Too Fast to Ever Slow Down

Back in the dark, dark, dark ages of computers (I'm talking Tandy 100 here.) we had a game called Moonshot, or maybe Spaceshot, I can't remember exactly. There were no graphics, just lines of text which gave you a number of choices to make. The object of the game was to take the values you were given for fuel, speed and distance to the moon and combine them to take off from the earth, fly to the moon and then use you retro-rockets to make a soft landing.

If you took off too fast, you used too much fuel and couldn't slow down enough to avoid crash landing. If you took off too slow, you landed in the Atlantic, or, if you just barely made it out of the earth's gravitational pull, the game would inform you that you would reach the moon in 157 years or so. The game changed the weight of the ship and it's cargo at the start of every game.

I'm telling you all this because that is the game I am now playing in my head. At what speed do I run the first miles?

Too fast and I might not have enough 'fuel' to get to the finish. Too slow and I will be out on the course for six and half hours.

The road in Brooklyn is pretty flat, but I have been warned about "banking extra miles in the first half." (What?) and I think I will need to have a lot left to push beyond the 22, 23 mileposts. (My crew is meeting me at the 23 which is in the middle of the hill on Fifth Ave.)

Others have told me, quote "Shit, if you make it past the Madison Ave bridge there is no way anything's going to stop you." One guy told me he remembered seeing the trees of Marcus Garvey Park, that's at about the 22 mile point, and then he said "I just floated along to the end, I didn't care what my time was." (Liar) "The crowds just lifted me up."

Right now I'm thinking about keeping it to about eleven minute miles. I finish in about five hours (maybe better if I feel really good at the twenty miles point) and it will have been a fine day.

One thing I do not have to contend with is retro-rockets.

They were always the touchiest part of SpaceShot.

From where I stand at the moment slowing down will not be a problem 12 days from now.

Joe(Watch out!! Oh, no, he's running too fast to stop!!! )Nation