not heeded it in any of my three marathons. Too late now, I slowed down a bit and made an effort to enjoy the scenery of the park.

During these first few miles, a fellow runner named Ken told me that he liked my pace and asked if I minded if he stayed with me. I told him I was gunning for a 3:10, so if that was his goal, then feel free to stick with me because I was determined to get it.

Out of the park at the fifth mile marker, we continued back to K-15. A man was calling out times at the half-marathon turnaround point (6.55 miles) - 48 minutes and change. I felt a tinge of panic because I had slowed down too much and was now behind schedule. Looking ahead at the long stretch of road in front of us, I saw some folks in the distance and told Ken, "See those people? We're going to catch up to them."

We did, and by the ninth mile, we were right on target, in the 65-minute range. Two more miles of wonderful, flat straightaway led to a right turn and a slight hill. Perhaps to Kansans, this was a tough climb (I did hear some complaints), but compared to what I am used to in New Jersey, it was a simple incline. I told Ken that if we pushed on our way up, we'd be able to relax and coast on our way back down.

Remembering my lessons from the 2008 New Jersey Marathon, I began my extra fueling at the 12-mile mark. Dipping into my pocketful of energy gels, I grabbed a chewable Power Bar Energy Gel, chomped it and washed it down with some Gatorade from the bottle I had been carrying. I always train with bottle in hand, so running races with it never feels awkward. The downside to carrying my fuel is that it adds extra weight. The upsides are far greater: I fuel at the times to which I am accustomed (every three miles), I never have to slow down at aid stations, and I feel lighter as the race goes on because I'm depleting the bottle in hand and packets in pockets.

Almost at the halfway mark, Ken asked if my legs were starting to hurt. My legs felt great - fresh and strong - but Ken was starting to feel the burn. He told me that it was his first marathon and I warned him that this was a pretty fast pace for a first-timer.

At the turnaround point, another volunteer was calling out times. The push leading up to it put us about a minute ahead of schedule. I told Ken that we were now able to re-gain our strength in the steady downhill, but he was fading fast. He told me to go on ahead, but I did not want to abandon someone who had come so far using me as a pacer. I told him we could hang back for the next couple of miles and I offered some encouragement. He insisted I move on because he did not want to slow me down. Bidding him farewell and good luck, I pressed on. I had a goal to meet.

I had not been paying much attention to the Phish show while running with Ken, but now my mind focused on "AC/DC Bag" playing softly in my ears and I rounded the turn into the 16th mile. Back on the long straightaway, I was also noticing the runners headed the opposite way toward the halfway mark. I recognized several people including Duke, the race organizer, and a woman from New York City I had met at the pasta dinner. As I exchanged waves and received encouragement from all of these familiar faces, I realized that even though there were no spectators on this course and the field of marathon runners was only 185 strong, this was a personal experience no big marathon could offer. I could not wipe the smile off my face for the next few miles.

But the smile faded during in the 20th mile. I was still ahead of schedule, but instead of counting the miles that were racking up behind me, I started counting down the miles ahead. It seemed like an eternity between the 20th and 21st mile marker. Seeing it as I rounded the corner and headed back toward the park, I felt relieved as I checked my stopwatch - still ahead of schedule by a few minutes. I thought I had slowed down, but I was chugging along at the same pace as I had been an hour before.

Sucking down my third packet of Gu Energy Gel, I navigated the twists of the park. I began feeling fatigued. I had not quite hit the wall, but I was losing strength. The strange delirium that I had experienced in my previous marathon started creeping in. I was unfocused, my form was deteriorating as my heels were striking my ankles, my thoughts were getting scattered and I started trying to convince myself that I should slow down. The same park that I sped through at the beginning of the race now seemed to go on forever. The path’s twists and turns felt exaggerated, each one harder to negotiate than the last. Someone passed me. Instead of trying to catch up, I let him go. In my headphones, Phish was prompting me, "Set the gearshift for the high gear of your soul/You've got to run like an antelope out of control," and, boy, I was trying.

