Hurricane!!!

Hurricane Irene as of 9:10AM, Saturday night.

Tuesday there was an earthquake...not a terribly traumatic event, but enough to wake everyone up on the East Coast.  Five days later we are now all hunkered down in our homes far away from the coast (if you're not, you should be) waiting out Hurricane Irene.  It is absolutely pouring our right now and I am a solid 40 miles in land.  My parents are here with us, they live two blocks from the beach in Lavallette.  We are glued to the Weather Channel hoping that the storm surge isn't too bad and that the winds don't get too strong so that their house remains safe.

More to come tomorrow or Monday. Stay safe everyone!!!

Earthquake

Yesterday at approximately 1:52PM I experienced my first earthquake.  I was at work in Center City Philadelphia, on the 41st Floor of our building.  Out of no where, it felt like the floor was bouncing up and down.  One by one my co-workers stood up from their cubicles and emerged from their offices asking if everyone felt what they were feeling.  Immediately I did a quick search on Google and saw that there had been an earthquake centered in Virginia.  No on had a clue as to what we should do, do we stay put?  Do we get out of the building?  Why are there no announcements from the building management telling us what to do?  Someone in our office suggested that we get out of the building....oh and not via the elevators, we needed to walk down 41 floors to street level.  At this point I will point out that the whole lot of us did exactly the wrong thing.  We should have stayed put and if anything ducked under out cubicles for cover from any potential falling debris from the ceiling.  Nope, we decided that we should walk down 41 floors and go out on the street so that should there be any damage to our building or the surrounding buildings, we would get rained on by glass and concrete. 

Long story short, it ended up being a 5.9 magnitude quake with the epicenter in Virginia.  We felt it pretty strongly here and everyone emerged unscathed.  If nothing else it was a pretty cool thing to be a part of and the fact that there was little to now physical damage makes it that much better.

I wonder if that is a sign from God telling me that I need to get my fat ass back to working out regularly?  Probably not, but that doesn't mean that I'm not going to take it as such.  Cheers!

Busy, Busy, Busy....but No Training

Wow, it has been eleven days since I wrote here.  That is a long time for me.  Unfortunately I don't have a whole lot of good stuff to write about here.  I have been pretty busy with work and family stuff, but not much in the way of training.  I have pretty much accepted that this was my year off following my BIG race last year.  I don't think I am going to do anymore triathlons this season, I just don't have the time or the money to do it.  Add to that the lack of training I have done over the past eight months and I just wouldn't be happy with the performance of any race I would do.  I am going to start focusing back on my running over the next couple months and try to get back to a sub-20 minute 5K and try to run a solid half marathon in the winter/spring.  Hopefully I will be able to join a pool this winter so that I can get my swim back to where it was this time last year..

Here is a little taste of what has been going on over the past week and a half:

Saturday August 13th - I rode from my house in Pennsylvania down to my 'rents in Lavallette, a nice 75 mile ride through the nicest parts of NJ.  I averaged around 19.3 MPH for the ride which I am very happy with considering my time on my bike has been few and far between (last year I did the same ride at 20.3 MPH).

Sunday, August 14th - My daughter did her first multisport race ever!!!  It was supposed to be a triathlon but there was heavy rain and decided to eliminate the bike portion.  It ended up being a 50yd swim and 1.5 mile run.  My daughter did AWESOME!!!  She will be faster than me one day.

 Here she is finishing up the run.

Proud Mom with little sister holding the trophy and big sis eating a well deserved Italian ice.

August 16th - 19th - I was down in Lavallette with my girls for a few days.  It was my most time off from work in a while.  We had a great time together.  Wednesday we spent the whole day on the beach and finished the night off with some miniature golf (my little one had three Hole-in-Ones).  Thursday was a bit overcast so we did some crabbing, which the girls absolutely love, and managed to get about an hour up at the beach later in the day.  Friday was a full on beach day, a lot of playing in the sand and swimming in the ocean.  We headed home that night through a torrential thunderstorm.  Below are some pictures from Lavallette.

Saturday - My wife celebrated her birthday, the second time she has celebrated a B-day while majorly pregnant.  We went out to a Hibachi restaurant for dinner...it was a blast and the girls were mesmerized.

That about sums up what has been going on.  I have gotten out for a few run here and there, but nothing of consequence.  I definitely need to start running again, if nothing else but to keep my weight in check.  God knows that once the summer is over I am going to balloon up if I am not active.  Cheer!

The Recap

Time seems to be flying by, especially the past two months or so.  So much has been going on recently and I have been remiss to write it all here.  The reasons are few:  lack of time, desire to keep some things private, disappointed in training, busy at work, etc.  I guess the best thing to do is a quick recap of the past few days and a bit of the past few months....here I go:

Tuesday - Thursday

I was in Pittsburgh on business Tuesday night through Thursday.  It was my first time in western PA and all in all it was a good trip.  I managed to line up a ton of meetings, was able to get out on three runs around the city (along the rivers), and even managed to take in a Pirates game.

