Race number 1 of the redrafted 2012 season started off with a run at Lake Samish in Bellingham Washington. Racing helps to keep me focus on my goals as well as motivated, so Im going to head out to Las Vegas on March 17th to tackle the second race of the season. The Six Tunnels half marathon. A big reason why I choose Vegas is because it will give me a small taste of St George and the chance to experience the desert climate in preparation for May.
::Image taken from Mountain Man events flickr site::
I am really looking forward to seeing the Hoover Dam, the new bridge over the Colorado River and just the Vegas country side. It looks to be a small time run, with a lot to offer. It starts 18 miles from Las Vegas in Boulder City which is about 4 miles north of the Hoover Dam. They have a 5k and also a 2 person relay for people who want to take things a bit easier. All entry fees are below 100 US, with a shirt, mug and medal once your all done. Its a Saturday race and should be a good one to watch since its St. Pattys Day. If your looking for an alternative from the complete madness of the Rock and Roll race which sounded like a bit of a mess, this might be a great race for your next PR.
::screen grab ::
Looking forward to some sun, warmth and maybe a bit of biking on the Ironman St. George route. I’ll be bunked up at the Wyndham Grand Desert, which I have enjoyed staying at before. Pumped to race in Las Vegas again and hope to get under 1:20 this year.
Headed to one of my secret training spots, roughly 90 kms from my door in Washington state @ the Fidalgo Bay resort RV park. After a fun little adventure at the boarder we finally got settled in Thursday night with our fingers crossed for some good weather.
After waking up to some serious rain and wind we headed into Anacortes for breakfast and food shopping for the weekend. That ended up being most of the excitement. Didn’t do a ton of running, biking or any swimming for that matter but did try to enjoy it as much as I could despite the wind, rain, more wind, mixed with some cold and rain. Got one good 7-8 mile run wind run in, and a short crappy exercise bike session…but its the off-season, right?
With all the weather systems coming in and out, it ended up being a good chance to grab some interesting photos, so I obviously took full advantage, secret training spot ended with not a lot of training…
::One of the few breaks in the sky::
::Moon came out for a bit...::
::Of course once we leave it looks like it wants to clear up::
Headed out last Tuesday afternoon to jump on a direct flight to New York for some site seeing, running, and New York Yankee baseball watching. Everything went awesome except my third day of running when I got caught in a rain storm and of course it was the day I was also planning on getting to Coney Island. Other then that some good pictures, a few laps around Central park, 2 long runs up the Hudson River, and a few good stories to tell.
First Day in we didn’t get in til late so just ate and went to bed… so first thing Wednesday morning after some coffee and bagel, I headed to Central Park. Our apartment was only 15 minutes walk to get there so it was perfect. I had an hour to get a run in before our 6 and half hour tour of the city. So I did a quick rip to the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir and went around once and headed back in just under an hour. It nice to go for a run when your not the only one on a lonely country road putting in the time.
The 6 and a half hour tour was pretty good, but since UN was in session the whole east-side of town was grid lock, so we ended up sitting in traffic for awhile. Got a few boat rides in, saw the 9/11 site and memorial, and all the popular buildings.
Day 3 started out with another run to Central Park, but this time I was going to go all the way around. After doing some shitty research of a back of a running magazine, I though it was going to be a 14 mile run. Well after going around once in 45 minutes, I did it again. Two loops and some pretty fun sites. Bike riders crashing, weirdos running, walkers walking into bikes, and horsees. It was a great first loop, but the humidity was crazy the whole week, so the second loop was in slow motion.
Day 4 was going to be a bit rough, after having no rain the first three days, it rolled right in. I was hoping to hit a few new spots that I missed from the last time I went but it was raining so hard it made it pointless. At around 11 am I had to get out and do something. So I went straight east down w48th street to the Hudson. The last time I went to New York we walked all along the Hudson from about Canal Street and headed into Wall st. So this time I would head in the opposite direction towards the George Washington Bridge.
