Category: Adventure

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Adventure Sports

RunAmuck NY

Ran in another RunAmuck with NGM yesterday. This one took place all the way up at Sebago Beach (Harriman State Park) in NY. It was an amazing place, massive with some incredible rocks and mountains which I would learn to despise.

My day began with waking up around 5:00 AM then driving an hour over to NGM’s. Ummm, I kinda found myself driving on the Parkway instead of the Expressway for a bit, and had to turn back early on. I guess that’s what waking up that early does to me. Once I met up NGM and company, we began our 2 1/2 hour drive up to NY. So yeah, I spent a good 7+ hours in a car yesterday, not a good feeling.

We managed to get there with no major problems. Up in North Jersey it was very mountainous and quite scenic, very different from the New Jersey I’m used to. Again the RunAmuck was a very well organized event, and that was apparent as we pulled into the park that was packed with so many people.

NGM and I registered quickly, duct taped our shoes to prevent losing them in the water/muck and eagerly awaited the start of our race. There were so many people, even more than the NJ RunAmuck race. Lining up for the race, NGM and I were pitted next to an older fellow we called Jack Lalane. This old guy was ripped, and would go on to easily crush us in this race.

The race began and NGM and I both began with a steady and consistent pace. Only a few meters in and the runners were faced with a brutal incline up a rocky terrain. This early in the race you could sense a lot of the runners lose confidence, and regret signing up for this. This was a true precursor to the most difficult run I’ve ever experienced.

I found the ground to be extremely unique, there were huge rocks almost everywhere. This make footing very difficult and interesting, as well as slick and not too kind to the ankles. I can’t even begin to count how many times I rolled an ankle during the run, as well as a couple of near spills (one literally almost was a spill  as I almost fell into the lake).

The inclines and declines were so very brutal. Several of them required walking attentively to successfully navigate through them. About 1.75 miles in I was completely exhausted from the hostile terrain. I would then slow it down a bit until NGM caught up then, finish this race up with him.

We even had to trek through a lake! The water was up to our armpits at times. This was so great for me, it allowed me to slow and cool down, catching my breath for the upcoming final leg. NGM and I ran out the final leg of the race together and made it through the final mud pit with a respectable finish.

This was by far the most grueling run I’d ever took a part in. Today my ankles are sore with some swelling, and my right shoulder is shot (I have so rotator cuff issues in there and probably got aggravated with the climbs). So I guess I’m getting a bit old, haha. All in all this was an amazing race and a very fun day, we’ll have to do this again.

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Adventure

Eating with half a numb face

I had an dental appointment to replace a filling for a crack I had in a molar that was done when I was in high school. Going to the dentist was never too bad for me, and I was pretty much in and out in under 45 minutes (way to go Dr. Josh).

However, what I wasn’t expecting was for half of my face to be numb for 4 hours. I half to admit, it’s a very strange feeling. Eating pizza a little bit afterwards turned into quite the epic adventure.

I’ve been known to be a little too rough at times, so I was extremely cautious to make sure I wasn’t accidentally biting into the right side of my cheek while eating. Small bites that were only being chewed on the left side of my mouth was the recipe for success.

2 slices felt like 4, with only half of my jaw doing any substantial work. All in all the whole numbing thing has turned out to be a pretty interesting experience.

Categories
Adventure Sports

Failed Curling Attempt

After watching the 2006 Winter Olympics the Shepherd and I declared that we wanted to play curling after watching much of it on TV that year. Well apparently we had forgotten our mission until 4 years later when the 2010 Winter Olympics came around.

After some brief research we found that the Philadelphia Curling Club was offering a $5 donation class today. So this had to be attended by us.

The Shepherd actually called me at 9:55 AM this morning ready to go. This may not seem early to most, but by his current standards this was an amazing feat and probably summed up just how excited both of us were to finally experience this grand sport.

The ride over took about an hour and a half. We didn’t take a signal wrong turn, which even with GPS we were both proud of.

Upon arriving, we soon discovered that we weren’t the only ones interested in trying out curling. I’d say there was probably 1500-2000 people waiting in a wrapping line outside in the cold with hopes of getting inside to curl.

We waited a good while, with the line barely moving at all. We later found out that there was no chance that we would have an opportunity to curl on this day. Truly tragic news indeed. With our dreams shattered we then decided to get a bite to eat and do something else nearby.

