The Vessel Run Is Kind of Fun, Unfortunately

It’s 7:03 a.m., and I am trying to stretch my hamstrings at Hudson Yards. Joining me in my warm-up are about 20 other people, all wearing status-y athleisure, who also woke up before sunrise to run up and down Thomas Heatherwick’s much-maligned Vessel. The first of these runs started a month ago as a collaboration between Equinox and Related Properties, the firm behind Hudson Yards. It’s offered three times a week, but the Tuesday-morning runs are reserved for Equinox members, which means that everyone except me on this particular morning is paying at least $405 a month to participate in what I can only describe as an elaborate humiliation ritual.

People started arriving at 6:45 a.m. I sign a waiver that I probably should have read more closely and meet a couple of the other runners. Rick, who is wearing very technical-seeming running tights, calls himself a “crazy gym nut” and says he has already done the class once. I ask him what it’s like: “Urban hiking,” he says. Then I meet our coaches: Nora Bisharat (approachable and warm) and Andrew Slane (unsurprisingly also an actor, per his Instagram), who tell us to abandon our belongings around the glowing blue ring inside the base of the Vessel, stretch, and self-select into two groups — slow and fast. I choose slow.

By 7:11 a.m, I am on my way up. Nora tells us to run up to level seven, where we will find resistance bands for a full-body workout. (Why only level seven if the Vessel is, in fact, eight levels? For extremely valid and well-documented reasons that I will not discuss here.) If we get there too fast, she says, we should just … run more — back a few levels down and then back up.

My run goes like this: The initial ascent takes my breath away a little bit, but my immediate concern quickly shifts to whether or not I am going to trip. Like me, most people in my group are partially, if not fully, filming themselves while running. For a vertical trek with constant turns, this feels dumb of us, but somehow we all reach the resistance-band area without falling. We do rows using the bands connected to the Vessel’s railing, shoulder presses, tricep kickbacks, and bicep curls. Our view is the mall. (The faster group is rewarded with westward views of the Hudson.) Energy is low. No one seems in it for the resistance-band workout. Perhaps that’s because it’s difficult to concentrate on how many reps you’ve done when you are standing inside a failed city landmark.

Then we run down again and start another round of floor exercises in the plaza around the Vessel. By this point, it’s 7:30, and more people are arriving at Hudson Yards for work. They are rightly confused by the sight of a bunch of people lying on the ground wearing athletic shorts. They take pictures of us, likely intending to mock us, and deservedly so.

Then, we’re heading back up, this time with the groups flipped. My slow cohort ascends with the sun rising on the Hudson. It’s genuinely beautiful, and the sting of being photographed like a zoo animal only moments before starts to fade, if only briefly.

On the way back down, I chat with Dr. Richard Awdeh, a Hudson Yards resident who splits his time between New York and Miami. “I was in zone four of five most of the workout,” he says, assuming I know what that means. “I will be back.” I nod. I live on a fifth-floor walk-up, and this class was only a little bit more challenging than bringing in my groceries. I do not know what “zone” that is.

Finally, we exit the Vessel and are guided through a few cooldown exercises back in the plaza. As we do them, a yoga class, sponsored by Alo, sets up to our right. They begin stretching facing the west side of the Vessel. I watch them as I pack up to leave. They also look kind of stupid, but at least they had mats.