Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Theme of this week:

HARD WORK.

If you want to see said work in action, come to the lonely stretch of Erie canal between Fairport and Palmyra and watch me chase trains eastward.

Friday, June 25, 2010

Learning Spanish... or not

We have an addition to our scrappy home-grown group of paddlers: Omar, a Puerto Rican paddler, who's studying at the U of Rochester and hopes to do his residency in orthodontistry here.

I took 7 years of French and have not yet picked up Spanish. But Omar is helping. Yesterday we were doing 1,000s and he taught me how to say "I got the power!" ("Tengo el poder.") I repeated it over and over, trying to commit it to memory.

Today, as we lined up for our last 2k, I decided to demonstrate my grasp on yesterday's phrase. Figured I'd lighten the mood and impress Omar.

I looked over at him and yelled, "Tengo el pollo!"

Omar looked confused. "You have the chicken?"

Damnit, Spanish, you got me again.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Homemade Ice Bath

1. Buy garbage can and a bunch of ice

2. Fill garbage can 2/3 of the way full of water; dump in ice

3. Climb in.



PS... It helps if you wear your Swix lobsters.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

26 Hours in Lake Placid

I did a bit of hiking with Justin, Rachel, Jon, and Alan in Lake Placid on Saturday. Actually to be honest I felt super sick and I didn't climb nearly as many mountains as I wanted (like, a hundred). But it was still fun. That place is teeming with triathletes training for the big race (Ironman) in July. You could scarcely drive 50 feet down the road without passing a bicyclist or a runner.


The summit of Blueberry mountain. As you might imagine, I spent a considerable amount of time up here hunting for blueberries, but they were not ripe yet.


On Sunday morning I took everyone out in Jon's pro boat! They did a great job, and enjoyed the [relative] stability.



Alan and me


Rachel and me


Bear and me.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Fem and Ian's Excellent Adventure

Ian flew in from California last week. It was his first trip to the East Coast so I was really trying to represent.


We rock climbed at the Dihedrals in Little Falls, NY


and then had a gorgeous drive to Connecticut


for my grandma's 80th birthday party. (Happy Birthday Grandma!)


It was a riot seeing the family and playing with all my cousins.


The slackline was also a big hit.


The rest of the week we kayaked,


Celebrated my brother Paul's 17th birthday with a garbage plate "cake" (I officially patent this idea),


visited Wegmans (3 different locations on 5 separate occasions),


And had an eleven-hour fishing marathon.

And in the end the n00b deemed the East Coast "like Ireland on crack," "picturesque," "quaint," "legitimately historic," "like being in Where the Red Fern Grows," "perfect for a hobo," and "ahhhh soooo gorgeous!!"

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Update

I've spent the past week amping up my workouts and getting a lot of busywork and errands done. Since I have to do physical therapy twice a week, I'm doing some cool new lifting with Dan while I'm there: we're working on the rings, pull-up bar, and a set of low parallel-bars. Lots of handstands and muscle-ups and exercises of a gymnastics nature. I'm enjoying it because it's different, it's valuable for flexibility and body control, and it helps stabilize my shoulders and aid in my rehab. There's no reason to push my shoulder to lift heavy weights too soon, plus it's summertime and the perfect time for body weight work. I'll try to post some workouts up here in the next few weeks.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

70-miler update

The 70-miler weekend was a success! Jon finished 3rd in the pro c1 race in 8 hours and 53 minutes. You can get results here and read about the other Forge members' races here .


I put together this video of the clips I shot during the race... and below are some photos of the weekend


It was Holly's 30th birthday this weekend, so we celebrated by curling her hair.


Two days before the race, we traditionally run 6 miles of the river from the start in Cooperstown to Index. When we did it, the water was so shallow we had to get out and run the boats at least 4 or 5 times, and we were hitting rocks and logs all over the place. Jon told me there was a log jam up ahead and I got confused for a moment because I was picturing this.


On Sunday (the day before the 70) they hold 12 and 18 mile "sprint" races. Dylan won the c1 men's 18 miler. Here I am in Unadilla cheering him on.


This is Otsego Lake, where the 70-miler starts, at 6:10 in the morning. Jon's race went off at 6:30.


Here's a photo of the first pit at Milford, about 2 hours into the race. I basically followed Jon down the river and saw him at about 10 or 12 different places. Most racers take 3 pits, during which their pit crews wade out into the current and quickly replace their jugs of liquid and give them food as they paddle by.