Thursday, October 22, 2009

Death of 6



This is not a commercial for the 6th installment of my 2nd favorite movie. It is what I thought a clever pic for the title and reason for this post. For the past 4-5 months I have ran a 6 mile route. Today is the last day I ran it so this is the death of 6.

It starts at my new apartment, halfway point is the old apartment I stayed in for about a month during the summer and then head back to the new spot. It is the most diverse route I think I've ever ran in my life.

The first mile consists of running through clamp corners a.k.a. the development made to look like a neighborhood I currently reside. It consist of trees, neighbors I don't know, and dog poop bags.

The second mile starts at borders (Having a borders a mile from my house, WHAT!!!) and continues behind the local mall on a hidden street I never knew was there. This hidden street is between the mall parking lot and the abandoned race course. This one year at the race course, there was a big flea market, at the race course and I found the best hoody....sorry off topic rambling. The street leads to a runoff pond that forces me to run up a small hill and into the parking lot. I continue in the parking lot behind the stuck up gymnastics facility :P and then head up the next street in the grass filled median. There is no sidewalk so the median is the way to go.

The third mile consists of a bus station, wal-mart across the street, a slight increase in elevation, and running through the old development. This is pretty uneventful and unexciting. Miles 4,5, and 6 are the same as 1,2, and 3 just backwards. This route has been very good to me and I will miss it very much ,sniff. It is time to let go and say goodbye. Thank you for helping me keep up my endurance, and not being a slow boring route. Goodbye 6

Its OK to Cry...sob

-lessons learned

New route equal new information about self and environment

Stick with it, learn your route, hit it hard.

Don't sprint down a grassy hill unless your sure it is completely dry.

Friday, October 2, 2009

ZZZZ....continued

Aight,
Sorry for the long delay but life has been a lil crazy. As far as my new and improved workout it consists of two mandatory days of rest (b/c of school) and a new 1/2 hour to 45 minute high intensity workout, running 6 miles 2x a week, and hitting the weights The HI workout (consists of 30 step sprints x 10, 100 step QM X 4, 10 static to kinetic vertical jumps X 5, 5 handstand attempts and maintain for 10 sec from froggy position. My initial session was able to get through each exercise with little fatigue, however every session after I've only been able to get through 3 of the four exercises w/0 feelings loopy. I attribute this to my change in schedule. I still feel a lil blah but not as much.

I'm going to go with this change for another month or so and change up. Might work on increasing sprint endurance.

Lessons...

-gotta change it up

-going from 6 days to 4 and a half sucks

-backyards are great!

Friday, August 21, 2009

ZZZZZ...ZZZZ...ZZZZ


Last couple of weeks have been kinda blahhh. I'm not as hype about going to the gym, My running is there but I just feel I don't know blahhh. I initially thought it was a small change in my diet, that might be it but I'm not so sure. I think I'm going to change my routine up, yeah change is good. I've been watching alot of old youtube stuff NBA, NFL, and track and field clips lately and kinda feel like I want to "leave it on the field". What I mean is instead of going slow and steady I'm going to step it up a notch @ the gym and running.
I'm going to utilize my new...

backyard,(10 runs of 30 step sprinting, 4 sets of 100 step qm, 5 sets of 10 static plyo jumps, 5 sets of 10 lateral pushups, 5 sets of 20 step lunges, and 5 sets of 5 rep handstand pushups)

pool (sprints and laps)

basketball (100 freethrows 5 pushups for all missed ones, shooting, handles, jumping, running drills), and the weekly football catch with the next gen.

I probably won't do all of these in one week but I will write a part two to this post and report on the progress and if there has been any changes to my blahhness.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Summer Train


Ever since I moved into my girlfriends place I have been able to get scheduled training time (running, gym, and techs). I have been putting in about 8 miles a week, made improvements in the gym (gained about 5-7 lbs), techs are smoother then ever and I started swimming a couple times a week. I also got an A in my med term class. I feel this is the balance I have been looking for. Nothing exciting has happened just happy to have constant training over a long period of time. I will soon be moving again and will lose a couple days of training but I'll be pushing it until that time.