Last Friday
I had off from work last Friday, the reason being my daughters had what is called "Fanny Fun Day" at our pool (where they take swimming lessons). What was also included was a mini-swim meet for all of the swimmers in advanced lessons, which meant my oldest would be able to take part in her first ever swim meet.  She took part in four events (the max one could compete):  25 yd free, 25 yd breast, 25 yd back, 50 yd free.  I was so proud of her, she was swimming as hard as she could and did so well.  I was so bummed that she didn't come in the top eight for any of the events (they all received special ribbons); the look on her face just broke my heart.  I had to explain to her that this was her first ever meet and she was one of the youngest girls there.  We left there with her wanting to try and get on the swim team next year which I think is a great thing, meaning that she wasn't too bummed and she really wants to get better. 

After the swim meet it was all about watching my little one take part in the fun of Fanny Fun Day.  She has come so far since the first day of swim evaluation when she wouldn't even put her head under the water.  She is a regular torpedo now.  Both girls had so much fun, and it just made my day being able to watch the two of them.

Saturday

Born to Tri triathlon in Asbury Park, NJ.  See race report from the other day.  I spent the remainder of the day at the beach with my family.  It was a beautiful out and I was on my feet the whole day, whether it was building a sand volcano for my youngest, playing catch with my oldest or getting tossed around in the ocean.  I just love the beach and am so lucky that my parents live there.  Just a great day.

Sunday

Sunday was a big day for me....I turned 40 years old.  Officially I have moved up an Age Group (one of the more competitive ones out there).  I planned to head out at 6:00AM to do a 40 mile ride to celebrate my 40 years on this earth (cliche, I know).  Well, just as I was about to head out the door, the skies opened up and the rain came a pourin' down.  The ride would have to wait until later on that day.  Thankfully my wife and kids gave me the green light to go for a ride around 11AM when the rain stopped for a short time, although I was only able to get in 28+ miles, albeit with an average speed of 20.3MPH.  I was thrilled to get out and just fly through Island Beach State Park....I don't look 40, do I?

Oh, I went crabbing with my girls for the first time. My wife, my mother and I took the little ones to one of the Lavallette piers to try and catch some crabs.  It was awesome to see how excited the girls were at seeing the crabs that all of the other folks had caught.  We didn't manage to catch any keepers but that didn't matter to the girls.  Below is a picture with the first crab they ever caught.

Monday - Wednesday
I have been home alone this week; my wife and kids are at my in-laws for the week.  The reason is that I have a job to do, I have to paint our "guest room" and my wife likes to have the girls out of the house when I am painting.  There are a bunch of reasons for this, the possible paint fumes, the mess that goes along with painting, and their insistence on wanting to "help".  Why am I being charged with painting the room?  Well, take a look at the picture below and guess:

In case you can't tell what color the room is, it is PINK!  Maybe not the correct shade that my wife picked out, but definitely the correct "color".  Why would we paint the room such a color?  Well, I am officially announcing to whoever reads this blog that we are expecting our third child on November 13th.  Yup, I just turned 40 and I am going to be a Dad for the third time around.  I can't wait for the middle of the night feedings, stinky diaper changes and shirts riddle with spit-up.  Seriously, we are all very excited and preparations are in full swing to get the house ready for the new arrival.

So there you have it, a quick recap of the goings on with me over the past week or so.  I have a busy weekend ahead as I am heading to the shore for the day on Saturday to see friends/family I haven't seen in a while and then my daughters first triathlon on Sunday.  So exciting!!!  Peace out!

Little Time & Born to Tri Race Report

I haven't had a lot of time to write in this Blog here.  I have been pretty busy for the past two weeks with work, traveling to Pittsburgh and then racing this past weekend (Born to Tri in Asbury Park, NJ).  I have not been a good writer in the least.

Born to Tri Race Report

Swim (.3 miles):  9:55 - 91 out of 279
The sky was a bit overcast, but the sun was peeking through.  I was able to wear my wetsuit which was a good thing since I hadn't swum in two weeks.  The swim was in the ocean which was also a good thing.  Nothing spectacular here, it was over pretty quickly; however, the toughest part was the long run to transition.

T1:  1:05

Bike (12 miles):  34:14 (21.0MPH) - 76 out of 279
I was so beat the entire bike, I just couldn't get my legs going.  In the past I easily could have maintained 22 or 23 MPH on such a flat course, but not on this day.  I did the best that I could and that is all that I could ask.

T2:  :46

Run (3.1 miles):  24:01 (7:37/mile) - 116 out of 279
Ugh, again I was just not feeling all that great.  I just kept my feet moving, one in front of the other.  It was a a beautiful day and I was just going to try to enjoy the run as much as possible.  Each mile was a little faster than the last, and I enjoyed running along the Asbury Park boardwalk. 

Total:  1:10:02 - 84 out of 279
I wasn't especially happy with my performance but then again what can I expect for the amount of training that I have been doing and the lack of focus when actually in the water or on the road.  I'm not sure if I'll do any more races this season, it has been such a funky season for me.  The "new" job, family "stuff" and everything else that is going on means that I just can't train like I want too. 

I'll have another post later on today or tomorrow....I have to write about my birthday... yeah, I turned 40.  Cheers!