Patriot's Triathlon

Added another race! This one is in between an Olympic and Half-Iron Distance race. Slightly shorter swim, longer bike, and a longer run than a normal Olympic.

Should be a good gauge to focus my training for the Half Ironman I want to do in October.

If you're interested, click the link in the upper right!

There are few things worse than...

Hair. In the pool. For all you swimmers out there, you know exactly what I mean. It happened last night AND this morning. There I am, just swimming my laps and all of a sudden, my fingers are woven together. I try to quickly get rid of it, only to find that it's now spread to my watch and somehow intertwined with the band and the rest of my fingers...and now to the hand I'm trying to rescue myself with. It's like I was wearing some sort of primitive handcuffs. And you can't quickly get rid of it - forget about that. It stays with you longer than garlic breath.

Just when you think you're in the clear, you start swimming again and go to turn your head to breathe. That's when it hits you that you might as well be breathing through a piece of cheesecloth. Is this what waterboarding is like? Ugghhhh. It's disgusting! Hair, draped across your face. THAT sucks because now you're stopped in the middle of the lane, spasming as if an Alien just latched on to your face and started laying eggs in your stomach. No matter how hard you try, you can't get rid of it...it just doesn't die! You continue flailing about as if possessed. The people around you start to head for the exits, and the lifeguard calls for an old priest and a young priest...

So for all the men and women with long hair out there - please keep those swim caps on! I'd almost rather swim through sewage than go through that again.

You know it's humid when...

No pictures, but I had my long run of the week this morning. I got up early so the heat wouldn't be too bad. I started about 0800 and it was only 78 degrees. However...the humidity was about 87%.

So, back to the title of the post: You know it's humid when 2/3 of the way through your run, you hear a squishing sound...only to discover that what you're hearing is your shoes - completely soaked - squishing out sweat and leaving footprints behind you on the pavement. Yes, it was that humid!

Fortunately, I was running when some other race was about finished, so many of the water stops were trying to give away their remaining water. I grabbed a couple bottles around mile 9-10 and I'm pretty sure that's the only reason I finished!

Here are the stats: (or, check my training log link if you want the real nitty gritty details...)

12.02 mi, 1:51:12, 9:14/mi, AHR-160 bpm

Good run! Now I have to consume gallons of water to re-hydrate, and gallons of coffee to keep me awake to study...

Home Makeover - Mom Edition

I'm still getting used to how this thing lets you post your pictures, but suffice to say - it's not user-friendly... Anyway, on to the post!

At Holly's...prompting and needing a break from studying for the LSAT (yes, for those who don't know - you read that right...4 Oct is the LSAT), I took some pictures of the results from Mom's recent visit. This was her first trip to Philly since I moved into a great new apartment, and she is on the east coast anyway to go help Holly and John with their new place and to watch their ever-growing menagerie while they go back to the Middle East.

So, Mom had the run of the place and this is what happened. It's soooo much nicer! Thanks a ton, Mom!

First, some food! We roasted a red snapper (I've never cooked a fish this way) and it was excellent! I highly recommend it and it's very easy. Here is the fish!



The Bedroom. There are no closet doors, but the more I thought about it - who needs them? This is just easier... What you can't see is the real genius in the drawer reorganization. Before Mom's visit, you'd never know I went to West Point.





Pilsner Urquell! In a place of honor - just above the wine rack in the kitchen.



The hallway. I hung those pictures myself!! They're the swim, bike, and run pics. The bike is actually a print from a local artist who painted the start of the annual bike race here in Philly.



The bathroom. I would have shown more, but my running clothes were hanging over the shower. To give you an indication - it was about 96 degrees when I went running and I did 7 miles. So you can imagine what they look like....



My favorite part of this place - the kitchen! Thanks to Mom, it's 100% better!






The living room. Inevitably where I spend a ton of time. In fact, if you look for the funky looking chair with the ottoman - that's where I am right now. It's an Ikea find...(I had no ikea it would be that cool!)

And finally, as tradition dictates, we had lobster while Mom was here. We didn't do it on the last night, but Saturday instead (to facilitate better clean up the next day!). This is Mom - Orka'd up, and ready to help me handle those suckers when they came out of the steam pot. They were each about 3.25 lbs! HUGE! And tasted great!

Thanks again, Mom. The place looks amazing!

A Great Trip to Boston

I've been very behind in updates, and this one is long overdue.


A couple weeks ago, I went to visit a great friend in Boston - Janice. She and I go way back and it's a long story, but one that I truly hope will continue for a long time. In any case, this was my first real trip to Boston (with the time to actually go see things) and Janice was a great tour guide. We spent a good deal of time on the Freedom Trail, and I highly recommend this to anyone visiting the city. I am a big fan of the American Revolution History and Boston has no shortage of Revolutionary History.



In order to see it all, it would take weeks, but we saw some awesome stuff in the short amount of time I was there. I guess I didn't end up taking as many pictures as I thought, but we did a lot of other great stuff too - dining at a famous restaurant, hitting a famous pastry shop (I still dream about the German chocolate cake), and hanging out at some really nice bars.



We also hit an event called "Chefs in Shorts" which had a lot of potential. However, once we got there, we realized that whoever organized this thing did a horrible job! We wanted to get a beer and then peruse the chefs tables (local chefs in Boston put out tasting menus and you could float around trying tons of different foods) while staying refreshed. After spending almost an hour in the drink line, we found out that they ran out of not only beer - but white wine as well. Since we were committed at that point (and frankly, pretty pissed...) we took as much as we could carry. That amounted to 4 glasses (each) of some pretty crappy red wine:

Later that night, we met up with some of Janice's friends and had a pretty good time. I tried introducing Janice to a glass of Scotch....but I guess there are always things you disagree on. This will be one of ours!!!

Now on to the history. The first place we saw was the State House. By the way, I won't give a historical dissertation on each of these. If interested, this is a good resource: http://www.thefreedomtrail.org/staging/visitor/visitor.html

We saw the State House and noticed that Boston is a very sports infused city!

The next spot was a bit spooky.....for a couple reasons. First off, it was a very old cemetery. Kind of cool though, we saw the graves of Sam Adams and Paul Revere. As we were walking up, Janice mentioned that the last time she was at the Granary Burial Ground, they were caught in a horrible thunderstorm. They ended up sprinting to a nearby bar and drinking beers while waiting for the storm to pass. About half an hour later....the skies started to get very dark and that pre-storm wind kicked up. We looked at each other with that, "...oh, sh*t" look and hoped that lightning wouldn't strike twice. About 10 minutes after that, we were in the same bar having beers while we waited for the storm to pass! Eerie...but still a lot of fun!

I took this picture because this particular gravestone was...um....a bit...um...strangely shaped? I'll leave out further comments in the interest of decency...



"One, if by land, Two, if by sea!"

Finally, a sobering monument. Any Holocaust memorial is always a somber place to visit and this one was no different. The first picture is of a quotation that I found particularly profound. There were several of these all over the monument. The second picture is one of the towers of the monument. If the glass looks cloudy, it's because there are numbers etched into the glass. Every single number that was tattooed to the concentration camp victims who died in WWII is etched into the glass of this monument. This picture just shows one tower of many.


It was a great trip - lots of fun and I don't think I stopped laughing the whole time. Well, probably at the Holocaust memorial, but other than that it was awesome. Hopefully the first of many!