The first 40 minutes was awesome, a bit of rain to cool me down from the muggy heat, but once I was within a mile of the bridge it started to drop pails of water. Once I got to the bridge I was a running in rivers. Took a few looks around, then turned around and headed back. I was the only one with 6 miles on the way back. Not a single soul out, not even the homeless Mexicans that were drinking on the way out. Of course my legs were starting to feel the 20 plus kms I did yesterday and made it for a not so enjoyable rip home.
After some relaxing and wondering around in the rain, the next day started of great. A walk along the Brooklyn Bridge, then another run along the Hudson but towards Wall Street. Then the day finished off with a trip Down to the Bronx, to watch the Yankees put the boots to the Red Sox.
::the sky at the end of the game was..well pretty amazing. This was shot in 35mm film.::
Great trip with some good solid running and more photos to follow…
The long awaited trip to New York with my Grandfather and Fam has finally come. What was suppose to be a trip to Boston to run the Boston Marathon in April, has turned into another trip to New York. Thanks to an 8 hour sell out of the Boston Marathon, I get to enjoy a trip and don’t have to run a marathon so……… i’m not complaining. (new rules for Boston just came out actually…)
:: Probably one of my favorite shots in Time Square. This is on Artprojectonline ::
I am really looking forward to my week away to see a few more spots then I did when I went a few years back. A friend and I had an amazing time and packed a ridiculous amount of things in just a long weekend. Yankees game in the old Yank stadium, Time Square, Empire State building, Grand Central Station, Wall Street, a Central Park Run, Pretty good hike along the river and Broadway, and of course a few pub stops.
:: This was back in 2008, for sale on artprojectonline ::
One thing we didn’t do was run around the whole Central Park, all 14 miles of it. You know you like to run, when one of your highlights is going to be running around a park. I found a map of park and all the different areas that you can enjoy, as well as a site that has city running tours. Ill just be doing my usual lace up and see how it goes, but we are staying a pretty reasonable distance to the park and will be doing a number of runs there to get me ready for my half marathon coming up in Victoria.
::Victoria last year, be my four time runnin::
Of Course another Yankee game verus Red Sox will be the real reason why I am excited to head back. Hopefully the Red Soxs hang in there for their Saturday game, so all the big boys will be out playing. Be jumping on a plane this afternoon and coming back Sunday night. I’ll be packing my camera as well as shooting some 35m film if I can find it!
I have always enjoyed the city of Penticton but I’m getting increasingly frustrated with trying to book weekends and events there. Once again I try to come into town and get a good solid weekend in and get let down by not one but all the campsites in the city. I was leaving right after work on Friday and was going to arrive just a touch after 10. I called ahead to see if there were any sites that didn’t have an issue with this, after calling three sites, I got told no. Two close at 10 and another at 8. I got so upset with this that I just blew off Penticton completely and headed to one of my favorite spots in Oliver, where I stayed for my half ironman. Once again Lakeside Resort pulls through for me with no issues at all, and in the end works out to be a great place for a training camp. Maybe that’s why there is a half iron race there…
Oliver is a mere 20 minutes outside of Ok Falls or Osoyoos, depending on which way you go. Both cities have the Ironman Canada bike course going right through and OK falls is were the run turn around is. So I loaded up the creeper and headed to Oliver.
Got in just before ten, had a shower and got ready for my 165km bike starting from Oliver. (shortened the ride, took the rip through Penticton out…) Got up around 8 and finished up my ride around 2, threw on my runners and did one loop of the half iron course to finish my Saturday. Sunday was a quick dip in Tuc-el-Nuit Lake were the swim of the Oliver race took place, with a quick drive to OK Falls for a long run. A reverse route of the Ironman run route. I started at the turn around and then came back once I hit Penticton for a out back of 25kms. Once the run was done, I jumped in the lake to get the salt off and cool the legs down for a 4 hour drive home. All around solid weekend with about 10 hours of training in two days.
