Is the fastest runner the best runner?

Thanks to SIAC Master of ceremonies Josh Pesin for linking individual members blogs to the SIAC website.  Doing so has prompted me to update the old girl. i will say that I am actually quite active on this blog. i am working on a long term project that is none of your business at this time.

Now, on to this blog and the controversial title.

Today I was doing a little speed on the Nature Center trail.... hold on a second I was doing speed work not speed, who do yo think I am some biker selling Meth to scabby faced junkies. No I did a quick speed workout session to loosen up the old running sticks before tomorrow's Wolfe's Pond 5k.

As I was running I started thinking about runners, and various styles of running. Sprinters, distance, fast runners, slow plodders, runners who might not be the fastest but have been running for a long time and I started thinking what is the best runner?

I think this is an interesting question.

Someone who is extremely fast but prone to injury vs. the slow and steady runner who doesn't really improve as a runner or health wise which might have been the reason they started running in the first place. These are two realistic examples of the extreme ends of the running spectrum, so is it the mushy middl that wins?

A runner who is not the fastest but strives to improve, yet doesn't obsess. A runner who sees the big picture but also has their sights on short term goals. Running smart to avoid injury as much as possible, and will be proactive when a weird twinge shows up instead of bulling through it?

Just a random thought that shot through my head as I was shuffling down the nature trail back to the Nature Center.

2014, coming in with the wheels off!!!

Man, 2014 was a mess. Not entirely just physically on my end.


So many great things happened in 2014, started out with the Polar Bear Plunge on Jan. 1st 2014.

Lots of fun in the beginning of 2014 than a twinge pain emerged on the inside of my left knee.

This began a long, slow,  slide into uncertainty. Left knee, heel, shin. where is this all coming from.

The year progressed, I participated in my first play, the Shakespeare "As You Like It" I played Charles the wrestler, a pivotal role. I enjoyed this process very much but this led me down another even more frustrating road, dental issues.

On the last performance I landed on my face a bit hard and must of cracked one of my front teeth, at the after party I bit into a sandwich and the tooth popped right off. That took a while to get fixed and then two back molars started acting up and they both had to have a root canal this process started in July and here I am December 31st and i finally see some light at the end of the tunnel.

Lastly, my left elbow and shoulder also seem to be out of whack, why? I have no idea. All I know is that i'm sitting here wondering what the hell went wrong so 2015 doesn't mimic 2014.

Anywho, Happy New Year everyone!

SIAC 2014 Christmas Party review

About 6 months ago I called up my good friend, and personal tailor Mr. Tommy Fontana from Beverly Hills California and told him that the big night, the one where all the stars were going to be at was December 13, at the Staaten for the Staten Island Athletic Club's Christmas Party.

I flew there, first class of course and got fitted for a one of a kind, custom made piece of excellence.
Everything about it is top of the line from my virgin, baby Ostrich shoes to my silk shirt made from the finest worms kept hidden in a cave deep in the Orient guarded by the finest Shaolin Monks.

MY scarf, because in 2014 if your still wearing a tie, Corey Ferretti and everyone else who made that mistake I don't know what to tell you, was created by the finest textile artisans money can buy.

Body sculpting, hair, a Gentleman's shave all done by Ms. Theresa on the Upper East Side of Manhattan I had her bump the Sultan of Brunei  so I could look as good as I did last night.

Nothing, and I mean nothing that wear comes from a rack. The only racks I touch are from today's leading ladies nothing else will do.

15,000.00 worth of jewelry, a suit that costs more than more that the car that you drove in on, Hollywood starlets dripping off of my arm that is how you enjoy yourself at the 2014 SIAC Christmas Party.

The Staaten once again did a top notch job, food, wine, service was head and shoulders above everyone else.

To everyone who won an award, congratulations, It was well deserved, you've earned a place with the immortals.

To all of you ham and eggers who didn't, better luck next year.

Hey Hoka's it's not me it's you.

I was planning on doing a long blog about how, in my opinion switching to Hoka One One shoes really screwed me up this year but I think i'll just sum it up Quickly.

