T'zafrir Elite

Inconsistency

2009-08-06T13:29:00.002-04:00

Continuing with my theme of inconsistent consitency, I'm writing again.

The days and weeks are flying by as September approaches. Soon, very soon, friends will start going off to school, and the population of greater-Concord will begin to shrink.

Tonight, is a bit of a send-off for Gwen, who heads to Ghana this weekend for a semester of studying. We all wish you well Gwen, but you will be missed!

As for me, I'm almost beginning to feel recovered from the weekend. My body can usually handle one night of little sleep, but two in a row is just a recipe for disaster. I need a lot of sleep as it is, so that took a while to get over.

Tuesday I had a pretty terrible workout. I found myself struggling to keep up with Jon by the end. For some reason, anything longer than 200m right now just feels like I'm running through sand. I hate not being in shape, but I know that the more of these workouts I suffer through, the closer I'm getting to being able to run the ones that will go well. I guess I just need to adjust my expectations.

Yesterday, I had my second test in my calculus class, which I thought had gone well but then we reviewed it today in class. The problem with a 4 question test is that when you fuck up one problem there goes a quarter of your points. Oh well, last time a 28% was scaled to a C, so I'm not too worried. I spent the afternoon working on Ableton and in the evening went to Cold Springs to run with the Newton Summer Running Project. I had a pretty nice run with Terry and a few others. It felt good to run at a steady, but quicker pace. I think part of my problem with these workouts the past few weeks is that I'm just not running fast enough most days. It's definitely good to run easy, but I need to get my training pace back down to 6:00 instead of 6:40.

In other news, Phish is on tour again! The boys kicked off the tour with a 4 day run at the infamous Red Rocks Amphitheater in Morrison, CO. I haven't listened to all of the shows yet, but what I've heard sounds good. After a few more days on the West coast, they head back through the midwest and then back to New England for the end of the tour. I'm planning on catching two of their last shows in Hartford and Saratoga.

Speaking of Saratoga, I'm a little bummed out in the Skidmore denied what I thought was a pretty reasonable request for a single room. I guess the part that bugs me the most is that I actually spent a pretty good amount of time filling out a long application with lots of long-answer kind of questions and they responded with what was clearly an impersonal email. It just kind of sucks because I don't want to go into this experience with a bad taste in my mouth, yet I feel like that was kind of a dick move on their part. Is it bad to go into my first year of college already planning a transfer?

I think that subconsciously I must be much more anxious than I think I am. I've started having panic attacks and a lot more general anxiety lately. I imagine it's a whole lot of things, some biological and some enviornmental, but it's still definitely never fun.

Building Up

2009-08-03T17:29:00.004-04:00

I return to an attempt at regular writing already experiencing a problem of commitment. A few weeks ago, in thinking about where I had been a year earlier, I remembered the start of this blog. I started on the first day of August in 2008, which for me, at the time, was actually late at night on the 31st of July. I had been thinking about writing, thinking about what I wanted to write so much for those weeks leading up to that point that I couldn't wait.

Upon realizing this anniversary of my little journal's inception, I decided that would be as good a milestone as any to push me into writing again. I set out to begin writing again on that first day of August and, as with many ideas that I have on runs, I promtly forgot about it until now.

So, here I am. I'm a few days late, but a little late is better than never, right? Indeed.

Build-Ups.

August will be a month of build-ups, of escalations. Almost everything in my life is gaining intensity at what sometimes feels like an alarmingly fast rate.

The building up of mileage in running is a good model for almost all similar build-ups. When one begins to run more and more miles there are strange effects that the body and the mind can handle in different ways. Some of these results are relatively predictable and similarly easy to deal with. As you run more miles, you eat more. As you run more miles, you sleep more. The list goes on.

However, something remarkable happens after a week or even a few days. What was an increase becomes the norm. Your body has a wonderful way of adapting to stresses, especially for a youthful soul such as myself. Before you realize it, the same intensity that was stressing your body to the max a few weeks ago is just another commonplace, daily activity.

All of this for what? Why the stress and the increase and the fighting against yourself? It's simple: we're working towards that catalyst. In running, your looking for that workout that tells you that you're a runner again, that you're in great shape. A build-up is the stress that lies in the fore-shadow of catalysm.

So, August. August is September's introduction, warm-up, opening band (depending on your metaphor). It's that anticipation throughout the month that makes everything seem so much more intense.

I have a feeling that this August will be particularly intense for me. One of the largest changes in any young person's life, moving out of the house (and into college in my case) is only a month away.

I feel like I should write a bit about the last few months, not that anyone is reading this, but it's nice to look back on myself later. Let me work month by month from when I last wrote:

February: I spent the entire month living with my grandparents in Florida. Running was going great; I won every race I entered and built a large base of miles for the spring racing season. They were lonely times for me, though. I missed the human interaction of being around my peers.

March: I was set to leave Florida at the beginning of this month with my parents. What began as a quick visit from my parents ended up being a week long stay for all of us as my grandmother suffered a series of strokes. As things cooled down, my father and I drove from Florida to Virginia for Phish's first concert in nearly 5 years. We then returned home and I spent a week or so in New Mexico hiking and running with Anna. Near the end of the month, Anna and I broke up. More on this later.

April: April is the cruelest of the months. Although broken up Anna and I continued to talk and act relatively civil to each other. It seemed clear that our friendship would last beyond our relationship. After a few weeks, however, I found out that she had been acting with inappropriate duplicity, had lied to me directly about it, and refused to take any responsibility for her actions. That was the last time we spoke regularly. My running was going okay, but I found myself in a rut in terms of racing. I was running about the same times, which were pretty mediocre, and showing little improvement. After searching for a job for a few weeks, I found myself working at Wendy's, the only establishment that would hire me at the time. Between my social problems, my terrible job, and my poor running performances, I found myself very depressed and alone.

May: May was when things started to change. I quit my job at Wendy's and started doing IT work for triple the pay. People started coming home from college and I found myself being more social. I spent a few weekends visiting my brother at Dartmouth where I had a few very memorable nights. Near the end of the month, I finally had my break-out race at the USATF Grand Prix 12k. I started running faster in workouts and was feeling great about the summer and my last few races.

June: June started on a down note as I was injured just a few days before one of my last races. What I thought was at first a stress fracture of the fibula ended up being some nasty tendonitis around my ankle. I was on crutches for a few weeks but once I was accurately diagnosed and taking ibuprofen, I improved very quickly. Duncan and I went camping in the white mountains for a few days. By the end of the month, I had started minimal running again.

July: In picking out my classes for Skidmore in the fall, I somehow ended up taking a 6 week summer course at UMass Lowell in an effort to place out of more classes. I continued running and increasing my mileage at a frustratingly slow pace. I often found myself surrounded by people that I love. The sun seemed to shine brighter.

August: What will August hold? I imagine an increase in intensity. All of the emotions and practicalities of moving out come to the forefront as there are less and less days for me to not think about it.

For now, I'm just trying to enjoy it. I'm trying to enjoy the people, the places, the sights and smells. Hopefully, that will leave me in a place where change is welcome, not needed or feared.

Valentine's Victory

2009-02-14T15:17:00.008-05:00

This morning, I toed a starting line with a few hundred other people andfor the first time since Fenn cross country, I crossed the finish line first. It's true; I haven't won a single race in the last 5 years or so. I've had a few age-group wins and a few good times and places, but I hadn't legitimately won a race until today.

The morning began as any raceday morning would: in the dark. The first light is always the hardest to turn on when it's still dark out. I have it down to a science by now, though, where I can turn on the bathroomlight and then stay in my room until my eyes are adjusted to the light from the bathroom, then I can finally make my way in and face the day.

I got my bag packed up with some food, drink, spikes, etc. I hit the road a little after 6:00am and it was still pretty dark. I pulled off 95 a half hour or so later and sun had begun to show signs of rising. In addition to the light, a thick fog had settled on the Florida inland, restricting visibility to less than 100 meters. I pulled into "Pointe West," one of the the many Levittown-esque housing developemnts in South Florida. I followed the line of cars with "run" and "26.2" stickers and parked on a large field.

By the time I got checked in, got my t-shirt, and had gotten back to my car to regroup, the sun was a giant gleaming ball just above the tree-line. I looked at my watch: 7:10. Still too early to start the warmup. So, I sat back in my car and read about Quentin Cassidy's race against famed Australian miler, Jon Walton. The selection always gets my blood pumping and puts me in my most competetive of mindsets.

I finished the chapter and headed out for a few easy miles before the race. The 7:30 pace felt remarkably stiff and difficult, but I find that it almost always does before a race. In fact, I can't remember the last race when I DIDN'T think to myself "Oh my gosh, if it's this hard to run 7:30 pace, how am I going to run [race pace]???"

Following Quentin's advice, I ran away from the hubub of the race and down a long dirt road for a few miles. When I headed back, people were already lining up, so I headed over to my car to change into my spikes. After my terrible experience with wet socks weighing me down the other day, I decided to risk it and go barefoot. I've always liked this, though I've been known to get blisters.

I did my drills on the way over to the line and a few strides. I felt solid on my strides, like I was getting a really high turnover, so I felt decent while toeing off.