Some mornings I wake up exhausted because I've been on a constant cycle, other days I wake up and I'm out of the door with the wind trying to catch me. My runs and gym days are done without haste are more relaxing then stressing. When I tech train I feel the weight I gained but at the same time feel more in control. I don't swim as long as I run or work out but even a couple laps are great and I feel real amphibious afterwards. I caught up with some of my NYParkour heads last weekend and spent the whole day light training and played some killer capture the flag in BK that night. I was refueling every few hours to make sure I could keep going and keep up with the youngsters. I DID!! I attribute that to my constant training.


Lessons Learned


-Catch the summer train everyday (even in fall, winter, and spring).

-Alot recovery time after each train ride.

-NYPK all day CTF BK all night


Peace

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

3 Days of Moving


No I'm not talking about PKNY I am talking about moving my junk out of my condo. This past weekend I moved ALL of my stuff out of my place. Saturday, Sunday, and Monday was spent bagging, boxing, throwing away, throwing away, throwing away(sorry needle was stuck)and cleaning. Wawa was my main food source these days. Each day my place became bigger and bigger (not really, just less crap around). I was focused through the days and exhausted at night. I had no time to train on these days so I had to just blaze through. Saturday; I took apart my bed, cleaned out my fridge, and cleaned the kitchen. My South Jersey Parkour homey Gabe helped me move my bed, multiple boxes, an old carpet, and some trash. Sunday; I cleaned my bathroom, bagged a lot of my stuff, vacuumed, dusted, and made multiple runs to my grandmothers. Monday; fixed up my big closet and got the last of the junk out as my tenant arrived. I took a ride to the real estate office to get my money then went to my new home to take a nap. I received a call later on from my tenant saying that I forgot to empty my freezer, and dishwasher (at least the dishes were clean). I left my vacuum, lamp, and a big mirror which I still have to pickup.


Now that I am done with that I'll be hitting the gym, road, and environment big time.


Lessons;

-your fitness is measured on the days you don't train

-Wawa food is ok (once in a while)

-watching a rerun of the NBA finals at 1am priceless


Saturday, May 16, 2009

No Schedule


This past winter and current spring have been pretty crazy, well no busy.....no crazy is a better description. My regular workout schedule has slowly gone down the toilet. However I force myself to go to the gym and run without seeing improvement. I've seen a regression which sucks and doesn't help my stress level any. Now that classes are over for the semester I have a little more time and some new focus. I've already made the mistake of over doing it, but I couldn't help it I was having too much fun. Tech training in the am and then B-ball in the pm COME ON!!

By the stars I am a Taurus which means I'm stubborn(that can be both bad and good). Anyway what was reinforced is too relax, don't be so tight all the time, get your pace and everything falls into place. Here's to getting everything in w/o exploding.

Cheers!!

Friday, April 10, 2009

Baby Cow


I recently went for a run, nothing new about going for a run for me, this day however was different. I was feeling pretty good and thought to myself I'm going to run just on the balls of my feet today. It was simple as that I started off thinking hey this isn't so bad. I felt like a fairy with every step I took, pointing my toes and bringing my knees higher than I usually do. I got about two miles into it when it hit me. I could feel my calves tightening up so I relaxed and proceeded to run using my whole foot. It felt so much easier to do so I went with that form for about another half-mile and thought "This is easy I gotta go back on the balls". So I did and the tightness came back. It didn't hurt it was just at that line really feeling my soleus being worked. I remained with this pace the rest of the way only switching back to full foot running once again. I was feeling the tightness and the burn but it was good because I haven't pushed myself like that in a while.




I got home showered ate and started to study for my test I had that week. Forty minutes later I got up to get a snack and almost fell to the ground. I had overworked my calves and my own body weight was almost too much. I am writing this blog three days after this run and I still feel sore, not as bad though. I proceeded to walk around my place, school, and work like an old timer. Going down steps was murder. I am constantly stretching and figure the muscle will loosen up soon. Tomorrow the tightness alleviated and I went back to my flabby calf self.




Lesson Learned




-Push yourself, but know when to pull yourself back.


