Showing posts with label swim. Show all posts
Showing posts with label swim. Show all posts

23 June 2009

First adventure race


Between our kid's blog and facebook, it's hard to keep up on this blog as well. Nonetheless, I wanted to document some of the fun I had in my first adventure race. It was the HVAC race put on by Grass Roots Racing, a group out of Pittsburgh that runs a series of entry-level adventure races that don't require the crazy levels of skill and dedication of the multi-day big events. Besides the 'orienteering' and whatnot, the race was about 15 miles on the mountain bike, 100-200 m swim, and about 5 miles of trail running.

It was my teammate, Arn's, first adventure race as well. We had a brilliantly fun time. We didn't intend on winning or coming close to being competetive. It was more about the exploration into this type of racing. I'd like to do the next in the series, but have a schedule conflict. Hopefully, I can do the August one in Pittsburgh with Bethany, and then the last two with Kevin or Arn. Kevin is by far the best runner I know, and I think we'd work as well as a team as Arn and I did. We've talked about doing this for more than a year now, without getting our schedules to work out.

I bought a very low-end, used mountain bike to get me through the race a week before. It's an ok ride for this, but can't put up with the beating for too long.




05 September 2008

Inspiring

This little video advertisement from Pearl Izumi has stuck with me over the last year or so since I first watched it. I love it. I find it inspiring and centering. Sometimes I think about it when I'm looking at that crazy little body that is Silas and wonder about what is going to stick with him: bikes, running, hiking, canoeing, climbing, math... Whatever it is, I hope he loves it and appreciates every second.



20 July 2008

20 July 2008 - Swimming

Another very happy-making event today was going to adult lap swim with B at the Bloomfield pool. Yay!

20 July 2008 - the Pittsburgh Triathlon

The Pittsburgh Triathlon was held today. It was a good time, but somewhat disappointing, as I had been training to do the adventure race for the last couple of months, but couldn't because of a knee injury I got at the company picnic last weekend. Alas. Nonetheless, it was very inspiring to see how many people stuck it out. A lot of the triathletes were just normal people, some with a few extra pounds, some riding mountain bikes instead of $5,000 carbon triathlon bikes... It was nice to see how many were just out there to push themselves and to have some fun. Great day to be on the river downtown.