The signal was just a "GO" shouted into a megaphone. There was a bit of chaos but by the end of the first stretch (maybe 300m), I was already alone. I looked down at my watch which said I was running 5:00 pace, so I eased up a bit after that.

Running alone on a quick race like the 5k is a hard thing to do. It's remarkably easy to slow down and not know it when there's no one around you.

Anyways, I came through the 1 mile in 5:21, which I figured would be on the fast end of my goal pace given the quick start (by the way, I will post all of my half mile splits at the bottom for anyone who's interested). Also, before I forget, going into this race Jon and I had set my goal time as 16:40-50 which is about 5:21-5:25/mile pace. Given that I've done very little speed-work and mostly base running and I ran a half marathon 6 days ago, I didn't expect this race to be a monster PR or anything.

Anyways, the second mile was a loop though fog-filled Levittown before heading back to the first mile's road and back to the finish. The course was pretty poorly marked. This neighborhood was a maze of identical streets with identical houses on streets that were all labeled 32nd Ave or 76th Blvd. The turns were marked with flour which I'm sure lasted through about the first 20 runners. With the fog, I'm amazed I didn't get lost.

When my watch told me I was at the 2.5 mile mark, I picked it up a bit. I've been practicing surges at the end of my moderate runs, which I think paid off well. My last 800 was tied with my first for the fastest of the race and I had a good amount of energy to kick in the last 200m or so.

It was a good feeling crossing that line first. I know it may have been a po-dunk race without any real competition, but it was still a good feeling. A win is a win, no matter how inconsequential.

Anyways, I got a little trophy and then I headed back here. I've just been chillin out the rest of the day. I did a bit of grocery shopping and a light pool run workout this afternoon. I'm planning on doing a long run tomorrow of 16-20 miles, depending on heat, humidity, etc.

All in all, I'm much more pleased with today's race than Sunday's half. Besides the ego-boost, I think it was a better performance overall and my time more accurately reflected my effort, which is the most important thing.

EDIT: Here are the 1/2 mile splits I forgot to add:

Pace Total
2:39 2:39
2:42 5:21 (5:21 Mile)
2:51 8:13
2:45 10:58 (5:36 mile)
2:45 13:43
2:39 16:23 (5:24 mile)
0:24 16:47 (Last .1 and Finish)

Lucky 13

2009-02-13T11:12:00.003-05:00

This week has gone by pretty quickly and I have a while free now, so I wanted to jot some things down.

After spending Monday getting fully recovered from my half-marathon, I got back into my regular training regimen. This week may be slightly lower mileage due to a day off on Monday, but I've actually been working out harder than before. I've finally added my core routine back to my morning workouts, and I'm now doing two workouts a day every day except for long-run-Sundays.

I'm being careful to keep my mileage in the 60s, so my morning workouts only consist of a pool-run or bike ride. I find two really nice benefits to these morning workouts. One is that I'm able to basically double my aerobic exercise per day without adding too much more stress on my joints. The other, and if anything this may be more important, is that it loosens me up for my afternoon workouts. For example, I've been doing intervals or tempo on Wednesdays, and I've often found that my Thursday runs feel stiff and slow for the first 20 or 30 minutes. Well, having a workout in the morning, be it a pool run or a bike ride, let's me get that stiffness taken care of before I even lace up my running shoes that afternoon. That way, I may feel a little stiff in the pool, but that's okay. Once I get to my afternoon run, I'm ready to run at 6:00 pace instead of having to waste the first half of the run just getting loose.

Anyways, so that's been going well. Wednesday I did my first interval workout in a while. I went down into Ft. Pierce where they have a pretty nice track. Unfortunately, the track is around a football field which they were watering with sprinklers while I was there. It was almost fun playing gauntlet on the warmup, trying to dodge the plumes of water being shot onto the track, but once I started the workout, it became pretty annoying. My shoes and socks were quickly drenched which about doubled the weight of my feet. All in all, it was still a decent workout and it was nice to get moving quickly again.

I also managed to get some employment this week, though it was only a one time thing. I helped my grandmother's neighbor set up her computer and tried to get AOL set up, which was far more complicated than it should have been. Anyways, I made some decent money, so it's all good.

Yesterday (Thursday), I had a pretty decent run, despite it being 80+ degrees and humid. I did an 8 mile out/back with the out at 23:55 and the back at 24:04, quite comfortably. My moderate pace seems to have settled between 5:55 and 6:15 pace, which I think my lungs have been okay with since Ecuador, but my legs are just finally getting used to. I'm glad, though, because I feel like training with a slightly higher turnover has made me a lot smoother and will hopefully give me more speed when track season comes around.

I got on the mailing list of a local running store and it turns out there are actually a lot of races around here. There's a 5k this weekend and a 10k next, so I may jump in one or both for kicks, depending on how I'm feeling. I often use Saturdays as a tempo day, so this would work out well (and maybe give me the opportunity to interact with some people who eat dinner after 5:00.

Anyways, I'm still not sure what my plans are for the end of this stay. There's been a lot of confusion about when my grandmother wants me to leave/what my parents want to do/how I'm going to get home, etc. I think the current plan is that my parents may fly down for a few days or a week or so and then my dad and I will drive to Phish before heading home. But who knows... it's all crazy, as usual.

Also, not sure if I mentioned this but it looks like I might be heading to New Mexico for a week or so in March with the Hagers which should be a lot of fun. Hopefully, it'll all work out.

So, that's about it. Not a whole lot else to say. I'll try to keep writing when exciting things are happening.

Tyler Andrews' US Half Marathon Debut

2009-02-09T09:06:00.010-05:00

Now that I have my brain functioning again, I'll write a bit about my half marathon experience yesterday.

All week, I've been getting up earlier and going to bed earlier in preparation for Sunday's VERY early morning. Saturday, I drove to Melbourne to see how long it would take and to get my race packet and it took about an hour and fifteen minutes. With a 6:45 gun, leaving an hour to park, warm-up, etc, I wanted to get there at 5:45, which meant leaving the house at 4:30. Yikes!

So, I got up between 3:30 and 4:00 and packed up everything I'd need for the day ahead. Despite the sun not even considered rising yet, the temperature on my outside thermometer read 64 degrees. This was a whole lot warmer than I expected and so I was a bit nervous heading out. The drive actually took me longer and I was a bit late leaving, so I didn't get there until close to 6:00. Luckily, I followed all the other cars (figure that most everyone up and driving at 6:00 Sunday morning would be people for this race) and found a big grass lot that was only a few blocks from the starting line.

I parked and hopped out and for whatever reason, Melbourne's air was a good 10-15 degrees cooler. Perfect for a good, long race. Even more exciting was that the wind was very calm. I jogged down to the starting line, so I knew where it was and then jogged away from the crowd and commotion, into the comfortably cool pre-dawn darkness. At one point, I found myself a mile or so away from the start, where the world had not yet come to embrace the day, and it seemed like even the streetlights were still asleep. Suddenly, I saw something scurry across the street. It was the size of a small dog but moved like lion, sprinting across the deserted road. I was convinced that I wasn't even going to make it to the starting line as I was about to become some sort of strange southern-mountain lion's breakfast.

Remarkably, I made it back to civilization with no more chupacabra sitings. By the time I got there, a good sized crowd had already amassed near the starting line. I looked at my watch and still had a good 10 minutes before the start, so I walked away from the crowd again to do my foot drills and strides. Feeling pretty solid, I began to work my way from the back of the start-line to the front.

There were a few thousand people crowded together at this point, and it took me a couple of minutes to walk through all the pace zones :"9-10 minute miles" all the way down to "sub-6 minute miles." I stopped there at the first sign and looked around. Surprisingly, most of the people around me looked pretty old. Eventually, I would figure out that this race was the US Master's Half Marathon Championship, meaning that these were the best runners in the country (over 40) at this distance. It calmed down my ego a bit when I saw 50+ year olds passing me on the course.

There was a pretty long pre-race ceremony that involved a pretty poor saxophonist, some jingoistic speeches about country and military, and the general welcome that you just want to be over so you can start the race. During this time, an older fellow behind me said "good luck!" and shook my hand. I reciprocated and continued shaking the hands of a few people around me (the good ol CA way). It wasn't until a few minutes later when someone walked by and whispered "There's Bill Rodgers!" to her husband, that I realized who had wished me good luck.

The day before, when I had gone to pick up my race packet, there was supposed to be a signing and photo-op with famed marathoner Bill Rodgers, however, after waiting for 45 minutes with no Bill, I decided he wasn't going to show and left. I knew that he was supposed to run in this race, but I hadn't thought that he would be toeing off right behind me.

I began to talk to him again, realizing who he was. I told him that I, too, was from New England and asked him about his racing, etc. All in all, he seemed like a nice enough guy.

Finally, after the longest opening ceremonies I've ever had to sit through, the gun fired and we were off. The first few miles are the ones I remember the most clearly. The leaders went out slow, and so running my pace I was in the chase pack for the first mile or two. Two 40-45 runners broke away right from the start but there were probably 8-10 of us in that first chase pack. I thought it would be great to run with a pack like that the whole race, but they started to pick it up and go sub-5:30 which was just way out of my league. It was also around this time that I was passed by Olympian and the eventual winner of the women's race, Coleen DeReuck. She was still in shape to run 1:12:00 for the half, so I was okay with letting her by.