After moving my whole training to Oliver, I actually feel that Oliver is probably the best option for a quick training weekend. Laid back, less restrictions on all the bullshit and its tough to beat the setting of the Lakeside resort. 35 bux a night, with nice bathrooms and showers, lake front fire pits, store close by, and a nice quite setting. Here is there facebook page for more info.
Getting ready for two races this weekend quick open water swim on Friday in Port Moody with another half ironman in Vancouver on Sunday…
some shots from the Saturday night after training.
just up from the campsite
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Lake for the Oilver halfiron, campsite just to the right.
Headed out for an early season house boat trip on the Shuswap for a pretty dam good stag. Weather was awesome and the lake was cold as hell. Went with Waterways again, second time in almost as many years.
Water level was high enough that we had to get the CNN bridge to open up.
View from the wheel house
Temp got up to and over 20 on this day. Pretty easy to enjoy the day.
Water was cold and the freezing level looked pretty low judging by the snow line.
So my grandfather had some extra tickets for the Seattle Mariners game Wednesday and Thursday night. Wednesday night they were playing the Chicago White Sox and then Thursday the New York Yankees.
So it was time to bomb back to the states. I was pretty amped up for the Yankees game Thursday since I hadn’t seen them play since last may. White Sox game ended up being probably the best regular season game I’ve seen on tv or live. A 0-0 tie going into the 14th inning with Ken Griffey pinch hitting to get them the win. So much insane defense, including Ichiro gunning a runner out a home to keep it scoreless. Apparently it was the longest 0-0 game in Mariner history….
Roof off Safeco
Looking like it wants to rain
quite a few still stuck around--14th inning...
The motel we stayed at Wednesday night
Old pop machine right out our door.
I have not done back to back games with the Mariners before and the attendance numbers where a lot different for the White Sox then the Yankees. So were the prices, tickets in the same area where 5 bucks more and parking was double! I was kinda choked because the two guys I really wanted to see on the Yankees didnt end up playing, but CC Sabathia did pitch a great game. (a-rod and Jorge Posada
Thursdays game had a larger crowd. A little cotton candy?
After doing some running around Saturday morning, picked up a few friends in Vancouver and headed up to meet up with others down in Squamish. The group we met up with was up there for a month to climb. Since the crew and I didn’t climb, we found a local lake and spent both days jumping of cliffs and soaking up the sun. We drank a lot of beer and did a lot of jumping.
The name of the lake slips my mind but it was pretty warm and seems like it would be a good one for some open water swimming.
Since I’ve been so busy lately getting things ready for this upcoming art show, and working -I don’t have much to say or show but to let you know what I’ve been reading to keep me on the sane side of things…
I found this really interesting article in the local rag out here, I love creative projects that actually get completed instead of just being talked about. New York has some of the best creative people working on everything from cloths to city projects. This amazing project just opened on the 8th of June and is costing the city a few bucks, but the buzz this park is creating is second to none.
The project was created from an old rail line (the High Line) from the 1930′s that transported meat, and dairy down the line from the warehouse district of the west side of Manhattan. The line was closed in the 1980′s and was slatted to get demoed shortly after by old Rudy. But as the story goes, someone or some two, notice some flowers growing 20 feet above the street on the railway line. The great idea was to turn this old line into an Urban park.
It connects three different Manhattan neighborhoods at a length of about 2.4 kms at a cost of over 152 million of state, federal and private money. Only the first stage of the park opened on the 8th but the rest is to be opened in 2010. One more thing that makes me want to head back down to NY!
Here is pretty much the coolest hotel in Australia. Just looking at the pictures make me want to go there. Set in a forest 100 kms out from the bouddi peninsula makes this place one of a kind. The design of the pools are my favorite part of this resort. Im a little scared to check out the rates for this place but man, it looks like it might be worth every penny. Furniture design, food, and the bathrooms are just so impressive, these guys take it to a whole new level.