-that good feeling you have training, might be replaced by tightness and soreness the next few days




Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Philly Project





















Thx to Brian, Aaron, Sky, Ty, timbomb, Nick, Carl, Casey ,and Quiggz




I arrived at Penns Landing @ 10 a.m. parked, and walked to my starting spot. It took me a good hour to get to my spot (I'm glad I got there early). I decided to get something to eat so I grabbed some oatmeal from a small restaurant across the street from Rittenhouse Square. I grabbed my oatmeal to go and walked to the square. It was a nice day so I chilled and enjoyed my oatmeal. It was pretty crowded and there were kids playing in the empty fountain running jumping, and climbing (training w/o thinking). Post oatmeal I started to warm up by taking a lap around the square and my usual stretches and warm-up routine. A few cranes, cats, and precisions later I saw Gabe"Sky"Arnold with two of his fellow Rowan University Parkour Club members running into the park. Gabe tagged off, we got a pic, and I was off the the Kimmel Center.





Rittenhouse to Kimmel Center was pretty much uneventful except for a few low gates in front of restaurants which I could've hurdled, but chose to keep it a direct. Someone started revving their engine unneccesarily and everyone turned their heads, but couldn't find a car that looked like it had a decent sounding engine. I arrived at Kimmel center and looked for Ty and timbomb( I had no idea what they looked like) so I looked for some people ready to run. Timbomb spotted me and ran over, Ty was nowhere in sight, I got a passerby to take our pic and tim was off. I followed him because my leg was mad short and wanted to cover some decent distance.






Timbomb took off and I was about half a block behind for most of his leg. Running around people was the bulk of obstacle avoidance for me this leg. I caught up to timbomb as he was arriving at City Hall. "Where' s Casey"? Shoulder shrug was the response. "You go that way and I'll go this way". We each took off in opposite directions around City Hall. I went half way around with no luck and decided to cut through, still nothing. There was a group outside the inner sanctum of City Hall celebrating women's day. I turned and jogged around the corner and saw timbomb then Casey. "Did you get the pic"? "Yeah" said timbobmb I thanked him for participating, said "meet you at the finish", and ran with Casey on one of his legs to Franklin Square Park Fountain. We started off running down the middle of the street on an island. We headed down an alley way and down a seedy looking street. We ended up running through a development were there was a lady looking at us like, what are they running from? Finally a little bit of action, we came up to a fence then noticed a six and a half foot wall that we climbed.


We then crossed over the road right before the vine street expressway and made our way to Franklin Square Park Fountain. I took Casey's pic then he took off to the Liberty Bell Center. I opted to not go because we ran pretty fast and I wanted to cruise. On the way to the finish I saw Casey, Brian, and Aaron making there way to the finish. I ran with them all the way to the finish spot. I took pictures of the finishers then we started doing some light training until everyone showed up at the finish. We were lucky enough to get all the runners in the group shot,(top of page) there were some tourists looking at local sites. Then we all started to make our way across Penn Landing. Precisions, "flow" work, balancing, wallruns happended on the way to the "Greatest Game of Tag Ever"!! The group split up after tag, I had to go home and study, the philly locals got some food, and Gabe, Nick, and Carl from Rowan hit the museum.


Thx Philly!!

Monday, February 23, 2009

Manhattan Project III: Battery Park to Coney Island




























It has happened again...






BIG THANKS and MUCH APPRECIATION to pyro, traceurmalachi, Ajamu, claire, HCT, Sky, and Tom. Honorable mention to those that wanted to but couldn't Nikkie, Oas, and Ish, I appreciate your intentions.







At about 5:45 a.m. on 2/21/09 I woke up because, I was done sleeping. I went through my morning routine with the hope of leaving the house by 7a.m. Soon after I woke up I heard footsteps coming from upstairs I hoped it was Ajamu getting ready (I later found that it was). I started to eat breakfast when Sky's 6:30 a.m. alarm went off and he got up. Ten minutes later, Ajamu came downstairs throwing on his second layer of clothes and getting everything ready for the day. Sky and Ajamu ate breakfast while I got my stuff ready to go. I told the guys to get everything ready because I'm going to get the car and we will be out.