And so, as usual, I was in no-man's-land. It seemed like there was this huge empty space between that chase pack and (if there was one) the next pack back. From miles 2-6 or so, I ran with a younger guy, probably about 25, who told me he had tried to register that morning and couldn't and so was just running for fun without a number. This guy was wearing baggy, basketball shorts and a long sleeve t-shirt. I figured, either he's a really serious runner just goofing around, or he's going to fall apart pretty soon. Well, we continued on and he would talk a surprisingly large amount given both of our effort levels. I guess he was just a friendly guy.

The first 6 miles are basically due North. The course is basically shaped like a rectangle around the Indian river, with two long 5-6 mile stretches on either side and two long causway bridges to cross the river. We went through 5 miles in 28:40, which was right on pace (5:44/mile). My goal of 5:48/mile would bring me in with a sub-76 (1:16:00) and I felt like I had gone through the first 5 miles very comfortably and a bit ahead of that pace.

The first bridge felt pretty good. The bridges were long and arched, making them the only real hills on the course. I had dropped my friend at this point and was making pretty decent time going up this bridge. About a third of the way up, a guy came up on my right and told me to stick with him as he really booked it up this bridge. For whatever reason, I listened, and it really tired me out.

Coming down was a nice break, but a half mile or so of downhill pounding on pavement is never all that pleasant. Still, I was able to recover a bit and get back into my pace. miles 6 and 7 were the flat part of the causway and by the time I got to mile 8 in 46:08 (5:46/mile), I was still feeling good. About halfway through this mile, though, we were coming around a corner and I made a mistake that cost me my time. There was a cement drainage channel between the curb and the shoulder of the road, and between that ditch and shoulder there was about a 1-inch lip that I didn't see. Had I cut that corner half an inch wider, I may very well have run a great race. But I didn't see the lip and my right foot twisted and rolled to the right enough to make me let out an audible yelp.

I slowed to a near stop, but continued jogging. It was probably a few minutes before I even started really running again, and by that time it was a whole lot slower. I felt terrible about watching my great race slip away between my fingertips for (basically) being a clumsy idiot, but it wasn't worth putting the next weeks of training in jeopardy. So, I took the last couple miles a lot easier, until I finally felt like I could start to push it again. The last mile I got back under 6:00/mile pace and even finished with a good kick.

I finished the race feeling pretty dissatisfied with my time (somewhere near 1:20:00), but overall very satisfied with the effort. The race was supposed to be an indicator of my strength and fitness. Not only did I get that indication, but I think the results were pretty good.

After I got some water and walked around in a haze for a bit, I found the free-massage-table and hopped on board. I got stretched out and had her work my ITs and hamstrings and it was super-nice. I told her about my ankle roll and she pointed me in the direction of the medical tent. The medic told me that as long as I had full range of motion and it wasn't too swollen, that it wasn't too bad. He told me to ice and and take some ibuprofen tonight.

There were a whole bunch of post-race activities going on. There was a free pancake breakfast and a bunch of booths and stalls giving away stuff. I actually headed back to my car pretty quickly because once I stopped running I got pretty cold. I changed my shoes and put on a few more layers and jogged a couple of super-slow miles to cooldown.

I'd heard that Bill Rodgers would be presenting the awards, so I decided to stick around, hoping I could talk to him or something. Also, I hadn't seen many other sub-20 year olds, so I figured I might get a shout out for being first in that age group. So, I was stuck listening to a ZZ-Top coverband for 40 minutes before the awards started. I did meet a couple of nice guys who had flown down from Maine just for this race. They were masters who were both getting awards and had both run a good bit faster than me.

When it finally started, it took a while, but I ended up getting a Gold Medallion for my achievements. Not bad for a day's work. Both one of the older guys I met and my coach, Jon, who I talked to later, said similar things about winning. I didn't really give this medal that much worth because there really wasn't a whole lot of competition in my age group (the next finisher was 10 minutes behind me). But, as Jon said, "Winning is winning, you can't beat it." I think there's a whole lot of truth to that, and I also think of what Peter Jennings once said about cross country which was "even just being out here on this team you are beating all of the people who were too chicken to even try." I think this is even more applicable in a race like this where my time may not be that great, but the dedication it took me to get here is worth something. Between getting up at 3:30 in the morning, running on a mildly sprained ankle, and just having the drive to want to run a race this long, maybe I deserve something.

Getting There

2009-02-06T14:04:00.003-05:00

It's now been almost two weeks since I've gotten here, and so far, my search for work has been seemingly fruitless. I've sent my resume to a good 30 classified ads, applied in person for 5 or more positions, and put up flyers all over the condo complex where I'm living advertising computer help and general handy-man work. Still, alas, I have nothing.

The week down here has been going pretty well. I ran a tempo run on Wednesday morning, which went quite well. It was the classical example of feeling pretty lousy on a warmup and then getting into the run and feeling all right. I ended up running 22:34 for 4 miles (5:38/mile), which is in the range I was hoping for. Also, I was running into a very strong headwind that probably slowed me down by 10-20 seconds per mile coming back, so the effort was probably close to 22:00.

I've been waking up and running earlier and earlier each morning to prepare for the 6:45am gun on Sunday. This morning I got up between 5:00 and 5:30 and ran at 6:45, which is pretty close to what I'll have to do on Sunday. I'm feeling pretty good about the race. I don't think my goals are unreasonable and I don't have too much emotionally invested in it. I've only been in this phase of training for a few weeks, now, and I wouldn't expect to be in tip-top shape.

So, the rest of the day will probably consist of a nap, eating, maybe a bit of light core or pool running or something just to get rid of some of my excess energy, and getting to bed good and early. I say that every night, but no matter what, I always end up going to bed at 10:00. Every night I say "right after colbert, I'm going to bed." And then I get caught up in something else, and before I know it, another hour has gone by. Oh my. Well, tonight for sure. If it's in writing you're more likely to do it, right?

I'm also gaining some clarity about what the coming weeks and months are going to look like. It looks like I may be going to New Mexico with Anna and her mom (kind of randomly came together, but it should be super cool if it works out) for a few days of hiking and camping and the like. This would be in March, after I get back from Florida and before my grandfather's surgery.

After that, it looks like I'd head up to Hanover relatively soon after. I believe my grandfather's surgery is on the 26th, so I imagine I'd be up there by then at the latest. Hopefully it won't be too cold and snowy; I'm really enjoying running on grass and dirt.

So, today and tomorrow are likely to be low-key days. Getting up early tomorrow again and then probably driving up to Melbourne in the afternoon to get my race packet and check out the course. The temperatures look like they'll be just about perfect: no precipitaiton and low to mid 50s. The only wildcard is whether the wind decides to act up. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Heartless Punk

2009-02-02T18:25:00.002-05:00

Greetings! Last night I figured out how to record some of my live mixing, so I posted a couple on Jam Glue. Keep in mind, the quality is pretty bad because what I did was literally plug my headphones out into my mic in. So, it has that PC microphone hum behind it. You should get the idea, though. I think there are three mash-ups there right now, which I just recorded while mixing around during a set. One is Notorious BIG's Juicy and Massive Attack's Teardrop (also the theme from House). Next is a mix of MIA's Paper Planes and TI's What you Know. Finally, Kanye's Heartless and Daft Punk's Harder Better Faster Stronger. Check em out here:

http://www.jamglue.com/people/TylerCAndrews

Just look on the right and click the play button next to the track listing and you should get it.

Anyways, things have been going pretty well down here. I'm getting ready for my American half marathon debut this weekend. I'm doing a tempo run tomorrow as my hard run and then a mini-taper.

Well, the week has started off all right. February certainly seems a whole lot nicer when there's sun instead of gloom, despair, and snow. Yesterday, I managed to get some work fixing this woman's laptop, but other than that, I've been unsuccessful in the work front.

All in all, things down here are going pretty well. I can tell that this kind of atmosphere is what I need to really train successfully. Other than the environment and facilities, which are wonderful in themselves, I have enough time to get 10 to 11 hours of sleep a night and I don't have a whole lot down here to distract me. There are no parties to go to and stay out late at, nothing to push back workouts. I'm able to really focus on my training and all the other parts of training that aren't running: diet, sleep, stress, core/weights/cross training, etc.

I think it's a double-edged sword though. I've only been here a little over a week and I'm starting to feel a little bit like a hermit. It's not that my training doesn't satisfy me or tire me out, because it does both entirely. I think it's just hard to be a social being living somewhere where there's really no one with whom you can be social. So yes, it's great because I don't have any social opportunity to distract me from my training, but at the same time, I feel like a minimal amount of human contact might be nice too.

Well, that's all for now. I'm going down to the gym to do some core and maybe some leg-lifting if I feel up to it. Tempo tomorrow!

On The Road Again

2009-01-31T14:20:00.002-05:00

It's been a while!

Welcome back faithful reader(s). I've been thinking about restarting the website for a while now, and now that I've had a week to get settled in here, I think it's time.

So, where is here? Currently, here is located a couple thousand miles South of chilly, icy Concord, MA. I'm living on the east coast of Florida in a town called Ft. Pierce, about 3 hours north of Miami. I'm living with my grandparents and plan to stay for another month and a bit. But how did I get here and how did my plans change so drastically? Well, let's go back to the last time I wrote in here.