Hey Hokas go fuck yourself.

These stupid shoes led me down a road of numerous leg issues throughout the year and after eliminating all other possibilities I realize it is there giant, puffy, heavy, boxy, clumsy, stupid design that
basically had me throw away most of 2014.

The idea was to run a lot of 50Ks in 2014. I did my first one last December, enjoyed it and planned on doing more so i thought why not get the shoe that is designed for endurance runs.

DUMBEST IDEA I EVER HAD!!!!

In May I abandoned my 2nd 50K attempt halfway through due to a nagging knee pain, guess what shoe I was wearing, yep Hokas.

Btw. last year I ran all of my runs in Saucony Kinarva trail. A pretty basic shoe and I felt great all year.

I eased into the Hokas mileage wise and at first they did feel great but they stink, they are dumb. I hate them.

Anyway, i'm back to a basic shoe nothing fancy yet I'm still feeling the residual effects of the dumb Hokas things are out of whack, muscles that should be strong are catching up causing an imbalance. This will work itself out but I know I can't do the 50K this year but as of right now even the 25K is in question. I wonder how that 10K will feel?????

Time keeps on ticking ticking ticking into the future.

These past few weeks I have officially felt the heavy hand of time for the first time in my life.

There's an old adage that age is just a number, what a bunch of bullshit.

It's as if every second is a grain of sand and as time progresses those grains of sand begin to stick to your body.

At first its such a minute amount that you don't feel it, Your young, strong, growing, in fact for the first 20 some years your impervious to the sticking sand.

But, one day you trip, just a slight stumble, you probably don't even notice it but that stumble allows some more sand to stick, and that sand attracts more sand, clumping, building.

Life is still great, the sticky sand is just a slight annoyance, some extra weight on your belly, your eyes getting weaker, some things could be a lot more serious obviously.

For me, I just had my first root canal. In the past I had some fillings, but no big deal. This year, I broke a tooth right out of my face and had a molar blow out leading to the said root canal. Somewhere I stumbled, and the sand collected, and now I feel it, and it feels heavy.

So not only are we being burdened with my sand metaphors but there is also the constant dodging of unending shrapnel.

We have to keep swimming just like that adorable Dori from finding Nemo told us, but it isn't that simple, we have to keep moving forward and ducking, weaving from sharp, shards, of shit that are trying to impale us at every turn.

Right now two people I loosely know didn't dodge fast enough. Maybe the sand got to heavy and they couldn't get out of the way fast enough or there was simply just to much thrown at them at once that it wasn't humanly possibly to get out of the way.

This is not a pity party post. It's a reminder to myself and others to grab at the things you want, push the small stuff aside, it's meaningless anyway and live.

We all get one life, no more, no less it's up to you what you do with it.

9-11-2006!

This day really stinks. No real shocker there.
I was lucky in that no one I personally knew died. My old roommate in Brooklyn was on the train under the towers during it all and took off before they fell but all of my friends and family went home that night.

Why does my title say 2006 you might ask. Well, it doesn't have anything to do with it being the 5 year anniversary. It has to do with how an event in my personal life made me forget all about 9-11-01.

Danielle was strapped to a hospital bed with miles of wires stuck to her. The squishy heart beat of a yet to appear Thira keeping her company.

I was walking into SIUH and basically walked right through a 9-11 ceremony. I had totally forgotten what day it was. At that time every day blurred together. I stopped and looked at the ceremony but in all honesty I couldn't care less about it that day. With Danielle and Thira both in Limbo that was all I cared about.

3 weeks later Thira would show up, 12 weeks early mind you but there she was.

So now when we reach this date I think about 9-11-01 and the months that followed, but I also think about 9-11-06 which thankfully had a happier ending.

Assateaque 2014 review.

Very dusty around here.

Lots of white sheets on top of furniture and a crusty old servant hobbling around with a pretty worn down candle in a thread bare uniform mumbling to himself.

So, Where do we begin.

