Mayor's 5K Run/Walk for ALS Research, West Orange, NJ - Oct. 9, 2022

It was a chilly but sunny morning and, after five weeks of marathon recovery and short-race training (still using Hal Higdon's Post-Marathon Intermediate training plan), I was as ready as I could be for the Mayor's 5K in West Orange, my second in-person race of the year.

Looking around at the competition gathering in front of Town Hall, I noticed it was a small field and most of the people seemed to be there to walk, not run.  And why not?  It was a great cause, a nice day, and a mostly flat course.  My pre-game assessment - I would run my best, enjoy the race-day amenities and probably take home an age group award.

So I did what I always do - planted myself near the front of the pack and blasted off at the go signal.  Within a minute, I was out in front of everyone as we headed south on Main Street to Northfield Avenue, with a quick turn on Valley Road.  After the turnaround at Kingsley Street, I headed back the way I came and clocked a 6:04 first mile.  Sub-6s are hard to come by these days, so that pace felt like an accomplishment; but I knew I would probably not be able to sustain it.  

Turnarounds are good because you can get an idea of where you are in the pack and how far the next person behind you is.  To my surprise, I had built quite a gap already.

I had already checked out the course the day prior, but it still felt reassuring to have the police motorcycle in front of me.  As great as it is being the front runner, it is unsettling to be unsure of the course and have no one to chase.  This course consisted of two out-and-backs - first south, then north - so there was not much to mess up. 

Back on Main Street and passing Town Hall, it was a slight uphill as I ran past Thomas Edison National Historical Park and a local school into a 6:15 second mile.  Still good with that, I thought as I approached the northern turnaround and noticed that I was way ahead of the next runner.  

I could not believe it.  This race was mine to lose.  All I had to do was keep pushing for another six minutes and it was in the bag.  Not only that, but was it possible that I could actually get in under 19 minutes for the first time this decade?  Some fatigue was setting in, but now - forget winning the race - seeing an 18 on the clock was my new mission.  To do so, I had to run 1.1 miles in 6:40.  Doable, but not that easy these days.  I dug deep, pushed a little harder and, amazingly, managed to log my fastest mile of the race with a 6:02.  

I brought it home with all my might for the last 38 seconds, finishing at 18:59, and somehow winning a race for the sixth time.  I felt pretty wiped out, but I was happy as can be.  It has been six years since I crushed my goal of getting in under 18 minutes; now, at 48 years old, a sub-19 feels just as victorious.  And holy moly, they gave me this huge trophy!

Marathon XXVIII - Hamptons Marathon, Sept. 4, 2022

The pandemic changed my idea of what a marathon should be.  No longer do I feel the need to schedule my training and budget my money around the event of a public race; instead, I am happy to do the race around my schedule and budget.  If I want to do a marathon on Sept. 4 to coincide with the beginning of my Block Island vacation with my wife to celebrate our anniversary, then who cares if there is a nearby event on that day?  I will find an official USATF-certified course at certifiedroadraces.com that suits my needs accordingly.

I had it narrowed down to two - the Newport Marathon in Rhode Island (officially held in October) and the Hamptons Marathon (officially held in mid-September) on Long Island.  Both offered feasible routes to Block Island the next morning.  Though Newport was closer to the ferry, we thought it would be more fun to go to Long Island to also wrap a visit with my parents into the trip.  

Arriving at the start at Southampton Middle School for a 7:25 a.m. start to beat the coming heat, Gloria and Mom rode alongside me for the first half-mile or so to make sure I was on the right track with the course route (the official map had an error in the description) and then took a drive out to Montauk to see the lighthouse.

The course had no hills, no major traffic intersections, no potential obstacles and not a tremendous amount of turns.  Maybe five years ago, that would have triggered a desire to try to run fast and shoot for a personal record; but now, at a time when I am doing this for the sheer fun of it, there was no reason to do anything but take my time and only keep the modest goal of finishing under four hours. 

My intent from the start was to keep my splits as steady as possible - comfortable low 8s.  The first four miles consisted of a loop to the east of the school - Wickapogue Road to Downs Path to Flying Point Road and back to Wickapogue.  Good thing I checked out the course on Google Earth the week before, because some of the roads lacked street signs.  With an 8:23, 7:58, 7:49 and 8:08, I was off to a good start.  It was certainly interesting to look at all the residences in this ridiculously affluent town.  And these mansions, merely huge, were nothing compared to the enormity of the grandeur I was about to witness.