Finally out of the park, I hit the 24 mile mark and checked the stopwatch one last time. The sight of it broke me from my stupor. Two hours and fifty minutes - I was going to make my goal and there was no doubt about it. I had 20 minutes to run 2.2 miles. I could run 10-minute miles from this point and still qualify for the Boston Marathon. But, after some bargaining in my addled brain, I forced myself not to do so.

Straightening up my form and regaining control of my body, I focused on finishing strong. Reaching my goal was a given, now I was in a position to shatter my goal time. All I could think about was the fact that I had succeeded. Everything was worth it - the heartache of the previous year, the hard training of the previous 18 weeks, flying out to the Midwest. All of it culminated in this unbelievably joyous and triumphant moment. My thoughts: Savor it, Dan. You did it.

In the last mile, I felt so good, I even made an attempt to overtake the runner in front of me. Seeing the clock at three hours and four minutes made it as emotional a moment as can be imagined. Tears of joy were streaming down my face (why does this happen at the end of every marathon?) as I shouted to the few spectators...

"I love you, Kansas! I'm going to Boston! Thank you, Kansas! THANK YOU!"

Arriving at Abilene, Kansas

A nice, simple welcome to the Eisenhower Marathon

Me with Duke, one of the organizers of the race

Ken and me, post race

Louisiana Marathon - Jan. 20, 2019

This is how you run a marathon, while injured, in four Phish jams.

As it tends to be, it was chilly on marathon morning. Gloria did an awesome job getting us from our hotel (about seven miles from downtown) to the starting area in the heart of Baton Rouge.  Her keen sense of direction and ability to learn the lay of the land rather quickly was a relief, since most of my energy was being spent worrying about whether my legs would hold up.  She found a place to park on the street and we found a spot next to one of the buildings where I could do some stretches without getting hit so hard with the gusts of wind.

I seeded myself with the pacer for a 3:30 goal.  That felt do-able, since my leg felt like it would at least hold up for the duration of the race.  And even if it did not, my attitude was "whatever happens happens, as long as it happens in under four hours."  I would bring my phone with me, in case things got bad and I had to call Gloria to pick me up (literally, as in, off the ground).  Plus, if my mind needed to wander, I had four long Phish jams playing softly in my headphones.

At the start line of the Louisiana Marathon in Baton Rouge.  Photo by Gloria.

For the first mile or two (while listening to the 62-minute "Ball Square Jam" from 7/2/11), I held back.  I pretended I was back in Las Vegas for the Red Rock Canyon marathon, taking the first few miles very easily before the hard work of climbing that thousand-foot ascent.  Only this time, the hard work would not be a mountain, it would be the challenge of staving off the hamstring pain that was inevitable.

With a couple of low 8s under my belt, things felt pretty good.  As we left downtown Baton Rouge via Park Boulevard and passed a couple of parks along Dalrymple Drive I got to talking with a gent wearing a "Fifty Under 4" shirt indicating he had run a marathon in every state, each one under four hours.  I told him about how that was my goal and that I was on number 19.  He wished me luck and I moved on, accelerating the pace into the mid-7s as we passed City Park Lake.

We passed University Lake and headed into Louisiana State University for the fourth, fifth and sixth miles, an enjoyable campus tour that included a pass by the impressive stadium. Off of the campus in the seventh mile, we ran through a quiet, tree-lined neighborhood.  Its serene tranquility brought a content smile to my face.  This was shaping up to be quite an enjoyable race, and I had gotten my average pace down to about 7:50.

Along Lakeshore Drive and its beautiful community, the residents were out in full force, with signs, music and cheers - not to mention the proud New Orleans Saints fandom.  The team would play its NFC championship game that afternoon (and lose, sorry to say) and the "Who dat?" chanting was infectious.

We continued to work our way around University Lake and back around City Park Lake through the 10th mile and, now in my second hour of running, I was listening to the 59-minute "It Tower Jam" from 8/2/03).  After backtracking past the parks along Dalrymple, the marathon runners split from the half marathon runners and the real work was about to begin.

