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“If you have food in your fridge, clothes on your back , a roof over your head and a place to sleep you are richer than 75 % of the world. If you have money in the bank, your wallet and some spare change you are among the top 8% of the world’s wealthy. If you woke up this morning with more health than illness you are more blessed than the million people who will not survive this week. If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the agony of imprisonment or torture or the horrible pangs of starvation you are luckier than 500 million people alive and suffering. If you can read this message you are more fortunate than 3 billion people in the world who cannot read it at all.”
This is a message I think we forget. _
blue-chalk: sophiaxtai: omgusosilly: mightymitty: windsdays: (via furk)
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???
I think theres been some sort of mistake
I placed an order years ago and have been waiting patiently
I know these things take time
I’ve lived, I’ve laughed, I’ve made the best of things
waiting
I always had the belief that it would still happen
“my life” the one I was meant to have…the one I dreamed of
but…
I just saw it…. it was right there in front of me
But I wasnt in it,
Someone else must have gotten my order by mistake
Everything so exact…so perfect just like I imagined it
You, the house, the kids, the life
But it wasn’t me and it already happened
All of it
It wasnt me you fell in love with
It wasnt my family and friends you stood before
the promises were not made to me
I’m not in the pictures
I didnt bear nor name any of your children
my memory holds none of their first words
It wasnt me at the recital or carpooling the team
or at the hospital that one time
Entire lives have been created and lived while i waited alone
Time cant go back, the concrete has set
I lost you before i ever had you
Its too late to order another
I missed it
what’s left for me?
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I miss you
I dream of your lips on mine
I get :*
I need your arms around me
you send ((( )))
I want to make you laugh
I see :D
I think of you and feel phantom vibrations
let me hold you with both my arms not in my palm
let me see your eyes not that little red light
make my earth shake not just my purse
come out of my pocket and into my life
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(via showroomeyes)
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"I wanna make you smile whenever you’re sad, carry you around when your arthritis is bad. I’ll get your medicine when your tummy aches; build you a fire if the furnace breaks. I’ll miss you, kiss you, give you my coat when you are cold. Need you, feed you, I’ll even let you hold the remote control. So let me do the dishes in our kitchen sink, put you to bed when you’ve had too much to drink. All I wanna do is grow old with you."
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(via skate4food)
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race report from my best friend’s half ironman. He took off over and hour from his last time. 7 hours and 2 minutes. read it its cool!
So you asked for it… here is the unproof read and unedited report… posted, finaly.
Ironman 70.3 (SOMA Triathlon)
My trip to Arizona (Tempe) to ‘test drive’ the Ironman course started on Thursday (3 days before the race).I flew out to Phoenix (in First Class) and sat and wondered, “what the heck am I doing to myself, I mean seriously, I’m heading to the west country to ‘test ride’ the Ironman course for the biggest event, ever, in my life, the Ironman (next month)—there was much concern. I knew the course was going to be much flatter than the prior 70.3 that I did in July, (July 12th to be exact) so finishing I knew wouldn’t be a concern, it was inevitable. As we banked over Phoenix and Tempe Town Lake came in to view (dimly lit by the lighted bridge, and the surrounding lights) it suddenly hit me… This is going to be where you ride the big one… next month. The lake was shinning and almost welcoming, yet I wasn’t in it, yet. I surged with excitement, but knew my excitement was premature, next month would be the real deal. Next month would be the true test of my endurance…
I managed to get my bike “Stewie” from over-sized baggage, which I never paid for, and got into my truck (my best friend Lauren came to Sky Harbor to pick me up). The next day I would be doing the same for Brian, as he was flying out after work on the Friday, but until he arrived I had a whole night and day to recover from working 4 nights in a row and not sleeping the whole day… The next day comprised of me getting a massage, visiting the YMCA (“Yoda”) Barry, my old coach and loaning his bike pump. He told me that he was going to be at the Tri on Sunday and that somehow he would find his way into transition and would find me to retrieve his bike pump…. I was excited to hear that Barry was coming.
So after a long day of doing many things I went to pick up Brian… He agreed to come out and build Stewie, as I had no clue how to do it and it was cheaper to fly him out using miles than sending my bike to the shop and pay for it to be built!!! Brian landed, jumped in my truck and we were off to my house. I figure that he would be comfy sleeping in my house and being comfy on his own, as opposed to being around a bunch of immediate strangers…. anyway he was off to bed and I went to bed also; separate beds…!
Saturday:
I woke up and Stewie was built. Brian has been up for a couple of hours, and still in East Coast time. I rode Stewie up and down the street a couple of times, and learned how to turn around a cone (or manhole cover in this case)… I felt weird only learning this the day before a race but read on and you’ll see how I made out.