The next mile (8:02) was a loop to the south - Old Town Road to Gin Lane to Wyandanch Road - before heading west (Toylsome Lane) and south (S. Main Street, Gin Lane and Meadow Lane) for miles 6 (8:11) and 7 (8:10).  

Shifting gears in my headphones from Phish's 8/19/2012 show to the self-titled album by New Jersey power-pop band True Love, I headed north for another loop along a lot of streets with the word "neck" in their name (what is that all about?) - Coopers Neck Lane, Great Plains Road, First Neck Lane, Ox Pasture Road, Halsey Neck Lane, Hill Street, Captains Neck Lane and Meadowmere Lane - still keeping it super-steady with an 8:17, 8:21, 8:23 and 8:33.

Back on Meadow Lane, the southernmost road in town along the strip of beachfront mega-mansions, I could finally stuff my directions in my pocket for a while as I ran westward to the road's end.  Gawking at the ostentatious opulence of the estates along the road was fun while I listened to Phish's 8/19/1992 show.  I managed to continue to keep things steady on the four miles out (8:19, 8:15, 8:13, 8:19), but it was getting warmer and there was no cover from the relentless sun.  Thus, miles 16 through 19 were a bit slower (8:23, 8:28, 8:39, 8:28). 

The return trip bypassed that northern loop, but did steer me into the parking lot of Cooper's Beach, just far enough to see the beautiful beach and make me want to jump in the water.  But alas, there was still some work ahead.  Retracing my steps through the two other loops, it was getting harder to maintain that steady low-8 pace in miles 17 through 21 (8:28, 8:39, 8:28, 8:31, 8:29) but at least I was back in the neighborhood with the canopy of large trees shielding me from the sun, and I had the "Heaven & Earth" album by Yes to help me feel good.

In mile 22 (8:41), Gloria and Mom found me and rode alongside in the car for a bit to check in with me.  I was surprised to see them so soon and it was a nice pick-me-up.  But then in the doldrums of the 20s, alone, sweaty, and fading, with no more of the adventure of seeing new things (always the downside of an out-and-back course), and with one more time around that eastern loop after mile 23 (8:40), each successive mile would be slower than the last - 8:47 for mile 24 and 9:04 for mile 25. 

Gloria and Mom drove up again in mile 26 for one final check-in.  I talked to them for a while and they told me about their jaunt to Montauk.  I figured I may as well unload any excess weight for the end, so I gave them my Gatorade bottle, headphones and phone and told them I would meet them at the school for finish, so I could concentrate on getting through that last full mile (9:16).

Either the course was long, my Garmin was way off, or I slowed to a crawl for the final two-tenths of a mile because that home stretch clocked in at 2:24, and I finished with a 3:41:32, exactly in the range of most of the marathons I have run in the past few years.  So, no complaints here.  

Another marathon down, a new route conquered, a great weekend with my parents, and a few days on Block Island to unwind, rest, and recover.  

Bloomin' 5K - Clifton, NJ - April 24, 2022

As it had been for 15 years and 27 marathons of follwing the Hal Higdon training plans, the weeks after running the big 26.2-miler consist of recovery and 5K training.  I decided to try an in-person race for this one, but with the Omicron variant running rampant, I was not taking any chances. 

I got to the site of the Bloomin' 5K early, hoping to be able to scope out the course before the race started.  I did some stretching and then ran the first half-mile of the course and back to get some idea of the lay of the land.  I had studied the route the day before, so I already knew the turns, but I am glad that I was able to see that the first mile had an uphill. 

Back at the start line, next to Clifton Stadium the crowd was amassing.  Not one other person in that increasingly larger group of people packing into the starting area was wearing a mask, but I wore my KN95. Plus, being confident and well-trained enough, I planted myself in the front, so at least I had some room in front of me while we waited.

After a long delay while we waiting for the Clifton Police to get it together, we got the go signal and I bolted out with the fast guys, losing the mask once everyone thinned out. A quick left turn from Park Slope to Day Street, followed by a quick right turn onto Fairmount Avenue got us onto that first hill.  I throttled up as hard as I could, but was unable to sustain the 6:10 pace I started out doing, despite getting a small downhill in the back half of the first mile.  A left onto Martha, a right onto Grant, brought us to Hazel Street, which we crossed to get on Kuller Road where the bulk of the out-and-back race would be run.