While deep in thought in the 13th mile, doing some math in my head to try to calculate my pace (7:49 thus far), I heard a familiar voice.  It was Gloria!  She was calling my name, holding a sign.  I was so thrilled, I stopped and gave her a kiss.  She said I looked good and I told her I felt good.  Things really were going as well as could be...

...until they were not. Something suddenly was not right with my right hamstring as I snaked my way through more pretty residential neighborhoods in the 15th mile.  It was almost 10 a.m., I had been running for two hours, and the Real Time pain reliever was wearing off.  My right leg muscles started seizing up.

Slowing the pace considerably, I made a frantic call to Gloria, asking her to meet me wherever and whenever she could, but as soon as possible.  I needed more of that pain reliever and my "stick" muscle roller.  If there was any chance in me finishing the race under four hours, I would need some quick treatment.

Somehow, I dragged my deadening leg through miles 16, 17 and 18.  I was getting by, but slowly.  The 3:30 pacer passed me, which meant my average pace was now slower than eight minutes, which also meant that those miles had to be closer to nines.  I even considered walking, but thought the better of it. 

Now in my third hour of running, I tried to focus my attention on the third Phish jam - the epic 58-minute "Runaway Jim" from 11/29/97 - but things were looking grim.  Then, around the Mile 19 marker, I saw Gloria.  Like a pit crew at a NASCAR race, she was on the ready. She gave me the  stick and I furiously rolled my hamstring, howling in agony.  She passed me the Real Time and I shoved my hand down my tights to slather it on.  Then, more rolling.

The whole process took about two minutes, which would normally be an eternity in a race, but I knew the only way to buy myself some time at the end was to lose a little time first and get this done.  I thanked my wife profusely, kissed her goodbye and set out to finish this thing.

Amazingly, that stuff worked again.  I did not care if it only masked the symptoms, as long as it could get me through the last six miles.  I hit mile 20 with about 2:45 on the clock.  Even at the pace I was running, I knew I could get to the finish in under four hours.  At 11:04 a.m., just after hitting the 22 mile mark and starting the final Phish jam ("Drive-In Jam" from 8/22/15), I sent Gloria a text: "If I can keep this up, it should be a 3:35 finish".

Gloria met me one more time, in the middle of mile 24 and with another sign.  The positive energy was exactly what I needed.  Finally getting into the downtown area, it finally felt like the race was coming to a close.  Though the last mile felt like it took forever, it did not matter.  I was going to finish this race well under four hours, and is that not what I had come to Louisiana to do?

I approached the end as the P.A. was playing one of my favorite songs - "Your Love" by the Outfield.  I sang along at the top of my lungs as I crossed the finish line with a final time of 3:36:10, an 8:16 overall pace.  Somehow, I had managed to come in the top 16 percent overall (141 out of 890) and in the top 29 percent of my age/gender group (25 out of 89).  On an injured leg.  A month after pretty much getting a PR.  Wow.

Truly, now, I had earned my Beach to Bayou medal.  I completed my 20th marathon.  I listened to four Phish jams.  I crossed my 19th state off the list.  I drank beer.  I ate as much of the available vegetarian gumbo as I could get.  I listened (and tried, unsuccessfully due to the soreness, to dance) to the band playing "Proud Mary".  I reveled with my wife and enjoyed the chilly but sunny day in beautiful Baton Rouge.

This was, indeed, what I came to do.  And I did it.  Who dat?

The Beach to Bayou medal, connecting my Mississippi Marathon, Louisiana 5K and Louisiana Marathon medals.

Gloria and me in front of the Louisiana State Capitol building, at the finish line of the Louisiana Marathon, in Baton Rouge.

Louisiana 5K

Because I was planning on doing a three-mile Saturday warm-up anyway - and it still qualified me to get the giant Beach to Bayou medal, and Gloria was running it, too - I registered for the Louisiana 5K taking place on Jan. 19, the day before the marathon.

In addition, it would serve as a good test of how my legs would hold up. I slathered on more of that Real Time gel and hoped for the best. The forecast called for rain all morning, but as Gloria and I drove from our hotel, about five miles from downtown Baton Rouge, it was still dry, though very windy.

