Civiliam Military Combine Mission 2: Camelback Mountain, Pa

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Well, today was my long awaited return to the mountain that started it all last year and really got me going.  It was an extremely fun day, going up and down that cursed mountain!  Seriously though, it was really a great time.

For those who don’t remember when I did this race last year it was on a whim after one of the instructors from ETC (Dominic Manfredi) said ‘hey we’re doing this race this weekend you should come and do it,’ me–always up for the challenge, I did and finished THIRD to last.  I was obviously embarrassed, but everyone had the glass half full outlook–’hey dude you finished it.’  I agree, but still the competitor inside me wants to be better, I have no delusions of grandeur to be in the top 10 or 100 or anything, but I am HAPPY to be in the middle!  So I worked hard to be in the MIDDLE in the Brooklyn race…lol!

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The terrain was Camelback Mountain, which I have skied several times, but running/waking up the mountain going over obstacles is another story–WTF!  I felt strong the entire day, so different than last year where I was sucking wind from the beginning race.  My pit score wasn’t great, I had 71 reps the first time at The Intrepid, this one I scored 57?  WTF?  My judge really was a little clueless I felt I counted 69 reps, I didn’t get ‘no repped’ at least I think I didn’t but, my judge wasn’t as animated as I would hope he would be.  At the Intrepid race, the judges were really vocal and pushing you, I had a wallflower.  Sorry I don’t mean to complain, the judges are volunteers and did the best that they could.  I am certainly not a top contender where it would make a difference irregardless!

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The first obstacle was a wave pool, it was chilly all morning.  I am so luck I got the FIRST Heat, so I got going right away–the water was COLD!  I remember last year, I couldn’t even get my body out of the wave pool, this year no problem, I do remember it being warmer, actually since I was in one of the last heats, it was definitely warmer as I started around 12:30PM I believe.  Then we started to go up hill. a lot of ladder and walls, running through the woods, running through storm drains in utter darkness, running thru the stream, low crawling or in my case rolling thru the mud!  Then more uphill, seems like it didn’t end, there was still snow on parts of the mountain and we seemed to go up the steepest potion at times, and when we thought it we were coming to a flat, it only continued to go up, and up, and up!  I was so psyched as I took the walls easily, jumped right over and didn’t even have to use the stands to help propel me over!  One great thing about CMC races is that the obstacles aren’t designed so that you won’t have a backlog of people waiting to do the obstacles…a la Spartan Citifield where we had to wait on the Rowing Machines, Jump Rose, Atlas Carry, and 12′ wall.  Some may consider it easy, but after climbing up a mountain and then having to climb a ladder wall my heart felt like it was going to explode out of my chest!

The volunteers were wonderful as usual, everyone cheering us on, and always with some encouragement no matter how horribly we looked.  I knew I was at the end of my end as far as position goes, there were two girls that were in my heat and we somehow always seemed to be pushing each other.   My competitive side said ‘ok, keep up with those two,’ but I’m sure they were saying ‘there’s that creepy guy again, why can’t we lose him…lol’  One dude passed me and he said ‘it’s Hero month, when you get tired, think about the guys overseas who are going thru hell everyday, we only have to do it for 2 hours,’ which actually gave me resolve to get up the last hill, which was STEEP!

I knew I was in trouble when Kristin passed me, she started 16 minutes behind me and she obviously made up the time and kicked ASS–the girl is a beast!  I saw her before the race and she said ‘I’m nervous, I didn’t really practice the pit much.’  In my head I was saying ‘oh brother, that must mean she’ll do 200 reps in the pit’–I was close 117–AND SHE DIDN’T PRACTICE!  She passed me and I didn’t see her again until the finish line, man she’s incredible, as were a lot of the other participants also.

One thing about the CMC or any of these adventure racers, they are for EVERYONE!  You don’t have to be an elite athlete, or a ultra marathoner, anyone can do the race and be proficient at it.  It’s a great way to go with a bunch of your friends and have some fun.  Last year when I was beginning my fitness journey a lot of my friend joined my team and I had a pretty big team.  This year seems to be a little tougher, everyone knows I can do it, and they seem to kind of ignore me…boo hoo sad clown.  The other thing to, is no one really wants to schlep out to Pennsylvania, well at least none of the less hard core people.