I wrote my last entry just a few days before my parents arrived in Quito. It seems like an eternity, though it was just a little over two months. My parents flew down to Ecuador and after my stunning Half-Marathon debut in a time of 1:23:25 (at 10,000 ft, I'll add), we flew to the Galapagos Islands. We spent 5 days on a boat, traveling from one Martian landscape to the next. After that, we flew to Peru, took a plane to Cusco and then a train to Machu Picchu, the lost city of the Incas. Overall, the trip was tiring but well worth it.

Upon returning to Concord, I was a little bit shocked by the weather. My first week back saw a cold front move in with temperatures dropping into the low 20s, unseasonably cool. The following week, Mother Nature started to drop foot after foot of unrelenting snow. Yikes!

My training suffered a bit in the few weeks right after I got back, as I was getting used to the cold and the snow. I raced on an indoor track for the first time, with few remarkable results. The weeks I spent back in Concord were nice, though, as I got to spend time with the many people who I had missed in Ecuador. I got to spend a good bit of time with Anna, do some workouts and races with my coach and friend, Jon Waldron, and party like the good old days with Duncan, Paxton, and the rest of the gang. All in all, December was a pretty comfortable and low-key month.

January brought my first running injury in a while which forced me to take off a few days and miss a race. However, I rebounded pretty quickly, running my best race, 16 minutes, for the 5000m at the Dartmouth Relays the next Sunday. I should have ended my racing season there, but decided to push it one more week, despite my body giving me signs that it needed a break, and finished the season with a pitiful 3000m at the poorly run GBTC invite.

We're now up to mid January. The week following the GBTC race was my "off week" from running. I wanted to take a down week between my indoor racing season and my late winter-early spring buildup to let my legs and body just relax a bit. It ended up good timing, as I had to spend the beginning of the week in Canaan, NH with my Mom's parents while my Grandfather was having surgery. All was well, though, and we returned to Concord and prepared for my departure.

After a good bit of discussion in late December and early January, my parents and I had decided that they would feel better and thus it would be better for all parties if I were to spend my winter with my Grandparents in Florida as opposed to my dad's friend who had offered to house me in Colorado. Originally, the plan had dictated that my Dad and I would drive down together so that he could visit his parents and then fly back and we would do the drive in one long day, but the complications with my maternal Grandfather led to him staying home.

So, on Friday, January 23rd, around 6:30am, I hit the road in my lovely Toyota Matrix, packed full of my stuff. I drove about 11 hours the first day, which got me to the bustling metropolis of Roanoke Rapids, NC, a small developement on the border of North Carolina and Virginia. Wanting to get to Ft. Pierce in time to get a run in the next day, I got up and hit the road by 4:30 and drove for another 11 hours or so, to arrive in Ft. Pierce in the afternoon.

Since I arrived here in Ft. Pierce, things have been going pretty well. I have a lot of time and not a lot of responsibility, so I can really focus on my running and everything that goes around it. I've also been looking for work, which has so far been unsuccessful, and helping out my grandparents with their day-to-day needs.

One other project I've been tackling is to become a decent laptop-DJ. Tim Douglas introduced me to a program called Abelton Live, which is a mixing, recording, and producing program. Well, I love music and I think this will be a worthwhile project to undertake. There's actually much more that goes into mixing tracks together well than I used to think. I'm hoping that when I get to Skidmore in the Fall, I might be able to put this to use.

So, what's my plan for now? I'm staying here until the beginning of March. On March 6th, I'm seeing Phish's first show back in Hampton, Virginia with Mr. C, and then I think we'll probably drive back together. After that, I'm planning on heading to Hanover to live with Brett and Erin until summer time. My grandfather who lives near there is getting more surgery in mid-march, so I'll be able to help them with things and also possibly do same training with Dartmouth's track team. Summer is a long ways away, but I'm trying to find a job at a local day camp or something. I've already applied to a few and hopefully at least one will pan out.

In the immediate future, I'm about to head out for a run. I had a pretty tough one yesterday, so today's will be an easy moderate. I've got a half-marathon coming up next weekend, which I'm pretty excited about. I'll keep you posted on how everything is going.

Okay, well, I'll try and update this relatively regularly, but not a whole lot of exciting stuff happens down here. Gotta run.

The Beginning of the End

2008-11-21T15:20:00.003-05:00

Today was my last day working at the hospital, so I decided to take in my camera and take a few shots. It was a bit nostalgic, but I was definitely ready to leave. Though I did meet a pretty nice American guy named Josh. It turns out he´s been working here for a while too but somehow we never really crossed paths.
This shot below is me and my ¨boss¨, Tania, if you could call her that. She is basically the nicest person I´ve ever met and somehow manages to be cheerful, but not obnoxiously so, every day. This hospital is really quite blessed to have her.
These are some shots of the Ludoteca, the play area where I spent most of my time.
The phooseball table, where I spent a good number of hours being not competetive in the slightest.
And finally, this is what my room looks like as I try to pack all of my stuff up. See, I packed it all up on Tuesday, and have basically just been living out of my suitcase since then. Still, it´s a bit hectic.

Anyways, I just got back from picking up my race number and packet, which was fun. Jefferson Perez was there, but unfortunately my camera was not. Still, I got to shake hands and talk a bit with an Olympic gold medalist. Pretty sweet!

Ryan Hall: Living with everything I need, not everything I want

2008-11-20T14:48:00.004-05:00

The always gracious Ryan Hall has written a very nice ¨journal entry¨ available here:

Ryan Hall Journal Entry

Ryan´s letdown at the 2008 Olympics didn´t hold him back from continuing with his life or his running. I´m always amazed when I hear this young man speak and this is no exception.

Also, this comes at an interesting time after Ryan recently announced he will be running in the 2009 Boston Marathon!

Okayalright

2008-11-19T15:21:00.002-05:00

I know how worried you all were, but my toe is feeling fine.

Today was pretty solid. A reasonably normal day, but solid nonetheless. I iced my foot a bunch last night so it was feeling pretty decent this morning. Still, I decided to take it safe and take the bus to work. Unfortunately, having never taken the bus before, I took the wrong bus and ended up farther away than when I started by the time I realized it. Oops! But I ended up still getting there on time.

Work was all right and then I took the bus home and had some lunch before heading out for a run. One thing I´ve noticed is that my moderate runs are getting both easier and quicker. I´m hoping this is a result of both my lungs becoming more efficient at this altitude and my body and muscular system become more efficient at covering ground. Either way, I covered about 8 miles at 6:40 pace and felt pretty comfortable the whole time.

Anyways, I only have two days of my project at the hospital left, which is a bit weird. The last few weeks have gone by really quickly; it´s hard to believe that in a few days my parents come and then it´s adios a Quito.

Photo Update!

2008-11-18T17:45:00.003-05:00

I just got the chance to upload some photos from the weekend so here they are!

The always lovely beach!

My roommate Carla with a beer the size of her head.

Another shot of the beach and the coast heading South.

Yes, I DID eat that whole pizza. Thank you very much.

Me and Margaret, our fellow i-to-i volunteer.

Margaret and Carla at cocktail hour.

I just thought this was a nice artsy shot of a palm tree

These next few are from my run. Here, any CAXCer will remember with great joy Jon´s foot drills. Frankensteins!

Happy and oxygen deprived after 15 minutes and 49 seconds of hard, fast running.

15 Minutes

2008-11-18T13:12:00.003-05:00

It´s been a pretty hectic bit and it´s probably going to stay that way until I get back. It seems a bit wierd that I can now say ¨until I get back¨ and not have it be that long.

Anyways, this past weekend, I went to the coast with my roomate Carla and an older Irish woman who works at the hospital with me named Margaret. It was a pretty solid trip. The weather was actually a lot nicer than the last time we went. Unlike the two women, my main purpose for going to the beach was to run a 5k time trial at sea level to see how my intervals had affected my fitness.

Well, it seems that Jon´s workouts have been doing pretty good work getting my legs and lungs and heart into an unstoppable trifecta. I ran the same route as last time (Early October, 5km, 16:07, 5:11/mile pace) and my goal was to go under 16:00. My secondary goal was to run negative mile splits, meaning each mile is faster than its predecessor. Well, I was able to meet both my goals! I ran 5:08, 5:07, 4:56, with a total time of 15:49, 5:05/mile (average) pace. I was pretty happy with my results and I think that my entry into the realm of 15 minutes can finally qualify me as a decent (pre-)collegiate runner.

The only buzz kill about that trip happened after my time trial when I walked down to the beach for a morning of reading and soaking up the equatorial sun and I saw a big crowd of people down by the ocean. I walked down, not exactly sure what to expect, but with a pretty bad feeling about it. I saw that there was a man lying on the sand and this didn´t help me feel any better. Finally I saw his face and he was very dead. It looked like he´d been dead for a while, too. He probably drowned the day or night before and was washed ashore. It was pretty haunting and a pretty nasty way to end an otherwise pleasant weekend.

We got back late Sunday night and so far this week has been pretty hectic. I´ve been packing and making sure I have enough room in my suitcases. It turns out I´m only allowed to bring one suitcase on the flight out of Quito, so I´ve had to consolidate a good bit.