Upon arrival at the parking garage near the start line, some folks informed us that, due to impending extreme weather conditions (wind, rain and lightning), the race was canceled.

As is now part of the Phish-fan lingo, we had been Curveballed.

After the initial disappointment, we began to wonder - what about that Beach to Bayou medal? I was planning to run the marathon the next day, but this was Gloria's only race this weekend. She came all this way and now she cannot get her award?

Though she was ready to, as she said, "get all Jersey on them," it turned out that these lovely folks were way ahead of us, extending their Southern hospitality to all who came to collect both the 5K race medal and Beach to Bayou medal. 

Not satisfied to collect medals without running, we decided to run the 5K anyway. And we were not alone. We got out on the course, ran an earnest 3.1 miles and felt justified for taking our hardware. As soon as we finished, at around 8 a.m., when the race had been scheduled to start, the skies opened up and the deluge of rain began. Streets quickly flooded, lightning flashed across the sky, and the wind gusted heavily. They had definitely made the right call.

Gloria displays her huge Beach to Bayou bling, along with her Mississippi Half Marathon and Louisiana 5K hardware

As for my hamstrings, running at Gloria's 10+ minute pace made it easy to get through (despite the fact that the slower gait is hell on my back, for some reason), and my legs held up OK. There was a nagging ache and a little pain, but I felt like I was in good enough condition to at least get through the marathon on Sunday.

Four hours might not be in the cards, I thought, but I'll get through it. At that point, it would have to do.

Marathon XX

When I was in Biloxi for the Mississippi Gulf Coast Marathon, I was seduced.

The race booklet made mention of a special medal for runners who participated in any race at that event and any race at the Louisiana Marathon event six weeks later. This Beach to Bayou medal was huge - a giant hunk of metal with magnets on each side, where the medals from both Mississippi Gulf Coast and Louisiana can be attached to form big, mural-like triptych.

I was in its thrall and could not pass it up, despite the fact that my near-PR in Mississippi took everything out of me - destroying my hamstrings in the process. I probably should have rested, repaired and recuperated. But no, I looked up Hal Higdon's Multiple Marathon plan and got right back to work.

Admittedly, it was a relatively small amount of work, with a maximum mileage week of only 36. But almost every run, from the twice-weekly four- and six-milers to the peak 16-mile long run, felt labored at best, painful at worst.

By the time Gloria and I rolled into Baton Rouge on Friday (a 25-hour road trip from New Jersey), my outlook was bleak. At worst, I could slowly run the 5K with Gloria on Saturday, collect the Beach to Bayou bling and let whatever happens happen at the marathon on Sunday.

Driving to Louisiana and not completing the marathon didn't make sense, though. I needed to add a 19th state to my list. So, theoretically, I could crawl to the finish line in the seven-hour time limit, get my marathon medal and cross it off in my effort to run all 50 states.

But if I really wanted to keep my streak going, it needed to be under four hours. By Friday, with my hamstring still in agony, it felt like I needed nothing short of a miracle to accomplish that. At the race expo, a minor one showed up in the form of a topical analgesic called Real Time Pain Relief, which I bought as a desperate, last ditch attempt. The salesman may very well have been offering me snake oil, but I gave it a shot.

Happily, it did ease some of the pain as I continued to slather it on Friday night. The first real test would be to see how my legs held up on a relaxed 5K on Saturday.

From the get go, one thing was for sure - this was going to be a very weird weekend.

Phish at Madison Square Garden - Dec. 30, 2018

Any multi-show run in one venue plays out like a single, giant show, so I listened to the Dec. 29 show on the morning of Dec. 30, the second set while doing my 14-mile run.  That way, I would not have missed anything by the time we went to the show that evening. 

"Corrina" was not only nice to hear, but well played and reminiscent of its bust-out on 12/30/99 (Big Cypress Seminole Reservation, Florida). "46 Days" had a swifter-than-usual tempo and a jam that was rocking in the first half, and pretty in the second half; but Trey pulled a 2011-style ripcord - within 30 seconds of Mike and Page establishing a nice vi-IV pattern that could have totally been explored, Trey forced a segue into a sloppy "Cities". The fun of the first set was a "Wolfman's Brother" into which Trey crowbarred elements of "Party Time", probably trying (but failing) to swerve the jam into that song proper.