At the expo I picked up my race packet and actually got in the lake, and what was supposed to be a 15 minute swim turned into swimming half the course… it was amazing. Swimming under the bridges and looking up and seeing all the hornet/bee nests, not to the mention the occasional person peeking down was brilliant!!!
I got out of the water, being greeted by the pumpkin himself (brian) and got dressed and explored transition, no to mention leaving Stewie on his rack for his overnight sleep over being bike-sitted by armed security officers! I was jealous!
We went back to the house and we practically ate our faces off, and I mean right off!! Went to bed early that night as 4am was going to come around very quickly…. once 4am did come around, I got up, showered, shaved and we (Brian and I) hit the road by 4.30 am. We made it to the race by approx 5am. Excited and making visits to the lavatory are in usual order, and certainly didn’t go a miss on this occasion. Brian actually was able to come into transition with me and helped me set up my area. Brian eventually went to stand on the bridge so that he could observe the swimmers below him. I had told him the day before that the ironman the bride is packed and usually not enough room for everyone… he was standing almost along up there, but he had the best view in the house!
After transition closed I went to wait by the swim waiting area… we were being loaded into the lake in waves. I was standing and bullshitting with various other people that were waiting.
Eventually it was my time to get into the water, after I had donned my wet suit, the start came and I began to swim. I recall looking up to the bridges, with an extra high roll, to see if I could see Brian… I thought I saw him, and carried on swimming, again peeking at the hornets nests and the structure of the bridges! At about this same point I felt this immense feeling of hunger come over me. I had barely started swimming and I wasn’t feeling like I had much energy. I plodded on. Also my goggles has began to leak and water was starting to sting my eyes—as it was starting to mix with the anti-fog dropped that I had put in them. My vision was blurry and the sun was also dead into my face. I kept on swimming and felt my new Garmin 310XT watch vibrating on my wrist to indicate that I had swam a mile… I knew this was wrong and the the GPS function of the watch was obviously mis-reading and sensing the arm stroke and adding to the distance. I knew that my swim was slow, and I’m still not sure if that was nutrition related or if it was under training, but I plodded on; I found the Buoys—sighting on every 4th stroke.. I tried bilateral breathing pattern but it didn’t seem to to fit for me at that time. So my breathing was unilateral to my right. My last stretch of the swim was towards the steps and getting on to the step was a little tricky… I felt my balance was off, which I’m sure I could give some scientific reason for. I struggled getting my wet suit off as I my watch was over the sleeve, instead of underneath it.. I had to take my watch off, then get my upper body piece unzipped before the stripper could rip it off me… such fun! One second you’re in a wet suit and literally the next second you’re not…. I toyed in my head of if they accidentally rip off people under clothing… or if people ever were ‘not wearing’ swim shorts underneath—-just to give the strippers a thrill (or scare!). I ran to T1—eyes still blurry and trying to direct myself towards the timing mat… I looked to see if I could see Brian… I couldn’t, and figured that he was still on the bridge… I did, however, see Yoda—smiling and cheering me on… it was great to see him, and I mean great!!!
T1 was quite fast for me… I felt rushed, and to a point I probably should have been as it was a race. I dried my feet and put on socks and bike shoes & helmet, and smeared the anti-sore butt paste on the appropriate place and ran to the mount area… there I stood at the start of a 56 mile bike ride… I got on stewie, clipped in, and off I went…
Bike:
The bike course was set up as a 3 loop course, all around Tempe and the neighboring community. The course was mostly flat. I pedaled along, waiting to go to areo… after I had made many turns and tons of people stopped passing me on their bikes, I started to ride in areo… it felt great. I pedaled to a cadence of 90 and played with the appropriate amount of power/gears and I was averaging 18mph before I knew it… the loops took us through the main spectator area of Tempe 3 times on each loop. Once along the side of the finish line, one time across the outbound bridge of Mill Avenue then back down the inbound bridge of mill avenue. There were 3 coned turnaround points along the course… all of which I was rather nervous about, as I had only gone around manhole covers the day before… The first turnaround wasn’t too bad, plenty of room to go wide, yet not much distance between the turnaround cone and the back horseshoe of cones… but I did was Brian had reviewed with me the day before—looked back at the cone after I passed it.. it worked.. I was chuffed to bits! Before I knew it I was heading back down the road…. the next turnaround was much tighter, less room to go wide and less room from the cone and the horseshoe of cones—i made it…just. The last turnaround was even tighter.. I seriously thought they were having a joke as I approached… I was waiting for someone to say… “ok we’re kidding” and they would move the cones to make it wider, but nope… it was tight, yet I made it… I made all 3 turnarounds on the first loop without any mishap, now I had to do them all over, twice more!