I took a day off from running yesterday, but today I had a pretty decent workout, despite my time trial 2 days prior. For those of you who aren´t runners, you can probably just skip the next paragraph or so.

I did my usual 2 mile warmup and then foot drills. Today, though, I think I might have pulled something in my right foot during my drills. I was doing the long-walk and I got a pretty bad pain in my right big toe. I stopped and took a few minutes to massage my foot and try and feel where the pain was, and it ended up feeling all right. I didn´t do anymore long walking but finished up the rest of the drills and felt fine. It was still bugging me a bit so I said I´d do some striders and if it was bothering me, I´d call it off. strangely enough, it really only bugged me when I was walking and I didn´t really notice it at all during running. So, I figured I´d go ahead with the workout.

I was able to keep all my times at or below our goal times. The 300s I ran like you said: the first two on pace at 51 and the second two a bit faster. The 200s I tried to get faster with each, but I started a bit fast.

Here´s the workout:

2 Miles easy (7:30 pace), Drills, 4x Striders

2x400 (70): 70.3, 67.2
4x300 (51): 51.7, 51.3, 47.7, 47.4
4x200 (30): 29.7, 27.5, 29.6, 27.4

2 Mile cooldown easy (7:45 pace)

It was actually quite a fun workout. I liked the idea of getting faster and faster with each distance.

Anyways, the rest of the week I´m working, doing another interval workout on Thursday or Friday and my parents get here saturday night! Sunday morning, I think I´m going to run in a half marathon, but only as my long run (so I can get a cool t-shirt). Sunday, my parents and I are in Quito and then we´re off on our adventures. I believe the schedule looks something like this: Monday, we leave early for the Galapagos where we have 5 or 6 days on a boat tour around the islands. After that, we have a few days traveling and then we get to Perú, where we have a few days to see Maccu Piccu. I think we fly home from there and get back on 12/3.

I´ve been spending a good amount of time thinking about these past 12 weeks and I don´t think there´s a whole lot I´d change. I´ve accomplished things with my running that I never dreamed of being able to accomplish, at least not in such a short amount of time. I´ve also gone way farther with my Spanish than I ever could have dreamed. I´ve learned a lot about myself and I´ve spent a lot of time alone.

I´m incredibly happy I did this, but I´m also looking forward to going home. I don´t think these ideas have to be mutually exclusive. I´m all right with the idea that my time here is coming to an end. I am really excited to get back to the States and see my parents and friends and eat good chinese food and pizza and run outside of a city.

The Start of Something

2008-11-11T16:31:00.004-05:00

I did my second interval workout in three days this morning. It was what Jon has dubbed a ¨Benchmark Workout.¨ That is, it´s a workout that will be repeated after another 4-6 weeks of good hard training.

The workout consisted of 5x800 meters at 2:36 or better, with 90 seconds jogging in between each. Basically, it´s 800s at VO2 max pace with very little rest between each. The workout would not only let us know how my body has been reacting to the intervals that I´ve been running for the past 5 weeks but also it would give me a better estimate for what I can run for my time trial this coming weekend.

I was still a bit stiff starting off, so I was almost pessemistic. Nonetheless, I got into my normal routine: 2 miles easy to warm up, full foot drills and dynamic stretching and two sets of striders. By the time I was ready to start, it had warmed up considerably, so I was glad to have worn layers.

The workout ended up going a lot better than I expected. I ended up averaging about 2:33 per rep, which I was pretty happy with, with the last at 2:29.

Looking over my intervals, I´m really happy with the progress I´ve made. This week, the 5x800 workout was a bit less volume than usual, and I felt it. However, looking back even a few weeks shows that I was doing shorter workouts, with more rest, and at slower paces. With that in mind, I´m feeling relatively confident.

In other news, I´m making some progress on my plans for next year, though a lot is still up in the air and seems as if it´ll stay that way for a while. The one thing that I´m feeling quite strong about is that I don´t want to spend the whole six months in one place. This presents a bit of a problem with finding a job, especially with the state of the current economy, but I´m confident that I can find some work.

My thoughts right now are some sort of permutation of the following: Spend December and part of January in Concord living at home. Here I can see my friends, get some work, and run in some indoor track races.

In January, I´m hoping to drive west somewhere for several reasons: First, to avoid (part of) the super cold and icy New England winter. Second, the two cities I´m thinking about living in right now are Tucson, AZ and Boulder, CO (slightly less warm...) which are both at relatively high altitudes, Tucson not as much. Being here in Quito has shown that my body reacts really well to altitude training, so this would give me another few months of that. It would also give me a nice change of scenery, which I´ve found is really important to me. Hopefully I´d be able to find a job in either place, and since both of them are high tourist season (Boulder, skiiers, Tucson, snowbirds) I´m relatively confident I could find some sort of work.

I would head back East in early March to see Phish in Hampton, VA. And then drive back up to Concord. The next few months depend a bit on my monetary state at the time. I have the possibility of living at home, living in Hanover with my brother, and living in Western Mass somewhere. I would try and get a job here as well and continue training and be able to race some outdoor track in the Spring.

It´s an ambitious and complicated plan, I know, but I´m hoping it works out.

Anyways, I´m headed to the coast on Friday early morning. I´ll try and update before then, but I may be busy with work and getting ready. I´m running my time trial Sunday morning, so send me fast vibes if you´re up between 7:00 and 8:00am!

Speedy Speed

2008-11-09T12:20:00.003-05:00

This morning I did my first sharpening workout. That is, I did my first interval workout of shorter, faster intervals.

Most of my interval workouts up until now have been longer intervals (600-1000 meters) at 5k pace or a bit better. The workout this morning was of 200s and 400s at mile race pace or better. Well, it went pretty well. Perhaps a bit too well. Jon told me to be careful not to go too fast, since it was my first workout, and unfortunately, it looks like I did just that. My 200s were a bit quick, with my second to last at 26.1, but my 400s were right on, which was good.

I was luck enough to have my flatmate, Carla, accompany me on my warmup and cooldown and she was nice enough to film a bit of my workout. I put this little thing together to partly spoof the flotrack workout videos and partly because I was bored :P Anyways, let me know if it works:

Unfortunately, the weather was not nice enough to permit us to hike this weekend, but I think that the workout was accomplishment enough. I´m feeling pretty solid about my time trial this coming weekend at sea level. Hopefully it´ll go all right.

Anyways, it´s lunch time!

A Long Overdue Update

2008-11-07T17:28:00.002-05:00

First of all, congratulations to the country for regaining a bit of my faith in one of the most important elections of our time. Yes. It´s true. Proposition II WAS passed. Take that you doubters.

Oh, and in other, less important, news, apparently Barak Obama was elected as well.

I have an awful lot to say and too much time. A whole lot has happened in the last week or so since I last updated.

Last weekend, my roomate and I took a 4 day hiking trip around the Quilotoa Loop in the Andes. It´s a group of 5 or 6 small Andean villages with beautiful hikes between each. The centerpiece is the Laguna Quilotoa, which is a giant Volcanic Crater lake high up in the mountains. We ended up hiking about 50 miles in 4 days at 4000m, so it was a pretty tiring weekend. A more long and detailed report of this is hopefully coming soon.

Other than that, I´ve been working and running and not a whole lot else. I had a great interval session Monday, a difficult but satisfying long run yesterday, and I have more speedier intervals on Sunday.

This weekend, we´re planning on doing a bit more hiking, but just around the mountains in Quito. Assuming the weather´s all right, we´re going to try and summit the big volcano next to Quito.

Also, next weekend, we are heading down to the coast, which should be really nice (again, weather permitting). I´m set to do a time trial down there on next Sunday at sea level. Jon has told me to shoot for 5:08 miles which comes out to a total time of 15:56. A 10 second PR at this level is a pretty big deal, but given that last time I ran this distance at sea level I was running about 10 miles per week less and not doing any intervals, I´m feeling at least relatively confident.

I´ve also been thinking a lot about what I´m going to do with the rest of my year off. The hiking trip made me really miss Arizona for some reason (the terrain is remarkably similar), so I´m going to try and spend at least a bit of time out west. Mostly, though, I need to get some work so I can pay off all these expenses that I´m incurring. I presented a first draft of my plan to my folks which was regarded only as ¨pretty ridiculous¨ so I see that as quite a success!

I´ll try and post more later but I´ve got to eat and then we´re off to see the new James Bond.

300

2008-10-27T16:51:00.002-04:00

As of yesterday, I passed an important mark that has made me think a bit about this trip in terms of numbers. About halfway through my seven-miler, I ran my 300th mile in Ecuador. That´s averaging about 38 miles a week for about 8 weeks.

So, with this relative milestone, I´ve been thinking a bit about my trip. It seems like an awfully long time ago that I was sitting in the Miami aiport waiting for my flight to Quito, but it was actually less than two months ago. Here´s a short list of things I´ve accomplished (that I think are worth mentioning) in those two months (in no real order):

Climbed a 20,000 ft volcano

Traveled out of the country on my own for the first time

Spent a lot of time volunteering

Became (relatively) fluent in another language

Ran a 16:07 5k, 4:40 mile at sea level and a 17:38 5k at 10,000´

Trained sucessfully without getting sick or injured for 8 weeks

Became much more self-sufficient

Realized I really like beans and lentils

Read an entire book in Spanish

Kept in decent contact with friends and family

Gotten plenty of sleep

7 runs of 10+ miles

Traveled the farthest South in the world that I have ever been (Cotopaxi)

Got Phish tickets!