On the road by 7 a.m. I made light work of Rte. 1, 18, and the NJTP arrived in Jersey City around 8 a.m. I called Pyro to see if he was able to get a camera, he said he would. Ajamu, Sky and I hopped on the Path to WTC took the 2 train to Atlantic Ave stop and transferred to the Q.






While waiting for the Q an announcement about construction and rerouting came over the loud speaker. We didn't catch exactly what was said. We walked back to the subway map and tried to recount what the message was and look for a detour for Sky to get to his spot. Ajamu and I missed our train, but we came up with a plan for Sky (which worked out). So Sky's Coney Island bound Q train came and he was out soon after the Manhattan bound Q came and Ajamu and I were off to Fort Greene Park. Got off at Dekalb St. and asked an older lady which way it was to the park. She abducted her humerus and extended her digit and said "That way". Ajamu and I headed to the park, we jogged. Arriving at the Monument we dropped our bags and started warming up. During this time Sky called to let me know he made it and I called malachi, he was on the brooklyn making his way to the park. It was a good half-hour to forty minutes later until malachi arrived. We were off through the park turned right on... uhmm I forgot what street but ended up crossing over Atlantic Ave. and the street that was supposed to be the one we took was missing. It has actually been demolished, so I attempted to keep up with Ajamu who was GONE!! After a few more blocks Ajamu slowed up, I caught up, and saw the Neptune Statue where we passed off to claire.



Claire took off and headed toward the North Prospect Park entrance. I decided to call HCT to let him know that Claire is on her way. Ajamu and I decided to keep running, because the leg we ran was shorter than we both expected. I told Ajamu I was just going to cruise and he took off leaving me in the dust. He followed the road through the park and I decided to run straight through the park in an attempt to keep up with him. About half-way through the park I caught up to Claire and Ajamu past her kept going at mach 3 speed. I chilled with claire and kept it chill (HCT). We ended up finding HCT at the southgate entrance, took a pic and he took off. Claire decided to walk to Coney Island (wow!!) and I had to wait around Southgate because Ajamu wasn't sure where to stop and kept running back up through the park. He eventually came back we stretched and made our way to the Q train.




Once getting to Coney Island we walked to the pier to see if anyone was there, we saw malachi and we decided to get something to eat. After some discussion, and walking around we decided to go to Nathan's and got some chicken and hot dogs. Tom called me and I told him we were at Nathan's he headed there, I decided to meet him, however I went up the wrong street. Once on the boardwalk I ran into claire, then I saw (who I thought was Tom but wasn't sure running down the block to Nathan's) it was him. I walked back to Nathan's with claire where Tom was sitting with malachi and Ajamu. Sky and HCT arrived a short time later. After some convo and eats we walked up to the pier and took the MPJ group pic (beginning of blog). We decided to do some light training on the boardwalk and the beach and some little Coney Islanders were AMAZED!! by the jump Sky did from the bench on the boardwalk to the concrete slabs on the beach. We all talked and messed around for about 45 minutes before leaving the boardwalk and making our way to the train. On the way there was some discussion about adaptations and change of behavior over generations. A block away from the train there was some scaffolding and we all did vaults and jumps and swings and climbing through the whole setup. We ran into a guy who trained overseas and tried to show us proper form for a tic-tac.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Look! Where? Owww!!


2/13/09








Two Monday mornings ago I woke up from sleeping on a Futon without the ability to turn my head to the left or touch my left ear to my left shoulder. I slept wrong or pulled a muscle doing I don't know's a.k.a. shoulder shrugs, I think it was how I slept. I started to massage the back of my neck and that gave insignificant comfort (felt looser, but still couldn't turn head). Luckily or unluckily, I remembered I had some leftover heat pads from my left oblique cramp the week before.

I arrived at work, cut the pad in half, and slapped it on the left shoulder/neck area. While driving I had to keep my head straight but twist my whole body to the left to look for oncoming traffic at right turns. I put the other half of the pad on later in the day. My Wonderful!! girlfriend (notice how I capitalized the W and added exclamation points ;)) made a massage appointment for me for the end of the week. Over the next few days I used tiger balm on the back of my neck a couple times a day and kept up with regular stretches.