I hit the first mile marker at 6:19 and, though I had secured an early spot in the top 10, I knew I had to find a way to push harder to get in under 19 minutes.  The course was flat for the next mile so, save for the turnaround, I could focus on keeping up a decent consistent pace.  I managed to do best my first mile, hitting mile two with a 6:12, now in seventh place. 

But now it was time to get back up those hills, so I dug as deep as my 47-year-old body could possibly go and, thanks to the downhill in the third mile, beat my second mile with a 6:11.  It was almost enough to get me to squeak in under 19 minutes, but no matter how hard I pushed, I could not make it happen, as a runner shot past me in the end and put me at a final stading of eighth place (no complaints!) and a 19:04 (well...five complaints), which got me a first-place age group medal (no complaints!).

The Covid era has coincided with my slowdown from sub-19 status, so it has been a weird return to live racing.  Not much about the experience made me want to do any more races so I figured I would jump right back into marathon training and plan for a September race.

Morgantown Marathon - March 20, 2022

It was a chilly morning, with a possibility of rain in the forecast.  Reminded of the conditions at the Red Rock Canyon Marathon where I was severely under-dressed, I over-dressed a bit this time with my tights, a hooded shirt over my long-sleeve running shirt, and the cap over my beanie hat.  

Starting out at the WVU Coliseum and running the first mile along Patteson Avenue, with beautiful campus buildings on either side of the road, I hit the first mile after the curve onto Van Voorhis in the Evansdale section of town with an 8:23 and that felt about right. And then the turns began.

The Morgantown Marathon course

Image uploaded from my Garmin Connect account

A left onto Chestnut Ridge Road, a quick left on Windsor Avenue, a right onto Drummond, and then a right onto University...and that was just the second mile (8:11).

The next two miles (7:57, 7:53) were through the residential Suncrest neighborhood, with modest but lovely houses and startlingly narrow streets.  I took a left onto Laurel, continued on Elmhurst, went straight on Parkview, turned right on Rotary, left on Cambridge, left on Kenmore, right on Parkview, left on Mulberry, then left on University to leave that neighborhood and head into Star City.

Turning right on Broadway and right on Fairfield, I headed into another neighborhood, making a left on Junior, right on Aspen, and left on Collins Ferry Road for the fifth mile (8:06).  

A right onto Greendale, a left on Woodland, and a right on Eastern started me up an ascent of about 250 feet over the next five miles.  I still felt good, chugging along while listening to the Phish show from 30 years ago to the day, but now the work was going to start.  The forecasted rain had been little more than a drizzle thus far, and occasionally, it seemed like the sun might peek through, but alas, it stayed away.  And that was a good thing, because I was warming up, and the sun might have been too much with the way I was dressed.

Left on Aspen, right on Dogwood, left on Killarney, right on Van Voorhis - I had already flipped through several pages of my turn-by-turn notes by now and only just hit the sixth mile (8:10) - and I was back at the same intersection I was in the second mile, this time turning left to head east on Chestnut Ridge Road, away from the crazy zig-zag loop of the first 10K of the course and finally, blessedly, along one road (State Route 705) for the next couple of miles or so.

Those miles were uphill on a major roadway (8:20, 8:50), but at least I could put the notes away for a while and enjoy the Phish show.  And even then, a main road in West Virginia on a Sunday...not exactly the worst thing in the world when you are used to running in busy suburban New Jersey. 

A right turn onto U.S. Route 119 (Mileground Road) took me into mile 9 (8:36) and a right fork onto College Avenue (with no sign - good thing I did my research ahead of time!) took me down a long, steep downhill back to the college campus for my third and final sub-8 mile of the course (7:43). A left turn on University Avenue followed by a left on Willey and a right on High Street took me into the downtown.

A left onto Pleasant brought me out of the downtown, over Deckers Creek and into the South Park section of town.  A right on Cobun Avenue and a quick left onto Grand Street sent me up a hill into mile 11 (8:24) and I continued through this pleasant residential neighborhood with rights on Wilson Avenue and Allison Street.  A left turn onto the brick road of Wagner, which was closed off to non-local traffic, had me marveling at how the homes here were not large but absolutely beautiful.  