Written some decent music

Survived (almost) getting mugged/beat someone up

Updated this blog (somewhat) regularly

Made friends

Realized I actually am inerested in learning, specifically in math, science, and economics

Read a lot

All in all, I think it´s definitely been time well spent. As much as I have realized that I do need some intellectual stimulation, I can´t see myself sitting in a lecture classroom taking notes right now. This time, so far, has actually made me much more excited for college and has given me a lot of ideas about what I do and don´t want to do there.

Either way, I still have a good 8 months until I have to start thinking about college too seriously, anyways.

I only have 4 (3.5 really) weekends left here, which is really strange. My parents come down to Ecuador on the 22nd of November (I think) which is a Saturday. At that point, we´re doing some traveling around Ecuador and Peru and then flying back together. It should be nice to show them around my now stomping grounds.

But that leaves me with only 3 full weekends! Oh dear! There´s so much traveling around here that I want to do. So many hikes to hike, so many mountains to summit, so many runs to run. I think I´m going to try and do one more mountain with my new flatmate, Carla. There are a few smaller (but still 5000+ meters) mountains that you can do in a day, so I wouldn´t have to miss any training.

This weekend, I´m hiking the Quilotoa loop, a 4 day hike around the Andes centering around a huge volcanic crater and a big lake. Apparently this is also a good way to see some indigenous Andean villages and meet some people. I´m pretty psyched about it.

Other than that, I´m going to try to get down to sea level once more before I leave to get in one more good time trial. Hopefully Jon´s interval workouts have been paying off!

Racing At Altitude

2008-10-25T16:48:00.001-04:00

I woke up this morning bright and early to run in a charity 5k in Quito. I´ve done a few interval workouts at altitude, but no real racing. The morning was quite nice, though as usual, the weather was a bit crazy. I warmed up in sweat pants, an overshirt, and a hat and by the time the race started, I was in just a singlet and shorts. And I was hot. Oh my.

Well, the race went okay. I did my usual pre-race routine. 2 miles real slow, followed by striders about 5 to 10 minutes before the race. Luckily, I got a pretty good spot on the line, it was basically first come first serve, and (no offense), there were a few women right on the front of the line. In a race of a few thousand, there´s really no reason for that... But it was chip timed, so it didn´t really matter.

Anyways, there were a few anxious minutes on the line and then the gun. I got off pretty well. I had told myself that I wasn´t going to get caught up in the undoubtedly crazy start of a bunch of people who thinkg they´re a lot faster than they are. And I didn´t. A minute or so into the race, I was probably barely in the top 100. About 95% of these people were going to run out of gas before the first kilometer mark. The other 5% were incredibly fit univeristy runners who live and train here in Quito.

So, by the 1 mile mark, I had passed a good 80 or so people. There was a pack of about 8 runners about 20 seconds in front of me. I was able to close this gap and eventually pass most of this group. I couldn´t see the leader(s) for most of the race, so I didn´t know exactly where I was place-wise. I felt like I was going at a pretty good clip and I passed the 3 mile mark right around 17:10, I think. I didn´t have too much left, but was able to kick a bit and catch about 2 more runners in the last hundred meters or so.

I came in around 17:38, not sure of the exact time. A bit slower than the 17:20 that Jon had told me to aim for, but all in all, not too bad. I was also in the top 10 (I got a little medal) which was exciting.

Overall, a time that´s about 40 seconds faster than I could run at sea level last year is not bad, especially given that I didn´t really taper at all (did a 14 miler on Thursday). So, yeah, not so bad.

Back to Reality

2008-10-23T09:28:00.004-04:00

Things here are settling back down a bit after the craziness of having so many new people in the house this past weekend. Two of the three English girls left for their projects in the jungle, so it´s now just me, Pablo, and a new girl named Carla who´s going to be here until January.

It´s actually kind of nice to be the source of knowledge for once. I never thought that I would be helping other people with Spanish! It´s also nice to be able to show someone around and show them the ropes and the little ins and outs of this wierd city. I kind of wish that I had had someone here to do that for me when I arrived. Though, then again, it was kind of nice to just explore on my own and figure everything out through trial and error.

I´ve got a long run today, about 14 miles. Hopefully it´ll go all right. Jon has told me to take it real easy, never strain the pace, since I´m thinking about racing this weekend. There´s a 5k on Saturday morning in the park, and it´s for charity, so I figured I`d give it a shot. I would usually be doing another speed workout anyways, so this just takes the place of that. I have no idea what kind of pace I´ll shoot for. Jon gave me some numbers but they sounded awful fast. Oh well, I haven´t raced in like three months anyways, so it´ll be good just to have a break from training.

The only bummer is that this race is pretty early in the morning (I think the gun is at 8:00am), which means I´m going to have to get up around 5:00am. I´ve been getting up around 7:00 though, naturally, so this shouldn´t be too bad. Also, early in the morning its usually not too hot and not too rainy (knock knock knock).

On an unrelated note, I´m really pissed off at the American embassy right now. So, yesterday, I was going to turn in my absentee ballot at the US embassy (it said on the ballot that you could turn them in there and not have to pay postage). Anyways, Maria said that the embassy was quite near my work, which it seemed to be when I looked it up online. So, after work, I hitched a cab, since I didn´t know exactly where it was and I was trying to give my legs a bit of rest.

Well, I got there and the place was all boarded up and there was a sign saying that the embassy had moved to a new address that I didn´t recognize. So, I hailed another cab and figured it would be somewhere relatively close. Oh no. It turned out the new embassy was just about as far away as you could be and still be in the city limits. By the time I got there, I had about 50 cents left to get back (the cab ride there cost about $4.00). I also realized that I didn´t have any sort of ID which I figured I might need to enter the embassy. I was already feeling pretty downtrodden.

I finally got to the front of the line and asked the guard about absentee ballots. He said that the person who deals with all voting issues doesn´t get in until 2:00. It was now about 12:00. So, I said ¨forget it,¨ and hopped a bus. Luckily, the buses are only 25 cents, so I was all right in that department. I didn´t really know where the bus would take me, so as soon as I recognized the downtown area, I just hopped off. It was still about a 45 minute walk back to my house. Oh, and I had forgotten my lunch and water! Pobre mio...

But other than that, it´s been pretty good here. I ended up just taking my ballot to the post office and mailing it for less than the cab cost anyways. Joy... Also, apparently one of my friend´s mother said that absentees´ votes on proposition questions don´t count. This seems mighty strange, can anyone verify? Well, either way, Vote YES on 2!

Pebbles and Marbles like Things on my Mind Seem to Get Lost and are Harder to Find

2008-10-21T14:42:00.002-04:00

It´s been a while since I wrote anything about what I´ve been doing so I guess I´ll give a bit of an update now.

Last weekend, I decided to take a relatively spur of the moment trip to Otavalo. My old flatmate, Benedicte, had just left, so it had been really quiet and boring for a few days and I really didn´t feel like sitting on my ass all weekend. So, I just hopped a bus and headed out of town.

Otavalo is a nice town a few hours North of Quito known for its crafts markets. Any kind of South American or Mexican crafts market that you´ve seen could fit in a tenth of the central market in Otavalo. It was incredibly overwhelming but it was nice. I spent a good amount of time practicing my haggling skills, which I honed in and eventually became a haggling machine.

So, I bought some gifts for friends and family and then did some nice running out of the city. On Sunday, I did one of my hardest runs yet, which started in the town (about 9000 ft) and then ran up to a series of high mountain lakes (about 13,000 ft) and back down. So, about 4,000 ft of elevation change and about 30k. Not too shabby. The lakes are at the top of this mountain:

I also did some hiking around in the forests and mountains which was nice.

Oh, and there was also a really cool rehabilitation center for Raptors (bird of prey). I spent an afternoon wandering around here checking out the super cool birds. I even got to see a few Andean Condor, the largest flying bird in the world! Sweet!

Trying to get back to the town from the park was interesting, since it was in the middle of nowhere. I was afraid I was going to have to walk the 6 miles back (after my long run), but luckily, I hitched a ride with a bus full of German tourists. Always an adventure...

Anyways, so then this past week was pretty uneventful. I went to work, ran, ate, slept, watched some Spanish cartoons (which is actually remarkably helpful). It was pretty quiet.

This past weekend, I stayed around here. I tried and failed to get face value Phish tickets. Sunday night, a new girl showed up who is going to be here until January. It was really, really nice just to have somebody to talk to for once. She doesn´t speak a lot of Spanish, so I kind of showed her the ropes. It was nice.

Then yesterday, two other English girls showed up who are only here for a few days. They were pretty social and so we went out last night, which was fun. It was good to get out and do something and go to bed after 9:00. I didn´t drink though, because I had intervals to run this morning.