All in all it was a pretty good day, I believe it was a successful event and I look forward to the next three races!  Evidently big things are happening next year and we may be possibly taking this puppy national from what I hear.  I would love to see this thing blow up so big as Spartan Races are, because Sean and Matt are extremely dedicated individuals and they deserve the reap the rewards of what they have created.

What a great day…

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So today, I went to visit my old stomping grounds in Bergen County. I met Marissa there to go to Studio Cycling and Shockwave, more specifically–TERRACycle and Shockwave with Gregg Cook. I had such a good time, Gregg’s TERRACycle class are always good, what’s even better is the motivational talk he gives during the class. It really does pump you up. Gregg is such a ‘Rockstar’ he has a cult like following and the ladies absolutely LOVE him!

The cycling class was PACKED to the rafters, to accommodate everyone that showed up, they even brought the two spin bikes that are usually in the workout area and Gregg gave up his instructor bike also. Even after all of that there were still people in there just WATCHING the class–WTF? LOL, I guess his reputation precedes him and everyone was really psyched that he was there. The class was really great needless to say.

Afterwards we did Shockwave, I am spoiled and have done Shockwave with Danielle most of the time, but since taking John Cianca’s Shockwave I have seen that there are other great Shockwave instructors. I had never taken one of Gregg’s Shockwave classes and it was definitely worth the wait. There was A LOT of energy in the room, again, packed to the rafters–32 people and 8 stations. I had myself, Marissa, and Gregg’s wife Fatima on my team, and another girl whom I didn’t get her name. Our team KICKED ASS! I thought Gregg was hard core, damn Fatima is even more hard core, think a ‘miniaturized’ version of Illaria Montagnani! Man she was fast, she beat me every round except the last one where I squeaked out ONE SECOND ahead of her, I think she let me win…The stations were challenging as usual and hit all parts of our body.

We got a great sweat, but I was a little annoyed at all the people talking during class. It seemed like everyone had to congregate in between stations, especially when they were headed towards the rowers, the girl on our team whose name I didn’t get on our team disappeared in the second round–WTF–there’s no quitting in Shockwave!

Afterwards, we went to It’s Greek to Me, caught up a little before I had to vamoose and head back to The Boken for work! All in all a really great day!

I’ve been sick all day

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I was so run down the last few days, it’s been a horrible day. I only made it to the gym about three times this week, which is more than most of the population but not up to what expect from myself. Ever since yesterday, my whole body has been aching and I just had the feeling that I was going to be sick, I felt the fever coming on. I cam home last night and took a HOT shower for about an hour and then I just went to bed, that was about 8PM, then I end up waking up at 2:30 AM and I’m walking around the house like a zombie!

I miss the days when I would be sick and my Mom would take care of me, not in the traditional way, she usually thought I was faking and she would tell me to get up and go to work–my mother was something else. But then there were the times when I was literally sick as a dog, and she would make soup and and put the cold compress on my head to break the fever, or perhaps it was covering me with 100 blankets–she was a big believer in the ‘sweating it out’ cure to a fever. I can say that’s my answer also, anytime I feel like I’m going to be sick, I just take a hot shower and jump under a bunch of blankets, which is exactly why I actually feel pretty good right now. Then again, I haven’t ventured out of my house today and tomorrow it’s going to be cold which probably will not help my condition!

I assume I just needed some rest, I have been pushing it really hard at both ends, between work–actually WORK most of the time this week. I’m trying to bang out some deals since I’ll be away ALL of August cruising on the Mediterranean. I started watching Rick Steves’ Europe, I’ve always read about his adventures and I know he’s got a crap load of guide books, but the tv show is actually pretty good. He travels with a 2 man crew and evidently it takes them about 6 days to film an episode, it makes me want to go out and buy his guides, hell who am I kidding, I WILL go out and buy his guides for the trip in August.