A left onto Dorsey Avenue past a cemetery led me to a sharp left turn with an extremely sharp (but short) uphill on Waitman Street and a right on Simpson Street to the mile 12 mark (8:44).  I took a right on Euclid Avenue, a left on Ash Street, a right on Wilson Avenue (making a weird sort-of out-and-back, sort-of loop in that mile), and a left on Kingwood Avenue to finally get a downhill again.  Of particular note while winding through this part of the neighborhood were the Biden/Harris, Black Lives Matter and Gay Pride flags at the houses - evidence of a blue-leaning college town in a mostly red state.  

The constant turning finally abated again after a left on Cobun, a quick right on S. Walnut Street and a right on Brockway Avenue, which featured lots of rental houses, presumably for students at the college.  After mile 13 (8:24), there was a quick, steep uphill, sharp left turn onto Rogers Avenue, then a left onto Valley Crossing and a sharp left turn onto the Decker's Creek Trail.

The trail was a pleasant change of scenery, off the road, and through some park land that featured murals, community gardens, a playground, a skate park, the 14th mile mark (8:23), and thankfully, a break from any hills. 

A left off the trail onto Decker's Creek Boulevard and a quick right put me back on a busy road, though. Staying on Earl Core Road through mile 15 (8:10), I felt like I was in a pretty good groove, having kept the pace mostly steady.

Taking a right on Eljadid Street, which curved into Carnegie Street, I crossed the creek and got on the trail again, making a right to head back in the direction from which I had come - but not for long.  After hitting the 16 mile mark (8:14, still in that groove), I made a left on Green Bag Road, where I could put my directions in my pocket again, as I would be on this road for almost three miles.  This road was mostly businesses, industrial-type areas, and some residential townhome communities.  There was not much traffic, but it was 45-mph traffic.

During those three miles, I started to get that late-teen-mileage fatigue.  I had finished the first set of that Phish show, so now I was listening to my buddy's band, the Kimballs, to keep my spirits up.  Miles 17 through 19 were definitely slower (8:28, 9:20 up a hill, and 8:31), but all I needed to do was try to maintain for the rest of the course.  With each mile, I kept calculating what my slowest pace could be for the remainder of the route to still finish in less than four hours.  With a 2:38:57 cumulative time thus far, I had 1:21:02 to do 7.2 miles, which meant I could do 11-minute miles and still get the sub-4.

A right turn on M-Tec Drive, a left on Mississippi Avenue, and a right on East Parkway, took me around White Park, which had sports fields, trails, a tennis court, and an indoor hockey rink where kids were congregating for a game.  A left around the park on Hite Street took me uphill and toward the neighborhood where I had been eight miles earlier, with a left on Dorsey near that cemetery.  But a left on Barrickman and a quick left on Madigan Avenue at the 20-mile mark (9:23) took me in a loop to a left on Mississippi and back to the park.

Gloria found me in this area and it was nice to see her pull up alongside me to chat for a while.  There was no traffic on these residential side roads, so she stayed next to me and talked me through the low 20s which are usually the toughest miles.  With a 9:12 for mile 21, it was a right on M-Tec and a right to continue along Green Bag, where I had to say goodbye to Gloria, knowing it would only be five more miles until I could see my wonderful wife again.

The 22nd mile was uphill again but I knew I had enough time to take it slowly (9:35), considering I really had no choice at this point but to do so anyway.  Things leveled off for a while as I turned right on busy Don Knotts Boulevard for the home stretch into Morgantown proper and one last sub-9 mile (8:32).  The fatigue was really setting in with the 24th mile (9:31), turning into ache, but not quite hitting the wall.  The road reminded me of parts of U.S. Highway 46 or State Route 10 in New Jersey, with car dealerships and small shopping plazas, as it eventually turned into University Avenue.

A left at a busy fork put me on Beechurst Avenue, where many of the buildings were WVU campus facilities, letting me know that I was on the home stretch.  At one point, I got worried because I was in the 25th mile (9:00) and I could not see the coliseum (finish line) yet.  But that was likely due to the fact that I had one more hill to climb - a 250-foot incline that felt like a freaking mountain by then.  I put Yes' "Fly From Here" suite in my headphones and got to work, chugging up the shoulder of this four-lane highway like the Little Engine That Increasingly Could Not.

It was a good thing that it only lasted that 26th mile (10:28) because there was no way I could have survived much more of that.  And I could not help but think that if it was a warm, sunny September day, it would have slammed me into the wall and forced me to walk it.