Towards the end of each loop was a really nice decent, which allowed people to really fly, I was nervous to ride areo as at the end of the lake was Tempe Town Lake—and mis-negotiating the corner would certainly end up with another swim… I rode down the decent in the bullhorns… now, this course was pretty flat, yet much to my surprise the decent has quite a nasty bastard of a hill to climb back up at the other side… something I had not considered coming down! I ground the pedals and stayed in my large ring all the way to the top.. Jennisse’s words rang clear in my head “Keep your cadence low, relax, and breathe…. see you don’t have to work so hard going up hill!”—before I knew it the climb was over, but left me with a thought of… “probably going to have to switch to your small ring the 2nd and 3rd times you climb that… the road looped around and there were some long climbs, the grade wasn’t too bad, but the length was was ground on me… after the climb of the lengthy climb we were somehow looped back into the decent and the climb (but this time in reverse)… I climbed with no problem and on the 2nd and 3rd loops I definitely made use of my small ring for the final attempts at this section of the course. I was amazed on from a physiologic standpoint how well I felt during the ride. I had a good cadence, and also some decent speed, well for me at least… my old pace of 13mph was gone! towards the end of the first loop I was wondering where I would see Brian.. I looked for him at all the places where people where standing and didn’t see him.. I was beginning to think that I had missed him, worse yet, he had seen me and I hadn’t seen him… one the first loop I did see him.. he had he back to me while standing on the outbound Mill Avenue bridge… I called his name… he turned around and told me to “take it easy”. I smiled to my self and knew that I was going too fast, but having a ball! I also knew that I had an idea as to where he was going to be on the loops. Coming across the inbound bridge he had moved over the divider and I think he saw me before I saw him. It was great to have him there. I usually don’t have anyone, but complete strangers, that cheer me on at races. I saw Brian a bunch more times on the bike. Once the first loop was over, or I was unsure if it was over or not, I started to ride the parts of the course that I now recognized, but there was no sign that said (“Loops” / “Transition”) it wasn’t until I was riding through the main drag of Tempe, again, that I realized that the first loop was over, miles back, and I was now well into my second loop! I was amazed and knew that I was making some good time. So I kept on going, passing people, riding areo, clucking gears, playing with what felt good and what didn’t. It was truly a great experience. The ride was really uneventful, with one or two exceptions; my left knee did hurt while I was was at any thing with watts greater than 145, hmmm, and also on the final loop, the final turnaround (the one that was the tightest, I passed the cone, looked back and somehow ended up outside of the horseshoed cones, I swerved back on to the course, but as I did that someone was already passing me on my left (inside), I swerved to get out of their way and was then heading directly for the curb I braked, unclipped my right foot, put my foot down, looked at the bike tech (who was sitting right on the bed of his truck) and said “almost”, as I said this, my left foot was stilled clipped and I couldn’t get unclipped, before I knew it fallen to my left, and in a heap with Stewie on top of me; my left knee and my left hand broke most of my fall. I looked at the bike tech for the second time and just sighed… He asked if I was OK.. “Yep, fine, just in a mound, I’ll get right back up and keep going.” and so I did. I got on Stewie and tire to ride him, he wouldn’t move very well… something was wrong, I unclipped both feet and the bike tech came over… I figured my back break was rubbing on the wheel from the fall and the brake needed to be realigned. We tried that, it didn’t work. Eventually we undid the skewer (part that holds the back wheel on) and the back wheel had gotten mushed into the frame—hence not being able to pedal… I got on and started pedaling, no power, but this time moving faster.. I made I a 100 yards or so down the road, knowing that there is something wrong (thinking that I hope I didn’t bend the wheels). I looked down off the front brake and it was also rubbing on the wheel. I unclipped, got off and released the front break mechanism (I never use the front brake anyway)… I got back on, and I was off… and this time at top speed! I knew that I was right near the end of the bike course… I biked back into town across the inbound bridge, yelped over to Brian that “I fell of the bike, and heading for the run!”
T2: I came into T2, dismounted and headed over to rack up Stewie… helmet was secured, bike shoes off and started to get ready for the run… all I had to do was peel off my bike shorts and pop on my runners, along with a hat and my lucky cloth (more about that later). I felt really panicky in T2 and had much haste… although my T2 time was pretty good, I felt very rushed… no one was there, they were all out on the run, most of the bikes were racked (I was probably one of the last to come back to transition). I headed out of for the run, while scoffing in an oatmeal cookie cliff bar! Which was a brown looking colour and was also accidentally dropped on the path… I left it and afterwards realized that I should probably have picked it up… LOL… it didn’t look very cookie bar looking on the pavement!
