every walk is a sort of crusade
After two rocky legs that made for zero sleep, our flight from California landed in Louisville at 8:30 this morning. It was a quick drive back to Lexington, hop in the shower, a coffee the size of my head, and then off to work for back-to-back meetings all day. Wheeeeeee.
Sorry there aren’t more details at the moment, but I’ve gotta go faceplant in my pillow. More to come soon.
The long taper into the 4th of July 10K continues.
This weekend it was over to Denver to visit some friends.
…where, like most of the country, it was blazin’ hot. We avoided the fires, but it was still too hot to run. So I figured the best preparation would be a lot of walking
…in between breweries.
Which resulted in the impulse purchase of a cheap pair of sunglasses that look almost exactly like the ones I already have.
And a few tasty snacks to cool us off.
And some of this.
I’m ready to PR.
Back at work, in my cubicle, drinking the “coffee” from office kitchen, looking out the window at the rain, I think about where I was a week ago today:
Seriously.
So, just a little background, two weeks ago I traveled to the Big Island of Hawaii to do the Honu 70.3 with my friend Alix and her sister Catherine. It was my first time to Hawaii. On the plane, I pretty much ignored the rules to turn off electronic devices as we were landing.
Alix’s parents are pretty frickin amazing and let me crash with the family at the house they had rented. They also fed me delicious delicious food to prep us for the race. It was…ridiculously awesome.
We all arrived 2 days before the race. Our first day there we went to this beach near Puako for a 30 minute swim, as instructed by Coach Allison.
I miss swimming in the ocean. A lot. And swimming in this particular part of the ocean, I considered never getting out. We saw clownfish, parrotfish, pufferfish, butterflyfish, humuhumunukanuka’apua’as (yes for real, they’re everywhere), and (the best part) a SEA TURTLE…or honu, in Hawaiian, which I took as a sign of good luck for our race. I was in love.
But before we could have any real fun, there was bike maintenance, race registration, transition bag drop off, and, of course, the race. A short race summary with pretty much all you need to know:
Honu 70.3: A Haiku
Blow blow blow great wind
Make waves, knock me off my bike
I saw Lance Armstrong
I was a ways off my goal time, and Alix got 2 flats (and fixed both of them herself…way impressive), but it was a pretty awesome experience and we all survived.
After the race Alix rented a truck and we took a trip around the whole island. There were more beaches…
…some with black sand…
…and some paddleboarding at Kona where we ended up smack in the middle of a pod of dolphins for about 10 minutes. It was amazing, but nobody brought a camera.
There was some camping in the higher altitudes at Volcanoes National Park…
…where the ground smokes…
…and volcanoes live.
Some hiking through the jungle along the Kilauea Iki Trail…
…down to the hardened lava lake below that was created by an eruption in 1959.
(steam still spills out of a lot of the fissures along the ground, it’s awesome)
We also walked through a lava tube.
From there we headed north towards Hilo, into the rain…
…then back around to Kawaihae, to our final camping spot at Spencer Beach Park (which, btw, closes it’s gates at 9pm…for future reference).
We found a little secret path and decided to follow it…
…that took us to a little, empty, white sand beach.
We got to spend our final evening with a family of sea turtles that were hanging out in the shallow water. After that we headed out to a dinner of unbelievable sushi. On the way out there were rainbows rainbows everywhere.
It was going to be the perfect ending to an amazing trip.
Then, while trying to get back into the campsite after dinner, I fell in a lava field and we spent the rest of the evening in the Kona ER.
20 stitches in this unassigned tourist’s right arm. We all flew out the next day.
I felt pretty bad about ruining the last night in Hawaii. At least someone was happy to see me when I got home.
But seriously, a major thanks goes out to Alix and her family for their generosity and all of their help with everything. The whole trip was a truly amazing experience and I absolutely wouldn’t have been able to do it (especially in such style) without them. Far above and beyond anything I expected.
I’ll leave you with a pic of my favorite sign in Kona.
More pics of the trip here.