The july camping trip to Deep Creek Lake State Park in Maryland, not the Md. I am used to btw. the hilly, hilly western Md. right next to the West Virginia border. A gorgeous but taxing drive that pushed my little truck to the edge. That experience plus last years fiasco where I developed Pneumonia had me sweating this trip right up until we hitched up and left on Sunday.

The week before our trip I tied up almost every lose end on the camper to the point where I was cautiously optimistic. First step was getting to the Cape May Ferry and crossing over the bay to Delaware. Last year the Ferry ride was so choppy that some safety switch in the trick was tripped so when I started the car I got some crazy clicking noise, the ferry crew was busy jumping various cars and didn't seem to concerned, I on the other hand was a wreck, you have to realize that unbeknowest to me pneumonia was settled into my lungs ready to strike.

This years ferry ride to Delaware was footloose and fancy free! I had a very stiff bloody mary that I shared with Danielle and we both were really into it and feeling the buzz.

We pulled into Assateaque State Park, signed in, pulled into our spot and set up. Things went very smoothly until………. nothing really everything went very smoothly, if you are looking for the dramatic crash you're not going to find it here.

What you will find is a list of some of the wackiest campers we have ever camped with, ever.

As we were setting up there was a lot of other campers doing the same. Directly across from us was a  couple of sights setting up tents and we could tell right away they were going to be fun to watch. One sight had an old station wagon filled with stuff and out came Gandolf the Grey. This man was tall, at least my height, 6'3", very slim with long, long grey hair where he still had some and a matching beard or equal length.  He had an entire troop of odd balls with him, all very nice mind you but odd nonetheless. On the adjoining site was a very old, and kinda crappy looking camper van that held and older guy with a very monk like look to him with his old lady. That thing looked like it was going to fall apart at any second, like all 4 wheels pop off, windshield crack and all the doors fall off if the wind blew to hard.

As we were driving to our spot we passed a really beat up pickup truck with a camper top on it, This truck had more bondo and primer paint that metal at this point. The kicker that really set this truck apart was the two gigantic paintings on either side of the camper. Both were large paintings, not painted directly on the camper mind you but painted on panels that are mounted to the camper. The scenes were of some badly painted lady near hot spring or some babbling brook some complete and utter dreck like that. This guy is probably in his 60s his trucks plates are from Hawaii and he just bounced around from site to site the entire time we were there. I saw him most of the time sitting on top of his truck in a chair watching the sun rise. I bet his story is pretty fascinating.

Quiet hours at Assateaque are 10pm to 7am during this time you turn off your generator, keep it to a dull roar and chill. The mornings are quiet as you can imagine but around 8am you hear some people stirring, maybe some bike riders, perhaps the braying of the ponies. On Friday morning I was awoken from a very nice sleep to the sounds of the oddest Euro trash pop. It was 7:30am and this music was being pumped out of a rented motorhome. Outside of the motorhome was a handful of 20 somethings. They were dancing around, smoking a lot of cigarettes and running back and forth to the beach. It was an odd sight, made stranger by the continual emergence of people coming from the RV. They were Eastern European I don't know exactly where, they were an attractive group seemingly having a terrific time.

At 8:30 they all headed into the motorhome and they left, the music gently fading away.

I thought this was it. A loop of misfits that were a blast to watch. Then over the weekend a family pulled into a neighboring spot and out pops a girl i'll say around 15years old. Her main outfit was thigh high cowgirl boots something black top and bottom, painted on whiskers and a painted nose and clipped to her hod die was a little fox tail. This is what she wore on the beach or not. A lot of work to go sit on the beach.

This trip was make or break for me regarding the camper. Last year was such a cluster fuck that I didn't want to go this year but I knew from the beginning that this trip was something special. Overall this trip was fantastic the girls have grown up and are veterans at the beach so much so that Thira has earned free reign. Lucia has grown up and no longer needs any special attention. We are entering a great phase of trip with the girls.

Great quotes from this year.
Lucia: "There is sand in my buns."
Lucia, after the water hit her chest: "Oh, so cold, my boobies are cold."
Lucia, while I'm holding her in the surf nervously saying: "Let's get out of here!"