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!!

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.

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

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

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.