For a real, full, looooong race report, go here.
…and back from Hawaii! I know I really fell off the boat (is that even a phrase?) in terms of keeping this thing updated, but things got a little insane right before I left and I didn’t use the computer once while hanging out on the Big Island.
So what was I doing all this time away from the computer?
Well, a little bit of this…
…a little bit of this…
…and a little bit of this.
Yes, I found the most flattering picture I could, taken by a friend who was thoughtful enough to pull out her camera while I was getting my wound numbed up before they put in stitches.
And if you’re wondering what kind of face that is, it’s a “oh no biggie I’m tough done this a million times this doesn’t hurt but really I feel like I’m going to barf or cry or both but I see someone has their camera out so I’m going to try to smile/give a thumbs up for the picture” face. Turns out that probably isn’t the look I should have gone for.
Full race report to come soon.
Based on FB stalking, it looks like this weekend was full of beautiful weather pretty much everywhere, multiple weddings (including Mark Zuckerberg), and a solar eclipse.
I spent much of it here:
The transition area of Memphis in May…which was actually held in Tunica, MS. I don’t get it either.
The race location was a hop, skip, and drive through the ghetto away from downtown Memphis. Not that close. So, the moral of the story is we didn’t get to partake in the MiM events. Sad.
We did, however, have this on site:
Oh yes. Welcome to Mississippi.
Once the pics come back I’ll do an update on the double header race weekend. Until then, I’m going to start figuring out what I need to get done before Hawaii (I fly out in 9 DAYS) and continue to wear my compression socks to work.
Cute, I know.
In other news, I came back to my cube today to find my little cubetree had sprouted a new appendage.
Hmm. Awkward.
Happy Monday.
Yeah buddy. It’s getting hot up in these parts.
Hope you all had a wonderful Arbor Day. Spike and I walked down to the Arboretum, where they were giving away free indigenous trees. Paul has been talking about these trees for about 4 months, so we picked up a Kentucky Persimmon. His mother picked up an Eastern Pine and gave it to us…which can grow up to 160 feet. Not sure where in our little yard that will go.
The Persimmon tree will reach it’s peak fruit-bearing in 8 years…but who knows, maybe we’ll get some little persimmons before that.
So I’ve been trying to shake this flu/cold thing that took over at the end of last week. Getting back into training hasn’t gone smoothly. My run this morning was…kind of terrible. I was tired. Sore. Not feeling it mentally. So what did I do to break myself out of this funk?
Signed up for not one, but TWO back-to-back races the weekend of May 19th. A sprint triathlon Saturday (400 swim, 12 mile bike, 3 mile run) and an olympic triathlon Sunday (1.5K swim, 40K bike, 10K run), both in Memphis.
Why? The short answer is: Allison made me do it.
Memphis in May is actually an international festival in Memphis with all sorts of music and performances and exhibits…and two triathlons! Allison encouraged me to sign up largely because I missed the race in Florida last weekend and she wants me to do at least one race before Hawaii. I told her fine, but only if we can go to Graceland and possibly Dollywood on the way home.
This race is notorious for being brutally hot.
(this is a real picture from a finisher at the race last year)
…which is part of the reason Allison was pushing for me to do it. Hawaii is going to be brutally hot, and I don’t tend to handle the heat very well. So it’s kind of like heat training. Which most likely means I’ll be regretting this decision on the run course. Twice.
The good news is, after the races, there will be some world class BBQ.
The World Championship BBQ Cooking Contest will be happening when we’re there. HECK YEAH.
Summer is heeeeere…
This has become a pretty common view over the past few weeks. Georgia last weekend for Molly’s sendoff, and this past weekend out to the west coast for something totally different.
A bachelorette party for Alix in a particularly ridiculous house in Hood River, OR.
That’s Alix. And yes, those are her sheep.