Speaking of intervals, my workout didn´t go too stupendously. I´ve been used to being able to run a few seconds faster than Jon tells me, and this was the first workout where I´ve been a few seconds behind. The workout was 6x800m in three sets of two. The first one a bit slower than VO2 max pace and the second a bit faster (2:36, 2:32). Anyways, I actually felt pretty solid warming up and doing striders, so I had high hopes. But alas, the times just weren´t quite there. I would go through 400m right about on pace and then run out of gas (oxygen) around 500 or 600m. So, my paces were closer to 2:38, 2:36, but oh well. It´s still much faster than the last 800m workout I did at sea level!

Anyways, so that´s about it. I´m thinking about racing 5k this Saturday in Quito. It´s for charity and I could just run it as a tempo run, so we´ll see.

Return of the King?

2008-10-20T15:28:00.003-04:00

Thanks to Tim Douglas, my Ecuadorian bubble was recently burst as I learned about rapper T.I.´s newest release ¨The Paper Trail.¨

Without a CD player or bit torrent, it was a little more difficult than usual to find a copy of this album to listen to. Having been a TI fan since his release of ¨King¨ in 2006, I was pretty excited about his newest release. I rediscovered his 2007 release ¨TI vs TIP¨ over the summer and found there were actually a few tracks that were really great. With this, I was excited for an album full of ¨Watch What you Say¨s and ¨What you Know.¨

Unfortunately, I found an album that seems like it was produced by monkeys trying to reproduce the hits of the past year on BET. I found an album with tracks full of imitation of styles that didn´t sound like the TI I know and love. Where is that heavy synth and dirty south beat that was so typical of his first two albums? Where is the almost laughably bad-ass lyrics (¨I´m da dope man, nigga¨) from TI vs TIP.

This album was an all right pop-rap album, and I´m sure it will sell millions. But for TI, this was a disappointment to me. The most popular track, so far, ¨Whatever you Like,¨ is a cute, R&B sounding tune in which TI sings about how he will ¨blow a few stacks¨ on that special girl. This song sounds like a radio hit from Fabulous or some similar R&B guy. Come on, dude.

The one track worth listening to is, as usual, the Just Blaze produced ¨Live your Life.¨ Other than that, you can save your time and just listen to ¨King.¨

I Hate Ticketmaster

2008-10-18T16:48:00.002-04:00

Ticketmaster has got to be the worst organization known to man. I do not jest. I hate ticketmaster and it subsidaries with a burning passion that cannot be extinguished.

I´ve spent a good amount of the past week thinking about how to score tickets to Phish during the general onsale which happened this morning at 10:00am. See, Phish is better than most. Phish had a lottery for a small percentage of tickets before the general onsale. We did not participate in this, but we did bite the bullet and pay quite a bit of a marked of price to a scalper for Friday night tickets, in case things didn´t work out. I figured that even if we did get tickets from the loto or from the onsale, we could easily resell and break even.

It´s a good thing we bought those tickets then.

So, I had a brilliant plan of how we were going to try and get tickets. Between me and both my parents, we had 4 computers and 3 phone lines. I figured ONE of us must be able to get through, and that´s all you need.

Anyways, so this morning rolls around and my plan for the phones was to call around 9:40 and just bullshit about other concert tickets until 10:00 when Phish tickets went on sale. Well, by 9:35 every ticketmaster line in the country was busy. Every single number. You couldn´t even get through to a point where they´d put you on hold. You just got a busy signal. G-d I hate ticketmaster.

The basic problem here is supply and demand. The venue, Hampton Coliseum, holds about 13,000 people. Even a 3 night stand, that´s only 39,000 (and it´s safe to assume that most of the concert goers will go to more than one show.) So let´s say there are 20,000 tickets available. Well, just in the lottery, which wasn´t advertised that well, over 150,000 people entered. Assuming that there are more people going for the onsale, and assuming that most of them have their neighbors, girlfriends, and dogs all helping them, the amount of requests could be close to 1,000,000.

I eventually got through on the phone and got on hold. I got my call answered at 9:56, which I figured would be perfect. But no. The first thing the woman says is ¨are you calling about Phish tickets?¨ It turns out that you have to call after 10:00 to be able to buy over the phone. What?? I can´t even get on hold at 10:00, how the hell am I supposed to get answered in time to get tickets?

Well, I gave up on the phone and just hoped for the best with the online. We still had 4 computers between the three of us, which I figured might give us a chance. Ugh. Getting tickets when there is this much demand online is basically a lottery as well. It´s all about exactly when you click ¨refresh¨ and get to get in the ¨virtual line¨ for tickets. Well, I got in the virtual line a few seconds after 10:00 but, I hate ticketmaster, there´s a little word in a box that you have to type in to verify that you´re not a machine (hackers used to use these machine cheat that would simply flood the servers with requests). Anyways, the word didn´t show up. I hit give me a new word and nothing. I went back (getting out of the virtual line) and finally there was a word there. By now it was 10:00:45 and I knew it was probably long over.

I sat and waited 15 minutes for it to tell me that the show was sold out. Thanks. And then, here´s where I get really pissed off, when you get to the little screen where it says ¨you didn´t get tickets,¨ it has an advertisement on the side for one of its sister companies ¨tickets now.¨

Now, these tickets were $40.00 each. Ticketsnow is a scalping website where you could buy tickets for the low price of $300.00 each. So, here´s what´s happening... ticketmaster is taking these tickets that it has a right to, selling them to its sister site, and jacking up the price nearly 1000%. Not only is this a huge dick move, but it´s also ILLEGAL. Selling tickets above face value is AGAINST THE LAW. It´s a CRIME. How can they get away with this?

I hate scalpers. I hate ticketmaster.

It breaks my balls that most of the people who were able to get tickets (by the way, all 3 nights sold out in less than 8 seconds), were scalpers or brokers who paid 1000 guys in India to sit in front of a computer and click refresh and type in those words really quickly. And then we, the fans (phans), get screwed over because suddenly there´s enormous demand and the only supply is in the hands of a bunch of heartless, soul-less scalpers who sell tickets for now OVER 1500% of face value. Let me just say, I felt shitty buying a scalped ticket, but even though it seemed like a lot at the time, right now, Friday tickets are OVER $500 each.

The worst part is that there´s nothing we or bands can do about it. Ticketmaster has contracts with almost all major venues, so if a band wants to play at anything bigger than Andrew Bernard´s living room, you basically need to deal with them. It´s a monopoly and it´s terrible.

Anyways, sorry to rant and bitch, but this really drives me mad. I haven´t updated in a while and I will try to get to that in the next few days.

Atacames Part III: ¡Vaya Jefferson!

2008-10-10T13:51:00.002-04:00

I woke up Tuesday morning feeling super stiff. My first thought was ¨Ugh, I don´t want to run.¨But I dragged myself out of bed, got some breakfast, and was feeling a little better. We didn´t have a ton of time (our bus was leaving at 3:30) and it had started sprinkling. If I was going to run, I ought to do it quick.

I hadn´t run a fast 5k since the summer when I was only running around 20 miles per week, still recovering from my injury. I felt like, with the good training I´ve been doing recently, I had a good chance at a PR. One of my last weekends in the states, I had run 17:09, so I was shooting for better than that, or hopefully sub-17.

I was so rushed because of the rain that I just warmed up in my racing shoes. I was running on the now empty roads, so it should be a bit faster, I thought. I would run 800 meters out and 800 meters back three times and then a final, all out 200 meters. My goal pace would require me to run each 800 in about 2:45 (5:30 mile).

I went out in 2:24, 2:31 (4:55 mile). Until recently, this would have been a PR for the mile. I didn´t feel like I was running that hard, but when I saw the split, I got a little worried. I thought maybe I should just go for a 2 mile or 3k, but I kept on truckin.

On the second out-and-back, people started to shout things at me (¨corre! corre!¨). Some yelled ¨vaya Jefferson!¨which is a reference to Ecuador´s National star, Olympic race-walker Jefferson Perez. I can see how people mistake us. We do look so similar...

I´m sure that most of them were laughing at me and getting a kick out of this skinny, white kid passing cars and trike-taxis, but to me, the shouts were just cheering and that was encouragement. It only spurred me on to run faster.

As expected, my middle mile was slowest (5:23), but with the quick first mile, I was still under pace. The last mile I really pushed the pace and came through 3 milesin 15:36. The last 200 meters, I gave it all I had to come in at 16:07, a 31 second last 200 and a PR by more than a minute.

I had pretty bad blisters on my achillies from not wearing socks, so I kind of hobbled back to the room. I cooled down on the beach and came back and showered.

We grabbed lunch and then took a trike into town (walking was out of the question for me), got some ice cream and waited for the bus. Much to my joy, the bus only had about six people on it, and none of them were small children! Oh happy day! I took my own two seats so I could put my feet upand relax. What was even nicer was that we didn´t stop in Esmereldas to get more passengers, as I had expected.

Not only was the trip about two hours shorter, but it was infinitely more pleasant. If all bus rides were this nice, I would have no qualms with traveling like this all the time.

We arrived in Quito around 10:15 (only six and a half hours!) and took a cab back to the house. By 10:45, I was sound asleep.

All in all, a solid trip that actually made me like the country a lot more. And I got a sick 5k PR. 15 minutes, here I come.

And, most importantly, Phish is getting back together.