Set II of 12/29/18 gave us the absolute best jam of the four-show run.  Shortly into the opening "Carini" jam, they shifted into a major key, and instead of the usual 10-plus minute jam, we got a surprising segue into the jam-of-the-night in "Tweezer". People will be talking about this one for a while. There was such great interplay, with Trey and Fish initiating stops and starts to goad the crowd into some "woo"s and, afterward, they did a pretty, uptempo jam, followed by a segue to "Death Don't Hurt Very Long". But instead of taking the solo himself, Trey threw solos to Fish and Mike before another segue back into "Tweezer", which had another pretty but, by now, perfunctory jam which was brought way down for a segue into "No Quarter".  

With "Death Don't Hurt" as well as "Turtle in the Clouds" played on Dec. 29, we had six remaining Kasvot Vaxt songs on the table as we arrived at Madison Square Garden for the Dec. 30 show. We had decent seats in section 202, across the arena, but with an almost head-on and unobstructed view of the stage.  The sound was not so bad, either.

Opening with "Alumni Blues -> Letter to Jimmy Page -> Alumni Blues" followed by "Mike's Song" gave the show a classic '88 feel, but a big surprise came in the place between "Mike's" and "Weekapaug Groove" usually occupied by "I Am Hydrogen".  Instead of that song, they busted out "Glide II", played exactly once before by Phish, on 5/16/95 (Lowell, MA) - though the real bustout was actually when Trey blew everyone's mind by dusting it off earlier in December during his solo tour.

Speaking of old dormant songs tested by Trey during his solo tour, the short acoustic number, "Bliss", from the 1996 album Billy Breathes that mostly serves as an introduction for the album's title song, also showed up for the first time ever at a Phish show on Dec. 30.  It came off of a "Crosseyed and Painless" that was seamlessly segued out of "Weekapaug" and led into "Billy" as on the album.

After that, there was about 18 minutes of dancing, with "No Men In No Man's Land" laying down some funk and "Weekapaug" showing up again in the middle of a "Tube" jam. "More" closed the set to great and powerful effect, as it often does. As first sets go, that one was pretty hard to beat.

If Set I kept things mostly classic, the first two-thirds of Set II stayed firmly rooted in 3.0 with a fifth Kasvot Vaxt song ("Cool Amber and Mercury"), a large "Everything's Right" that included a big major-key bliss jam, a "Plasma" that had Page tearing it up on the clavinet, and a 20-minute "Light" during which Chris Kuroda's lights were the definite MVP of the jam - not that the band was too shabby either, especially when they peaked, brought it way down, and peaked again.

To close out the set, "Wading in the Velvet Sea" was a pleasant choice, and it was followed by a very 3.0 "Split Open and Melt" (and you know how I feel about those).  That almost did not matter though, because the encore more than made up for it, with a rare four-song selection of classic-era tunes - "Funky Bitch", "Wilson", "Rocky Top" and a "Cavern" that included a nod to Kasvot Vaxt ("Your time is near, the mission's clear, you'll face plant into rock.").  

Despite the lack of any 2.0 era songs in the show, and the way the 3.0 and 1.0 songs were played in separated clumps, this show felt like it had a ton of variety and, most importantly, the playing was incredible - a band doing what it does best on the night before its year-end spectacular.  It was my 10th Dec. 30 Phish show and, once again, it did not disappoint.  I came away satisfied with it being my last show of the year.

The next night was everything New Year's Eve should be, with big, fat jams in "Down With Disease" and "Seven Below"; a fun song sandwich that put "Passing Through" (KV song #8 after "Play By Play" was the seventh in Set I)) in the middle of the "Harry Hood" jam; and, of course, an elaborate production to ring in the new year (this time based around one of my favorite newer songs, "Mercury" and a ninth KV tune "Say It to Me S.A.N.T.O.S.").  I watched it with friends at home on Jan. 1 and it felt like I got to ring in the new year all over again.  