Finally, cresting the hill, the coliseum was in sight, and I turned into the parking lot for the final fraction of a mile as the music climaxed in my ears and Gloria cheered me into the finish, just as it started to rain.  My finish time was 3:45:17 and with my speedy days now long behind me, that is good enough for me.  

A road trip with my wife to West Virginia and a scenic sub-4 marathon - that makes for a good weekend in these middle-aged days.

I finished the Morgantown Marathon at the WVU coliseum tired but happy.

Photo by Gloria Galioto

Marathon XXVII

 After the uneasy feeling I got from running the Hartford Marathon event last year, it felt more reasonable (or at least more comfortable) to go back to running a marathon by myself.  But I still wanted to try a new course in a new state.

Having run the Hatfield-McCoy Marathon, which took place in both Kentucky and West Virginia, I decided to consider that my Kentucky race and pick a new West Virginia marathon.  I wanted something easily driveable, where Gloria and I could leave home on Saturday morning and stay overnight, then run the course on Sunday morning and still get home at a reasonable hour that night.

I settled on the Morgantown Marathon.  A six-hour drive from home, Morgantown is the home of West Virginia University.  On the plus side, the race course runs through parts of the campus, the downtown, surrounding residential areas, and a portion of a recreational trail.  On the negative side, there are two main four-to-six lane roads on the course, with some major intersections where I might get caught up at traffic lights; and there are dozens of turns, increasing the possibility of inadvertently going off-course.

Training had gone pretty well through the winter.  I have lowered my expectations in recent years, going from trying to get a personal record at every race to trying to get a Boston qualifying time at every race to simply coming in under four hours.  As I get older, not only has the need for speed diminshed, but also my ability for speed.  At 47 now, 18-minute 5Ks and 3:15 marathons are things of the past, and I have finally come to terms with that.

So, my long runs have been in the 8:15 to 8:30 range and I have been enjoying them, for the most part.  I quit speed training for this cycle, opting to use a modified version of Hal Higdon Intermediate 2 training program - no tempo runs, no intervals on the track, no mile repeats.  The only thing resembling speed work is a weekly pace run on Saturdays, ranging from 4 to 11 miles, and a half-marathon race in the middle of the 18-week program.

During the taper of the last two weeks, I used my downtime to study the course and make notes to take with me.  When we arrived in Morgantown, Gloria and I drove the course to check the notes against the real world and make note of landmarks that might be helpful.  While that diminished the element of surprise for the course itself, it helped ensure that I would not suffer the agony of blowing any turns. 

After a wonderful pasta dinner prepared by Gloria in our hotel room (we got one of those extended-stay rooms with a kitchen), I enjoyed a good night's sleep, woke up at 6 a.m., did some stretching, and got to the starting line at the WVU coliseum at around 8:30...

"A Picture of Nectar", thirty years later

To honor the 30th anniversary of "A Picture of Nectar", I gave it an attentive listen, something I do not think Phish fans do often enough.  As far back as I can remember, a new studio album from Phish was often met by fans as a flight of fancy - an interesting diversion (or even a <gasp> sellout!), but not the real meat of what Phish was about.  Sure, the album is OK, but have you heard [insert awesome show date]?

This is a shame, because Phish albums are quite good.  They can be multi-layered, nuanced recordings that add new flavor and instrumentation to the songs we know or snapshot representations of the band's craft with minimal yet supple production.  Sometimes, both. The first three albums, however, are neither of those things.  While one might expect the major-label debut of "Nectar" to utilize the full force of Elektra to beef up its sound, it instead sounds like the end of a trilogy of Phish emerging from the studio with an album of Phish songs, performed in the exact arrangements as Phish plays them at its many, many gigs.  The upshot is that these are expertly executed, well-recorded, high quality versions of these soon-to-be-classic tunes, in a time when - get ready for this, kids - the internet was not a big thing; when fans relied on taped shows copied endlessly on cassettes of varying quality.

Thus, my first thought today, the moment "Llama" began: This sounds great!  The recording is "produced by Phish" according to the liner notes, but it does not so much sound "produced" as it does well-engineered (courtesy of Kevin Halpin).  It is a bright, sparkling, trebly record - a hallmark of 1990s CD-era production.  Aside from some vocal processing (heavy reverb, some flange, and the down-pitching of Trey Anastasio's lead vocal in "Chalk Dust Torture" that makes him sound almost like his future Oysterhead bandmate, Stewart Copeland), a few instances where rhythm guitar can be heard alongside a lead guitar part, and a guest appearance by Gordon Stone on pedal steel and banjo ("Poor Heart"), there really is not much production going on.