While a weekend trip to Oregon did mean a little travel time (total: 12 hours on the way out, about 36 hours there, and a 14 hour trip home), it also meant a little bit of this:
(believe it or not, that picture took 3 tries to get us to look “normal”)
…and this:
(a nice little/pretty strenuous hike up to where the hills are alive with Mt Hood in the distance)
…and this:
(which resulted in pretty much everyone being completely fried the rest of the trip)
…and this:
(beer!)
…and a lot of other stuff that I don’t have pictures of yet–including, but not limited to, an afterparty with an up-and-coming boy band (“we’ve never had girls just come up and talk to us before!”) and karaoke at a bar with a guy named Frijoles. I may end up posting a few pictures as they come in if there are any particularly amazing ones.
So, despite getting home at 2:30am on Monday morning and having to go to work the next day, then traveling to Louisville on Tuesday & Wednesday for a conference, which resulted in me getting sick today, the day before I head to Florida with Allison for our first race of the season (where I fully plan to rub bike tires with Lance Armstrong), it was clearly worth it. There’s nothing like spending a weekend with old friends. My body might be tired, but my soul is rejuvenated.
So tomorrow we drive to St. Anthony’s. Long ride. It’s a big race for Allison, but considering the state I’m currently in I’m hoping to make it through without hacking up a lung. So send fast vibes her way.
Also, one additional bonus the weekend: the weather on Sunday was RIDICULOUS, making for really spectacular sights like this from the airplane window:
(Mt Hood, I think)
Can’t really complain.
{the city, from park across the street from Molly’s apartment}
Last weekend Paul and I hopped on a quick flight over to Baltimore (which has its own official webpage, if you were wondering) to surprise Joe for his 30th bday.
When my sister moved to Baltimore last year and started raving about what a great place it was to live, I was like, whatever. I’ve seen The Wire.
Welp, turns out Baltimore is kind of awesome. My sister and Joe live in Federal Hill, where there are approximately 400 really fantastic restaurants and bars within walking distance of their apartment. The neighborhood sits right on the bay, it’s a 15 minute walk from downtown, and craft beer abounds.
They also have crab tots, which are just as delicious as they sound.
My roommate from freshman year of college, who I haven’t seen in like 8 years and who also happens to live in Baltimore, picked us up from the airport, which was beyond fantastic. Molly took a pic of us, but it was taken in the rain, in the dark, and we both look like corpses. So I’ll spare you.
Molly put together a little shindig on Saturday night for Joe, which was great. A few people we knew when we were kids from SB who just happen to live in B’more showed up:
(please ignore my shapeless body)
…and at the end of the night Molly ran home with what remained of the monstrosity that was Joe’s birthday cake.
(The chef couldn’t find his 9” cake pan, so he used his 12” pan. It was the size of a car tire.)
The next day was really cold and windy. Molly had to leave early for Texas where she’s doing some pre-deployment training, so Joe, Paul, and I wandered around the city…
…stopped by a car show, where this happened…
(it started coming at me as I took the picture, scared the crap out of me). And we ate some crab tots. Then we flew home.
Good times. Hope to go back soon. Happy 30th Joe!
Yup, that’s right. A coworker and I were back in the Bay for the past 5 days (actually 3 days…2 days of all-day traveling, blarf) for a work conference. In addition to attending the conference, we made a “networking” stop down in Mountain View….
…where they provide their workers with free beer every Friday, have free cafes every 200 yards, and google-colored bikes lying around for people to grab if they need to get across campus. Big thanks goes out to Jess for the tour.
Saturday afternoon, after two days of conference and a morning meeting, we took a trip over the bridge in PERFECT weather in a drop-top Mini Cooper…
…to Bolinas…
…to chill with some old grad school friends and their babies.
And now we’re back, work is in full force, Paul is in full studying and pickling mode.
Oh, and I changed my hair color.
Happy Monday.
Yosemite HD from Project Yosemite on Vimeo.
For those of you spending your day in a cubicle hunched over your keyboard staring at a computer screen (me), this timelapse video of Yosemite is worth the 4 minutes. The stars. The fog. Half Dome. Awesome.
For a little piece on how they did this, go here.
Rambulatory Ambulatory 