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