The Run:
The run started out bad, and I mean bad… I was going too fast… well too fast for the weather. I physically had to make myself stop running and start walking. I started running at a 7:22 min/mile pace, although I tried stowing down, I couldn’t and I knew it would be a matter of a mile or two before I bonked… so the walking ensued… and a bloody good executive decision that was too… before I realized it I was at mile 1 and and 9:20 pace… I got to the water station, picked up as many cups of water/Gatorade/ice that I could carry and drank every last drop, not to mention, chomped down as much ice as possible, stuffed ice in my hat, ice down my tri top, and ice down my shorts… chilly, but it felt good! I could that the next 12.1 miles were going to be tough, as it was approximately 90 degrees, and the beating down sun, with virtually, NO shade… 2 weeks prior I had a new PR for half marathon in 2hours 1minute and 46seconds, I knew that I was adding at least 30 minutes to this half marathon today… my strategy to utilized the best resources become that of the Rhode Island.. ( and also Yoda’s phrase ) “run when you can, walk if you have to, and crawl when you need to…” luckily I didn’t have to crawl, but there was plenty of times that I enacted the ‘run/walk’ policy. My main goal, was not to finish, although there was not doubt as to that, but really to ‘test’ out the course, see how the nutrition feels, the heat, the crowds, the course, so time wasn’t a compelling factor by any means, but it was fun to just go and play on the Ironman course. As I ran down the side of the lake and under the bridge, there was Brian, standing on the bridge… I yelled to him that I was running and walking, and it was going to be a loooonnnnnngggg run… at this point I had come across a water station and grabbed as much ice as possible. I had ice in my hat, down my shirt, down my shorts and down my back. I had also put ice in my ‘lucky cloth’ and soaked it wet with water. I began to use the cloth the keep me cool by rubbing my entire body with the ice, face, neck, back, legs, arms, etc… one guy ran by me and said “Trying to make your self look pretty?”, my reply was “Yup pretty as a peach!”… another guy said that I was a genius for figuring out how to stay cool, especially with a cloth… and that he would use it in Ironman next month… it worked for me, and every water station, not only did I rehydrate, but I refreshed my ‘lucky blue cloth’ with ice and water, and kept myself cool. I found that I could run longer, with less walk breaks. By the end of the first loop my best friend in the world was standing at the side of Brian… I felt strong at that point and ran by them… saying ‘hi’ as I went on by. Lauren said that I looked strong and keep going. Brian said the same… it wasn’t until I turned the corner after I saw them I that had to nip into the loo for a much needed wee—-i don’t think they saw me stop… afterwards I continued running with occasional walk breaks at water stations. Walking was less consistent, and running (no matter how slow as covering the miles). The loops were essentially around the lake, on the opposite side of the lake Lauren and Brian was looking down on the run course from the bridge, I had already taken a walk break at this point and the sun wasn’t the only thing that was giving me a roasting, Lauren and Brian was chirping at my head to keep moving… what they didn’t understand is that it was hot and it was the only time I had really stopped the run to truly recover from when the last saw me (expect for the wee stop). The last 2-3 miles of the course were definitely hot and had taken some wear on me… As I approached the point of the “Loop / Finish” line I veered to the left for the finish line, I ran up the corral, people cheering me on, people who I had never met, people high-5’ing me and saying well done. I was looking for the feeling of my first half ironman, and the elation that I felt… It wasn’t there for this race… well not in the same intensity, but turning the last corner and seeing the finish line and my best friend standing there, with Brian, made it a great race. I have to admit that I did bound across the finish line with tons more energy asking “when I can do the next one”, and that “it was brilliant”. Yet at the same time, there was a huge knot in my stomach, because, next month is the real thing, 140.6 miles of Ironman, on the same course. Granted the temperature will be a little bit cooler, my butt will hurt from riding for 6+hours and I’ll probably be doing more walking on the run than running, but moreover, every moment of my training has been thought of “this is all training for the big event”; every feeling of “This is how it will feel in Ironman”… I might not have had the same feeling as Ironman 70.3 Rhode Island > this was a long training day… plus I’m not sure what I’ll do when I cross that finish line… My only goal will be to finish the course. I’m not sure what I’ll do after the Ironman, I’m sure it’ll be a full of joy, emotion, and exhaustion, but I’m going to do it.
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My friends Alicia, Megan and Stephen cheering on the marathon today in New York, via Sarah’s Flickr
This wins.
I’ve lived on the Boston and New York marathon routes. New Yorkers are way better marathon fans.
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sleepyeyes
sleepyeyes
iamdpbeltran
ericmortensen
iamdpbeltran
