Strongest Man Competition

Remember those World's Strongest Man competitions that they used to show on ESPN? I think they're probably airing on ESPN Classic now. The ones where they'd hollow out a VW Bug and the guy would stand in the middle of it and try to walk 25 meters before his back broke!

Well, on my way home from the dry cleaners where I picked up over 40 shirts that were pressed (yes, I have that many dress shirts) I decided it would be quicker to walk the four minutes home instead of throwing the shirts in my nearby car and driving. With each arm carrying 20 shirts I thought the first minute was a cake walk. By the second minute I was thinking about this post and how this could be a new competition - World's Strongest Business Man! Men would compete in numerous events like the dry cleaning walk, the paper ream dead lift, and the printer toss. By the time I was at three minutes I was grimacing and reminding myself to breath. I felt like Mangnus Samuelsson and wondered when the exhaustion would hit and I would tumble to the ground along with all my clean, pressed shirts.

And then I got to my apartment's front door, held all the clothes with one arm while getting my keys, and made it into the door. Only to realize that I had three more sets of stairs to climb. This was a decent first training session, but my sights will be on the 2010 World's Strongest Business Man competition! Where's my masseuse? My traps are killing me.

karama

Wasn't there a story several years ago where an old lady would go around w/ her bag of spare change and fill expired or close to expired parking meters? I think this was in Pittsburgh and if my memory serves me right, I think that the old lady got a ticket herself for obstructing justice or at least obstructing city revenue.

As I was walking down Beacon St this afternoon on my way home, I noticed the meter maid in front of me. She was doing her job - checking for the desired red notification so she could break out her pen and pad and write a ticket. It just happened that she found one and stopped to fill out her paperwork. I kept walking and noticed only a few cars ahead that there was another expired meter. Instead of giving the meter maid joy in writing another ticket, and extending her quota by 1 more today, I reached into my bag and dropped a quarter in the meter for an additional 20 minutes. I'm hoping that my good deed brings me good karma - I could use some!

RTB, Part I

So here's my attempt at a mobile post as we're currently enroute to finding some food and rest after our van's first segment at the RTB. For more info on the relay itself, check out the right hand side for a link to their website. But the gist of it is that groups of no more than 12 people run approximately 200 miles in total as fast as they can. We've split our group of 12 into 2 vans, and I'm in the second van which takes legs 7 through 12 initially, 19 through 24, and 31 though 37.

I ran leg 9 which was 3.5 miles. Before I took off, as we were trying to get to the transition are where I would meet Artie who's running before me, we hit some traffic in the small town. We thought we might have been late, making Artie wait, but as we pulled into the parking lot I jumped out and sprint towards the transition are to catch Artie and get our wrist band to continue on. It was a much better hand-off then the American women's 4x100 team has been doing of late.

The beginning of my run was fine, nothing remarkable, though I did pass a nice looking restaurant w/ outdoor seating called "Almost There" and then caught my first runner. As I kept chugging along, I saw my first hill and was ready to eat it alive. After getting 100 or 200 meters up the hill, I realized there was someone honking. At first I thought they were honking at me to let me know that I had dropped a blinker from my night gear, which I wouldn't have cared about since we had plenty of extras. But then looking back I realized they were honking at me because I had missed the turn and was running the wrong way! D'oh! I didn't feel too bad after my leg was done, which I ran @ a 7:19 / mile pace, and my team said they missed the turn too, but ended up driving the wrong was for about 3 miles. Glad someone helped me out - I owe them a beer.

We're back home and have about 3 hours to get some food and rest. Not sure how much I'll be able to sleep as I'm not much of an on-the-spot sleeper, but hopefully the Harpoon Brown Ale I'm enjoying now will help tire me out as much as the run. I've got a 7+ mile run tomorrow @ 4 in the morning... So until then.

parking

as i mentioned in an earlier post, parking in brookline where i've resided for the past 4 years can be nightmarish and deserved it's own post. well, this is that post.