While the bass guitar is not as high in the mix as I am sure the People for a Louder Mike folks would have liked, Gordon's bass is distinct, clearly audible and, wow, truly amazing.  Little melodies fly in and out in "Stash" and "The Mango Song", slapping and plucking abound on "Cavern" and "Tweezer", and a rolling bottom-end anchors "Poor Heart" and "The Landlady".  It is all on wonderfully crisp display.

The drums, too, offered some surprising moments to which my ear never really tuned before.  I had never even remembered there being drums at all on "Eliza", but Jon Fishman offers elegant tom and cymbal accents.  The clarity of the open-and-close of the hi-hat in "Glide", the light jazz touch of "Magilla" and tight-snare sixteenth notes on "Chalk Dust" are a delight to hear without the room noise of the audience recordings of the shows.  Even the soundboard recordings of those early shows do not capture this much detail because those mixes are meant for the room, not for the tape.

The two places where everything comes together beautifully are (no surprise) the two jam features - "Stash" and "Tweezer".  On both of these, the band members lock into a groove and then proceed to branch out in different directions, while still remaining completely in step.  Pay attention to any one of the instruments and it is like you are listening to a whole new take on the song as each comes unglued and builds to a frenzy of controlled chaos.  Page McConnell's playing is stellar as he tickles the ivories of the real piano (as opposed to the keyboard he used during that era's shows).  And of course, there is the frenetic yet focused drive from Trey's guitar solos which bring the jams to their peaks.  There is not a bad or wasted note. 

Taken as a whole, though, this is a strange album.  While it may have been the most accessible Phish album at the time, this is not the one you want to play now for someone that has never heard the band.  The running order alone challenges a newbie to hang on for dear life.  

Things start off with rockers "Llama" and "Cavern", which sandwich the pretty interlude of "Eliza". The quick bluegrass detour of "Poor Heart" hints that, yes, this is an eccentric band (or, as a flyer from a then-recent gig put it, an "eclectic, wacko quartet from Vermont"). "Stash" has a rhythmic structure that was not like anything you heard on the radio, but the quality of the performance is enough for even the biggest skeptic to get what the fuss was about, and the brief "Manteca" tag lets the listener know that there is somehow a Dizzy Gillespie influence here - not your typical rock n' roll move. All sense of anything typical goes out the window during "Guelah Papyrus", where the verse-chorus structure gets interrupted midway by a fugue.

Then comes the middle third.  Lyrics fall by the wayside as the band shows off its instrumental chops.  "Magilla" is a Duke Ellington-esque jazz number, followed by the Santana-like Latin clave rhythm of "The Landlady".  Both are completely wordless and any other band would probably stagger these two curios as interludes between their actual songs.  But these are not mere diversions for Phish.  They are placed together in the middle of the album as a centerpiece.  During the next 13 minutes, lyrics appear in "Glide" and "Tweezer" but are unimportant.  These are not songs, per se, so much as exhibitions for the full power of Phish's musical interplay.

The final third of the album starts with what is closer to an actual song ("The Mango Song") but even that is turned sideways when, for the final verse, instead of repeating one of the previous verses, as a rock or pop song would tend to do, they repeat all three verses at the same time.  The album's most accessible rocker ("Chalk Dust") - the one that any other band would likely put toward the top - finally, satisfyingly, hits before the full left turn into Weirdsville ("Faht" and "Catapult") makes any uninitiated listener think that maybe that flyer was right.  After "Tweezer Reprise" offers a hefty climax as a variation on (but definitely not a mere rehash of) its namesake predecessor, one can only stop and reflect on everything that had happened in the previous hour. 

I cannot imagine another band on Earth sequencing an album this way.  That said, I also cannot imagine another band on Earth throwing so many different styles into one pot that even they referred to it as  "soup" when they promoted their next, more focused and fully-produced album, "Rift".  But Phish was never a band that made any concessions in order to find people.  "A Picture of Nectar" shows a band that put it all out there to reward the people that find them.  Three decades later, those rewards keep coming with every listen.

Hartford Marathon - Oct. 9, 2021

Here's my video from the Hartford Marathon!