Apparently there isn’t much else to do nearby the curling place. We also somehow took about 4 hours to get back home due to a GPS device that decided to toy with us the remainder of he afternoon. While it was clearly a failed mission, I’m glad we at least followed through with our original plan 4 years ago and gave it a shot. Who knew curling would be this popular.

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Adventure

Blizzard 2010

Got a decent amount of snow from the blizzard this weekend. I’d say probably around 16 inches or so, hard to tell with the wind creating drifts all over the place. But 16 is my unofficial figure for where I was.

Saturday morning I woke up to no Comcast. Meaning no TV and even worse no internet! I had planned to work on a few projects while being snowed in, but without internet access that wasn’t going to happen.

Lucky for me one of my favorite activities is shoveling snow. I really enjoy the challenge of taking on mother nature, and this storm was really bringing quite a formidable foe. I began Saturday around 8:00 AM, why I didn’t sleep in more is still a mystery to me. Suppose I was that determined to defeat the snow that the sky had the nerve to throw upon the driveway.

It was a lot and a very heavy snow that I had encountered. Arguably the heaviest snow I can recall, or perhaps I’m just getting that much older. Either way I bundled up as best I could, donned by brand new gloves, and gripped my snow shovel and walked into the windy blizzard.

Several hours later I had created a perfectly clean path for one car to leave should they be daring enough to do so. I knew that this storm was far from over, but kept reminding myself how much easier it would be to shovel just a few inches the next day versus almost 2 feet.

With all that currently could be done against this snow, I now reluctantly turned to the  indoors. I wasn’t exactly snowed in with whom I’d of selected under ideal conditions, so while the shoveling was a challenge, it would truly be nothing compared with being stuck in a home with whom I was stuck there with.

With the TV still out, these people were everywhere I would normally seek solace. With internet still down as well, my options were severely limited as well. I turned to my trusty Nintendo DS to entertain me, and decided to give The Legendary Starfy a try. I had picked up this title at the huge Toys R Us in NYC after some kid highly recommended it.

I owe my sanity this weekend to the mighty snow shovel and Starfy the brave and noble starfish.

Categories
Adventure Sports

Carousel Park

The Shepherd and I made a voyage to Carousel Park in Delaware today. They have a very highly rated disc golf course that we were determined to play. It was in the high 20’s and probably not the finest of days to be outdoors playing disc golf, but while not the finest of players we are probably the toughest (or most stupidest) disc golf players east of the Mississippi.

The park was huge! It’s a horse park, dog park, and a bunch of other things too. There were a ton of horses and little ponies there. They poop a lot, but luckily none was to be found on the course.

A lot of people had their dogs at the dog park, and I like dogs so that’s always a plus.

The disc golf course was very impressive. Some great distance and some insane hills really made it unique. It took a little bit to figure out the course the first time through, but that also gave me an excuse to sprint ahead to scout the course out.

I did manage to land a disc in the middle of a frozen pond, but was able to retrieve it by throwing out a life preserver with a rope attached and lassoed it in. I think I enjoy saving lost discs more than actually playing.

While a little bit of a trip, the course was so impressive that we will have to make some more trips out there. It’d also probably be wise to go when it’s a bit nicer out, it was so cold today.

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Adventure

Christmas 2009

Christmas this year wasn’t too bad. Everyone I got a gift(s) for really seemed to appreciate what I’d gotten them. Got Dad a bunch of tools, something he always seems to need but never seems to have. I’m guessing they’ll all be missing too in just a few weeks. Got my younger brother Assassin’s Creed 2 for the xbox 360 and a big book of dogs. He’s always checking out different dogs online, not sure why but he likes that a lot.

I also got my older brother a credit card sized survival kit. It’s actually really cool, has a knife, whistle, light, toothpick, tweezers, and a fire starting thing all in a tiny credit card size package, very cool. Also got him a survival book to go along with the kit and a Judas Priest boxed set.

My Mom has had a pretty rough year. Losing her Mom, some of her siblings acting certifiably insane and really treating her very poorly, and my brothers just really letting her down. So I made her a big collage of old photos to remind her of the good times, back before everyone was so messed up. I scanned and re-touched and cleaned them up in Photoshop, bringing a lot of the ancient one’s back to life. She really appreciated it a great deal, and happy cried. So that made me and everyone else very happy, so that was a really good thing.

I got some pretty cool stuff too. We always joke that my Mom always buys us the worst clothes, which she does. So as I’m opening stuff up, she says how she asked the girl in the store to pick stuff out for me. I thought that was pretty funny, and it actually did work. All in all a pretty good Christmas with the family.