a little background for those unfamiliar with the laws of parking a vehicle in brookline, ma. first rule is think of the most absurd general parking law (not like street sweeping first friday of every monday from may through november, though this is a law in the city of boston itself). so have you thought of that absurd parking law? well, make it three times worse and you're getting close to being able to be a lawmaker in brookline. the first and most ridiculous law in brookline regarding parking is no overnight street parking. so this should read that unless you have a driveway or your enormous apartment complex has a garage, you're screwed. the second bogus law is that you're not allowed to park in the same on-street parking spot for more than 2 hours. brookline actually did a nice thing for residents by selling an annual daytime parking permit for only $25. this solved that issue for probably about 90% of residents. the other 10% live on certain streets (or even certain parts of streets) that do not qualify for this resident permit parking. guess into which group i fall? i live a block and a half from the largest commercial section of this town and for that reason or some other crazy one i don't qualify for a permit. oh, and the 4 floor, 16 unit, no elevator apartment building i live in doesn't have a garage where its tenants can park.

but it does have a parking lot. unfortunately, it's owned by the town of brookline, and furthermore it's only an overnight parking lot! so during the day its reserved for employees of business in the area, meaning you need to move your car. oh, and the town charges $100 / month for this luxury. in all honesty, only about 5% of residents are affected by brookline's absurd parking laws (guests can be as well, since remember, there's no overnight parking. but don't worry, you can buy a one-time guest overnight pass for a mere $10!) but for me it's been a perfect storm. i need to park overnight and i moved to brookline for the convenience of public transportation so i can't leave my car anywhere for more than two hours.

the only solution for people like me is to rent a parking spot from someone else. i was actually able to survive the first couple of years without having to pay a dime except for the occasional parking without a permit ticket. and then finally my little tricks started to run out and luckily i found a spot very close by and for a more than reasonable price. unfortunately, the spot was connected to a condo that was for sale so after several months the it was sold and so was my parking spot. though i have yet to see anyone park in it. i've noticed this as i've walked by it many a times in the last few days having to move my car. after being in complete limbo for the past two weeks, parking in the lot behind me without having a permit, i finally found my spot, and a stable one at that. i'll be shelling out $165 per month for this spot, but the good news is that it's 24/7 access, non-tandem, professionally snow plowed lot only three minutes from the door of my apartment (i timed it three times today). although the other spot i was considering was an underground garage, 24/7 access, non-tandem, but asking was $210! that's a lot of money, but hopefully this winter won't be making me rethink my decision.

beautiful day wasted

so last i wrote, almost 6 months ago, i was training for the pittsburgh half marathon and hoping to break 1:40. my race weekend preparation wasn't the best (primanti brothers for dinner and the bucco's game for entertainment) and at the start line i felt i was still carrying some of that turkey and cheese sandwich. the one time i saw a set of porta-johns around mile 6 i strongly debated whether i should stop and relieve myself. while i would have felt much better, i would have lost a ton of time and not been anywhere close to my goal. as it turned out, i finished in 1:41:28 (that's 7:45 / mile pace) and got to see jen and dave twice cheering me on as well as chris and erin in the south side! it was great to run in my hometown city and if i didn't want to run a half in every state, then i'd consider running pittsburgh again.

so this year's fall marathon will be the hampton rockfest sponsored by smuttynose brewing co. in hampton beach, nh. the race is two and a half weeks away, and i think my longest run (and i won't even call it a training run) was 8.1 miles back on july 31st! i've been logging mostly 5 mile runs, but this weekend i'll definitely be doing a 7 miler, along w/ a 3 miler and a 2 miler - all in the same 24 hour period. jen and i were lucky enough to grab two open spots on a relay team that's running the reach the beach relay that takes place in nh. i actually don't think the running will be the toughest challenge. i'm betting that it's all the logistics and situations that occur as part of a 12 person 200 mile 1 day relay!

i've actually wasted away a beautiful boston day. maybe one of the last nice days of the year until may peaks it head out from the 4 feet of snow that boston is sure to see this winter. most of the day has been spent in doors, searching for jobs, though i have been able to get out to move my car from parking spot to parking spot. it's been weighing on me heavily - the fact that i haven't been taking advantage of my time off, and this gorgeous day especially. but, i'm also waiting on a pair of new asics trainers to be delivered by ups (who i did see a job posting for, but didn't apply - it was for a driver!). hopefully my increase to a size 10 gives my foot a little more room as my 9.5's have been tight, and i can get out for a run this evening w/ jen and a couple of others on our relay team.

maybe this relay is what i need to get me started blogging a bit more. and perhaps i'll tweak the content as well, though my blog's name is "runstrong." i'm sure hearing that my last four holes were bogey, bogey, par, birdie wouldn't interest you as much as it would me.