You know what’s funny is after watching these pieces, you feel as if you’ve been to the the area shout out to Rick Steves (www.ricksteves.com) and Hulu Plus, man is there anything they don’t have on there? One of the shows I watched was when he went to Poland, he went to Warsaw ans Auschwitz, and told the story of Kristalnacht, it was very sad. I still get bummed out when I think about the Holocaust and all the innocent people who were exterminated for no reason at all. It’s hard to believe that happened not in my lifetime, but it wasn’t that long ago in the grand scheme of things. We should NEVER forget!

Then I read my friend Angela (www.pureleighliving.com) post about her friend Kyle and I got a little bummed about my friend Eileen. We had an argument around Christmas time and it was pretty bad. It seemed worse than others that we had, I won’t go into the minutiae of the details, but it’s done and nothing to do about it. I’ve made my apologies and have moved forward, it’s up to her if she chooses to forgive me someday. It’s so rare to have friends whom you can go years without talking to and then seemingly talk to each other after not speaking to one another for a while and just pick up as if nothing had happened! Makes me shake my head, but this too will pass right?

Boston thoughts, so sad…

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You know sport is supposed to be an escape from the day to day bullshit we deal with. Whether it’s amateur sports, professional sports, pee-wee league sports, it’s all recreation. I love to see the competitive spirit, and know the stories behind the competitors. What brought them to where they are, what was the story behind why they are doing this event? What drives them to move forward? What drove them to train?

THIS is what I think about when I watch these competitors, and when I myself am competing. I know what is driving me and what brought me there and what I want to accomplish. SO…when I see the pointless bombing of innocent people at The Boston Marathon, it saddens me. Not only is this an attack on innocents, it is an attack on innocence. This is a sporting event where one would never think something so heinous would happen, but in the complicated world we leave in, should we just accept this?

I think about ll those innocent people that dies and are severely injured, that shouldn’t be something we should have to think about in our open society. I know it’s cliche, but this is not just a heinous act, it’s an attack on our way of life. Unfortunately in the world we live in, these attacks cause us to live in a less free society, i.e. airport security, more video surveillance, more security in general, and who the hell knows what the NSA is doing!

I’m not going to lament about crazy people and blaming anyone, that is to be expected in ANY society with this many people, there are bound to be some that are whackos! I think today of those that were affected. I will wear a race t-shirt in HONOR of those who were affected, join me in support. If you can’t wear a race t-shirt wear the colors of The Boston Marathon (blue and yellow) to show your support.

BE STRONG BOSTON, WE ARE THINKING OF YOU!

Spartan Race at Citifield

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So yesterday I participated in the Spartan Race at Citifield, for the un-informed Spartan Races are obstacle course races which are usually run in muddy location and a lot of fun. They are doing a baseball park tour, they are having races in Citifield, Philly’s Ballpark, Milwaukee’s Stadium and Fenway Park. It was interesting, no mud but a lot of obstacles. Things such as up and over bands (this would probably have been low crawls under barbed wire had it been in the mud), rope jumping with a rope that’s used to secure a ship, burpees galore, rowing machines, atlas carry, rope climb, javelin throw wall climbing, and a lot of up and down and thru the stadium. All told there were supposed to be about 12,000 competitors going thru yesterday. It started early in the morning and was going thru until until around 9 or 10 last night. QUITE THE TURNOUT.

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I raced with Scott Katzenstein’s Team Virtuosity, mostly a group of people who frequent his group fitness classes, mostly everyone was an Equinox ‘person.’ Some very interesting people and some hard core people. It’s great to be around that kind of energy! I run these for the fun, I would like to perform better but I happy just DOING IT for the time being, the beast in me will come out soon enough. We all finished at different times, got our t-shirts and everyone is seemingly happy. Several people signed up for the Super Spartan up in New Jersey in September so that should be fun. When we go as a group it’s a lot of fun in lieu of trudging there by yourself. Someone is always pushing you to go!

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The next race is next month at Civilian Military Combine, Mission 2 Mountain Assault in Pennsylvania! This is the one that got me started into all these damn races–they’re going to make me bankrupt–they’re expensive. (If anyone wants to join Team Shook Shook, please use code NJ100510–it’ll get you 10% off the race price). I’m gonna train for this one, this time. I guess going up and down the mountain will be easier without the extra 130lbs weighing me down!

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