Each day I found that I was getting closer to my normal range of motion. Friday finally came around and I was hoping that the massage therapist would PUT IT ON ME and go deep. She didn't :(, it was just a Swedish massage with little pressure. The massage therapist didn't put a lot of pressure on my neck (which was probably a good thing now that I think about it). Here I m a week after the massage with FULL RANGE of motion with no pain. Ready to go all exorcist this weekend.

What I learned..

-Take time to recover (2 wks)

-Take steps to recover (heat, pressure)

-Tip your massage therapist

-Don't sleep on futons

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Snow Feet


1/27/09




This past Christmas I bought myself a pair running shoes with a thin and very flexible sole. I spent two weeks walking around in them then the next two weeks running and tech training in them. I went for a run today in them IN THE SNOW!! It was great!! If you remember the SOBE lifewater commercial where the entire city was under bubble wrap, it felt like that. There was a light snow covering the street and boardwalk. The snow was an excellent cushion for my feet. I could really feel the difference between the snow and the underlying surfaces. On my way home I started to push myself a little too early and thought to myself, relax let it come to you, it referring to my pace. I backed off and just cruised, after about a mile my pace, did just that, came to me. I ran strong the rest of the way home. Half a mile away from my finish line I felt my feet open up. The new shoes I purchased forced me to use more of my foot (with each step) and I could feel the ground beneath me in a good way.




What I learned...




-running in the snow--yes


-it will come to you, it meaning pace--yes


-open your feet--yes


Friday, January 23, 2009

Running Hangover


1/23/09




5:30am (that means it is still dark out) I awoke with a new found responsibility. While this new task wasn't really hard to do, I had to get up at 5:30 am to do it, (that also means I woke up 2.5 hours before I'm used to. Let me stop complaining. After taking care of this early a.m. BI, a nice egg sandwich, hash brown and some OJ I told myself "Self, it is time to run". After a unusually long warm up(while watching Dark Knight, "WHY SO SERIOUS"?). I headed out to put some miles behind me. I started slow, like I usually do, but didn't have a midway point in my head. I thought for a minute then came up with one; Rte 30. I was on Rte 40 and knew that Rte 30 wasn't far, but it wasn't close either. I passed the Mall, A.C. race track, the expressway, sports fields, golf course, train tracks, and a WaWa(cursed when I remembered they don't have courtesy cups). Wawa is on Rte 30 so it was time to turn around. I immediately thought I have long way to go. I headed up the bridge that goes over the tracks and my body remembered that it didn't get as much sleep as it likes.



I slowed my pace and thought this is gonna suck! It did annnd it didn't. While my pace was slower and I labored (shout out to all the women who have had kids, naturally) through every step, felt every blade of grass, piece of gravel, all angles of the round, gravity seemed to be pulling and pushing back and down. I was struggling at the golf course, it became a little worse at the sports fields, was feeling good when I saw the turn in the road for the race track, soon realized I was only at the expressway (" How about a lil magic, I'm going to make this pencil disappear"). The only thing that kept me moving was going through lines from Dark Knight.



Batman: "I don't need help".



Scarecrow: "Not my diagnosis".



Faux Batman: "What gives you the right, what makes you different from me"?



Batman: "I'm not wearing hockey pads"!


Those and other lines got me to the race track then I came back into consciousness and realized I only had about half a mile left. I stopped thinking and continued until I hit the door. I hit it pretty hard. That is when the hangover started. I was feeling like I wanted to take off work, I couldn't even stand for the second half of my shower, my whole body was heavy. I drank some water, ate some fruit, and got ready for work. I figured it was going to be the longest day EVER and it was until about 4:30 when I ate dinner and started this blog. That is when I realized how much I could push myself with depleted sleep, Oh yeah I ran 8 miles ...ehh not bad.






So what have I learned and what is the point of this story you ask...



-Get a good nights sleep



-Know where and how far your running



-Take off work t0 Re-UP if you can



-Every once in a while, leave your comfort zone.