Fans seem to be using "This is what space smells like" (from "S.A.N.T.O.S.") as a catchphrase, but when it comes to Phish's New Year's Run, I think the next line is much more appropriate - "You will always remember where you were."

Phish at Madison Square Garden - Dec. 28, 2018

Happy New Year's Run!  Now that all that Christmas crap is over with, we can get down to the real holiday season.  It is Phish's 17th Dec. 28th show ever (and my seventh!) and by Jan. 1, they will have played at the venue 65 times total, just a few shy of the 69 Elton John will have racked up by the spring.  We see you, Billy Joel, with your 106 MSG shows, and we are coming for you.

For this show, Gloria and I scored floor tickets through Phish mail order, so we got the full sound and lights, with an excellent view of the band and, occasionally, some decent dancing room, staying around the middle.

Being the first show since the Halloween run, it is no surprise that Phish wants to explore the new Kasvot Vaxt songs that they debuted in Las Vegas, so we got two of those songs - "We Are Come to Outlive Our Brains" to open the show and "The Final Hurrah" as a highlight of the second set - and I am sure there are more to come over the next three nights.

"Martian Monster" provided a 3.0 Halloween double shot at the top of the show, but until the "Walls of the Cave" closer (with its awfully bungled intro but high-energy redeeming jam), the first set looks on paper like it could have been from 1998, with a raging "Axilla I"; a rocking "Free" that kept things hot and heavy without pushing any boundaries; "The Wedge", which always feels both out of place and perfectly welcome wherever it is played in the set.

But do not let the set list fool you.  The quick swerve into a major-key in "Ghost"; the herky-jerky, noisy stabs in "Meat"; a "Sparkle" that was well-executed into its speedy coda, but without the frantic, frenetic pace of the old days; Trey's killer counterpoint during Page's organ solo in "Maze"; and an "If I Could" that retained all the beauty of the later versions, but at the more brisk tempo of the earlier versions, this was unmistakably the non-jam side of 3.0 Phish at its best.

Oh, you want to talk about the jam side of 3.0 Phish?  Check out the raging jam that saved "Walls of the Cave", and then follow me into the second set, where "Set Your Soul Free" got things going with a long jam that stayed mostly moored, but explored a lot of pretty textures before getting weird at the end and falling into "Swept Away".

The minute-long "Swept Away" always leads to "Steep".  Any old fan like me remembers the 1990s versions of "Steep" that were merely another brief, two-minute pit stop.  The 3.0-era "Steep" is a beautiful slow jam that builds on the theme of the backing vocal melody. While this version did not quite meet the majesty of the Baker's Dozen version (8/1/17 Maple) at this very venue, or even the 7/10/11 version from Camden, Trey and Page showed - as they did with "If I Could" in the first set and the lovely "Shade" (I am not crying, you are crying) later in the second set - that the tender moments can be some of the best. 

Holy moly, I just realized that Phish has only done this new "Steep" five times since the 2009 reunion, and I have seen four of them!

While it was super fun to have some extended play off of "The Final Hurrah", the bigger, better jam came in "Fuego" which is always reliable, often a highlight.  Count this version, which peaked twice, in that latter category, even if (at only 10 power-packed minutes) it did not stretch out into transcendence like the back-to-back monsters of 7/4/14 and 7/8/14.

Speaking of peaks and transcendence, have you heard this "Bathtub Gin" yet?  After Page gets down on the Rhodes for a while, Fish speeds up the beat and, suddenly, I am transported back to 6/28/00 in Holmdel, for a high-energy, funky/happy jam. The similarity in vibe was uncanny. 

So after all that, does ending with "Possum" leave me a little flat?  Yes, just a little - but watching everyone else, from newbie kids to old dudes, go bananaballs over it always makes me smile.  I am sure it gives Jeff Holdsworth a warm fuzzy, too.

"Slave to the Traffic Light"

And if I can not feel the same about a version of "Bouncing Around the Room" so lame that even I refuse to defend it, at least we ended the show on about as pretty a note as one can, with "Slave to the Traffic Light", perhaps to tie it in with the other such moments on this rainy, yet mild December night in New York City.