Thursday, June 30, 2011
Spain in October
Originally it was my intention to travel to Greece for my late October trip but the unrest and strikes there really made me think I should skip that for this year and maybe see how things are next year. Having a birthday late in the fall definitely limits the number of places that might be having decent weather while I visit so for this trip I will be heading to Spain. I have booked a flight through AA for Madrid and will sort out the rest of the details after I return from the Czech Republic. The flight was reasonably cheap and even included a direct from Madrid to Boston on the return. I can definitely deal with that.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Warrior Dash Photos
I did not take any of these pictures but I hijacked them from other people. They are located here.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Warrior Dash
Yesterday was the New England Warrior Dash and I and a few friends participated. The premise is that it is a 5k trail race where they include some obstacles along the way to make the run even harder.
First off let me say I had a blast participating and by the end I was completely covered in mud. The obstacles listed in the description turned out to be somewhat different from what we experienced and I think that was because of the several days of rain and the heavy downpour we got the morning of the race. The entire course was mud from beginning to end and there were very few stretches where footing was easy to run on. Most of it was very slick and slippery and the sections inside the woods were loaded with rocks and roots besides the slick mud. I think they made some of the obstacles a bit more tame because of how difficult the running course itself was. The obstacles we did face included a web maze, walls to jump over with barbed wire to crawl under, two large walls to climb over, fire pits to jump over, a tire swing maze to run through, a balance beam to run across, a small downhill slide, a huge downhill slide (on the mud of course) and a web bridge to climb over. The running was fairly grueling and most of the obstacles were easy but the walls to climb and balance beams were tough for me with heights issues, though I got over them. The web bridge was really strenuous and I had a girl who stalled in front of me making it even harder. Possibly the most fun obstacle was the large downhill mud slide. I am fairly certain I got to about 30 miles per hour coming down, or it felt that fast anyway. I crashed into the girl ahead of me because she veered into my path at the bottom and I couldn't steer away, but no one got hurt.
The issues with the day were that they didn't really have a good handle on the traffic coming in and while we left at 3:45pm for a 5:30pm heat time we got stuck on route 110 until 5:10. The website said no refunds and if you miss your heat you are out of luck but fortunately they must have realized that too many people were getting stuck in the traffic and they basically let people go whenever they wanted. We ended up in the 6:30 heat instead of the 5:30 heat. I was getting really angry with the traffic until we talked to a kid walking out that said they were letting people go whenever. I still wasn't happy with the traffic but at least we weren't sitting in it for no reason. They had over 10000 people participate for day 1. The course was completely torn up by the end of the day when we went and I do not envy the day 2 people at all for how much worse it probably will be. The organization for the event itself seemed reasonable and after the shuttle ride from the parking area to the actual race area things went fairly quick. They had a lot of school buses to use as shuttles and it was quick to get there and even back at the end of the day though the line looked to be a quarter mile long at least. The registration tables and gear check tables were organized and it was easy to get into the heat when we were checked in. They had snow makers to clean yourself of the mud at the end. Obviously they were just spraying water rather than making snow but the water was freezingly cold. I could only be in for a short burst at a time.
The people who ran were Brien, Cathy, Reed, my nephew Will and myself. Shockingly, I came in with the best time of 52 minutes 51 seconds though I must point out that due to the difficult footing I had to walk a lot. Not that I didn't have the energy to run but every time I tried it was trip and fall basically. Reed came in second about 9 minutes later. My nephew followed him by 7 minutes saying he rolled an ankle during the run. Brien and Cathy came in at 1 hour 22 minutes. My brother and sister-in-law and some friends were spectators and two people took some photos but I will have to gather them before I can post them. I obviously was too muddy to carry a camera and therefore I had to rely on others for the pictures. I will post them as soon as I can get them.
Assuming we do it next year I think we'll register early and make sure we get in early to have more of a day of it. Getting in late everything was shutting down a short while after we finished and there was a lot of food and festivities around the park. I had a blast and I definitely would do it again. Even the spectators enjoyed themselves.
First off let me say I had a blast participating and by the end I was completely covered in mud. The obstacles listed in the description turned out to be somewhat different from what we experienced and I think that was because of the several days of rain and the heavy downpour we got the morning of the race. The entire course was mud from beginning to end and there were very few stretches where footing was easy to run on. Most of it was very slick and slippery and the sections inside the woods were loaded with rocks and roots besides the slick mud. I think they made some of the obstacles a bit more tame because of how difficult the running course itself was. The obstacles we did face included a web maze, walls to jump over with barbed wire to crawl under, two large walls to climb over, fire pits to jump over, a tire swing maze to run through, a balance beam to run across, a small downhill slide, a huge downhill slide (on the mud of course) and a web bridge to climb over. The running was fairly grueling and most of the obstacles were easy but the walls to climb and balance beams were tough for me with heights issues, though I got over them. The web bridge was really strenuous and I had a girl who stalled in front of me making it even harder. Possibly the most fun obstacle was the large downhill mud slide. I am fairly certain I got to about 30 miles per hour coming down, or it felt that fast anyway. I crashed into the girl ahead of me because she veered into my path at the bottom and I couldn't steer away, but no one got hurt.
The issues with the day were that they didn't really have a good handle on the traffic coming in and while we left at 3:45pm for a 5:30pm heat time we got stuck on route 110 until 5:10. The website said no refunds and if you miss your heat you are out of luck but fortunately they must have realized that too many people were getting stuck in the traffic and they basically let people go whenever they wanted. We ended up in the 6:30 heat instead of the 5:30 heat. I was getting really angry with the traffic until we talked to a kid walking out that said they were letting people go whenever. I still wasn't happy with the traffic but at least we weren't sitting in it for no reason. They had over 10000 people participate for day 1. The course was completely torn up by the end of the day when we went and I do not envy the day 2 people at all for how much worse it probably will be. The organization for the event itself seemed reasonable and after the shuttle ride from the parking area to the actual race area things went fairly quick. They had a lot of school buses to use as shuttles and it was quick to get there and even back at the end of the day though the line looked to be a quarter mile long at least. The registration tables and gear check tables were organized and it was easy to get into the heat when we were checked in. They had snow makers to clean yourself of the mud at the end. Obviously they were just spraying water rather than making snow but the water was freezingly cold. I could only be in for a short burst at a time.
The people who ran were Brien, Cathy, Reed, my nephew Will and myself. Shockingly, I came in with the best time of 52 minutes 51 seconds though I must point out that due to the difficult footing I had to walk a lot. Not that I didn't have the energy to run but every time I tried it was trip and fall basically. Reed came in second about 9 minutes later. My nephew followed him by 7 minutes saying he rolled an ankle during the run. Brien and Cathy came in at 1 hour 22 minutes. My brother and sister-in-law and some friends were spectators and two people took some photos but I will have to gather them before I can post them. I obviously was too muddy to carry a camera and therefore I had to rely on others for the pictures. I will post them as soon as I can get them.
Assuming we do it next year I think we'll register early and make sure we get in early to have more of a day of it. Getting in late everything was shutting down a short while after we finished and there was a lot of food and festivities around the park. I had a blast and I definitely would do it again. Even the spectators enjoyed themselves.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Czech Republic in Less than 3 weeks
Hard to believe how fast time is flying. I will be heading off for my six day vacation in Prague in less than 3 weeks. My new found hope is that the Stanley Cup might be hanging about in the region due to certain Bruins players who might bring it there. If it is in town I am definitely doing all I can to see it!
Thursday, June 02, 2011
Most Recent Trip Slideshow
I've updated the most recent trip slideshow to the right for those of you interested in the short form of the pictures.
Wednesday, June 01, 2011
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