Atacames Part II: I like this town

2008-10-10T13:07:00.002-04:00

For some reason, probably my biological clock, I woke up at 6:30am the next morning. Despite the fact that I was used to getting 10+ hours of sleep in Quito, I was not tired at all, so I spent an hour or so just sitting in the hammock and reading and enjoying the ability to wear shorts. Benedicte was still sleeping, so I decided to walk down the strip and see what what it was like in the light.

The first thing I noticed was a lot of people already drinking (it was about 8:00am). There were a surprising number of people awake already and out and about. I was planning on doing some time trials, so I found a good map with an accurate scale. I walked back on the beach and even hopped in the ocean! The pacific is a lot warmer than the atlantic.

I returned to the room and told Benedicte that everything was open and we should get breakfast. In just about every restaurant, you can get standard breakfast (coffee, eggs, toast, jam and fruit) for a dollar or two. We ate at a place that seemed popular and was fine. Though we did see the owner hitting her 5 or 6 year old daughter with a shoe...

Benedicte wanted to tan, so we went to the pool. By 10:00 it was well over 90 degrees with the sun out. I got bored pretty quickly with tanning and went to run my time trial.

The streets looked pretty crowded, so I decided to run on the beach. I jogged the one mile I was going to run to make sure the course was clear and about two more after that. I switched into my racing shoes, stretched and headed out. By this time, it was nearing noon and close to 100 degrees. There was a nice wind on the beach, though, which helped a little. But it was still HOT.

I ran the first 800 meters in 2:24, which was a lot slower than I wanted. I felt like I was barely moving because I was running into the wind. I looped around and headed back and immediately felt better. I kicked hard at the end and had plenty left to come in at 4:40.

I wasn´t thrilled with the time, but given the heat, the win, and the sand (which is not ideal running terrain), I was satisfied. I jogged back to the pool and cooled off and stetched. I was finally able to convince her to get lunchand so we hit up the same pizzeria from dinner. Since our room has a fridge, we were able to save our leftovers for afternoon snack! Hooray!

The rest of the afternoon was spent on the beach and walking around town. They have a market type area with lots of cool stuff, so I was able to buy some presents for my parents and friends.

Before heading to dinner, we hit up an internet cafe to check our email. About a week ago I had gotten a note on facebook from a girl I hadn´t talked to in a year or so saying something about Phish getting back together. I hear a lot of rumours about this, and did a quick search and didn´t find anything about it and forgot about it. Well, much to my surprise, I had another note from the same girl, in all caps this time, telling me that it was true, Phish had officially announced tour dates. I was still skeptical but I follwed a link she had sent me and sure enough, the boys were back. A three night stand at the Hampton Coliseum in March, 2009.

I immediately sent a message to my dad telling him that it was an emergency and he had to call me right away. We were both pretty psyched and put our names in for the lottery for presale tickets for all three nights. I was in a good mood.

After this, I started to really feel the lack of sleep. We decided to try a different restaurant (which turned out to be basically the same) and went back to the room and crashed. We decided that this would be our rest night and we could go out tomorrow.

I woke up around 9:00, late for me, and we got breakfast. Different restaurant, same deal. But no child abuse here. Mondays are my day off from running, but I still wanted to get some exercise. I went for a nice long pool run in the morning. The weather was nice and hot, again, so it was reminiscent of pool running in Tucson in March. The big difference was that this time it was by choice.

In the afternoon, it was pretty cloudly, so we decided to get a few drinks. The bars are even nicer during the day, when youcan look out at the ocean and the big cliffs down the beach. A nice (virgin) fruity coctail is a great touch on a hot afternoon on the beach.

We spent some time at the internet, where I tried to get skype working but failed. It was then time for dinner. We ate at our usual restaurant. I think I had pizza almost every meal. It was astounding. But it was tasty. It was surprising how few international tourists there were. I would say over 90% of the tourists were from Ecuador.

After dinner, we were walking back to the hotel and ran into a guy who Benedicte had met in Coca (the jungle.) This is really random if you think about it, because Coca is literally on the other side of the country and the fact that he was here at the same time as us was really crazy. He said he would try to catch up with us later so we went and found a nice bar. The difference between Sunday and Monday is amazing. A lot of bars didn´t even bother opening and the few that were were sparsely populated at best.

Her friend and his buddies turned up after a few (still virgin) drinks. They were very friendly and invited us to go back to their hotel which had a private beach where they were going to make a bonfire. We decided against it, though. Their place was pretty far away, and it was dangerous late at night, even in cabs, so we stayed.

The one downside of these open air bars is that there are no barthrooms. So, around 11:00, we decided to to head back to the room for a bio-break. We sat around for a while, debating our plans for the rest of the night, and headed out a bit before 12:00. Much to our dismay, things looked pretty dead. We walked a bit further, though, because we could still hear music and see some lights further down.

Being stupid tourists, we were thankful that a local man told us to stop as we were about to walk into the middle of a pretty serious looking fight. One guy broke a bottle on the curb and that was when we turned around. The lights and music turned out to be just a few sketchy looking people milling around. We talked for a few minutes with a very nice local man, named Luis, who told us that it was very dangerous at night when there were no people around. He also had a herd of stray dogs following him, which he assured us had their rabies shots. Luis was a large, black man with a big scar on his forehead. Between him and his dogs, we felt pretty safe. He was even nice enough to walk us back to our hotel. People from the coast are nice.

I just want to take a second to elaborate on that. Both Benedicte and I were really happy we took this trip because we were both starting to think negatively of the people here. The few people who were nice, it turns out, are from other parts of the country than Quito. Basically, it seems that only people from Quito are really unfriendly. Everyone we came in contact with in the coast was incredibly nice. I think this trip has really changed my opinion about Ecuadorian people.

Anyways, we got back to our hotel safe and sound. We were a little bummed that our night to party had gotten cut short, but oh well. I crawled into bed still a bit shaken upand did not sleep very well.

Atacames Part I: Vamos a la Playa

2008-10-09T18:44:00.007-04:00

Driving from Quito to Atacames is a vacation in itself. As with any vacation, it can be a peaceful, quiet time for relaxation or you can find yourself at the mercy of constant annoyances and you want nothing more than to go home.

My flat mate, Benedicte, and I had decided to use this week (her last weekend in Ecuador) to splurge a bit and have a mindless self indulgent weekend at the beach. Ecuador has a good amount of coast with some towns famous for their beauty and atmosphere. María, my homestay mother, recommended that we go to Atacames. It was known to have a bit of a wild reputation, or so says ¨The Lonely Planet,¨ but it´s a touristy destination which means it should be nice.

In our spirit of splurging, we decided to book a room in advance at the Villas Arco Iris, billed in the lonely planet as ¨Atacames´ cosiest destination¨. Sounds good!

I was a little nervous because the trip was basically piggy-backed onto Benedicte´s weel-long Jungle trip. She was scheduled to return to Quito around 5:00am saturday morning, and we were trying to leave before noon. I was worried that this might be cutting it a bit close, especially since she has said that she can´t sleep on buses.

Well, saturday morning rolled around and I slipped out early to put in a few miles. I knew we´d get there after dark, so I had to get my run in early. I came back and had some breakfast and still hadn´t seen Benedicte. Eventually, I knocked on her door and found her half asleep but alive and ready to go.

The bus shedules are pretty hard to figure out, but I was pretty sure there was a bus leaving around 10:30. The trip takes 7 to 8 hours, so that should get us there in time for dinner. We had to hurry to pack, but we eventually made it out in time. We got to the bus terminal around 9:50 and got aboard. Luckily, the bus company we used was one of the nicer ones, and unlike the cheaper buses, it only stopped for gas. Many buses will spend hours circling around Quito calling out their destinations until full. This can get very frustrating.

Unfortunately, we got stuck in a bit of ¨hora pico¨or rush hour and it took us over an hour just to get out of the city. Atacames is a popular destination for Ecuadorians (especially people from Quito and the highlands), so the bus was full with families headed for a weekend at the beach.

The drive, once out of Quito, was reminiscent of the American South West. Soft rolling mountains with stark vegitation and sand dominated the landscape. However, every time I opened my water bottle, there was a hiss and pop that reminded me we were going down.

Within an hour, the mountains had become green. We could have been driving through Western Mass until you looked carefully and saw that most of the vegitation was fern, palm, and other jungly looking plants.

Since the drive was supposed to take 7-8 hours, I decided to tackle listening to the entirety of Phish´s ¨Big Cypress¨Concert, which is no small feat (the band played from midnight until sunrise!) Unfortunately, I don´t have great headphones, so I had to listen at a much higher volume than I would have liked in oder to drown out the loud and incredibly violent spanish movie being shown. I think I probably have irreversable hearing damage.

Anyways, within afew hours, we began to descend really seriously. The enviornment around us became serious jungleas we plunged into a canyon. This was the only part of the ride that I actually enjoyed. We were driving along the wall of a canyon. A few feet to our right was almost a cliff that dropped several hundred feet into the dense jungle and riverbed below. I kept seeing signs that said ¨¡Reduzca Velocidad AHORA!¨(Reduce speed NOW!) and waited for us to go tumbling over the edge. Luckily, we made it.

Once we descended a few thousand feet, we entered the aptly named Cloud Forest, which reduced the view to about 10 feet on either side of the bus. It was at this point, after about four hours of traveling, that the children on the bus began to get antsy. It seemed that we were surrounded by families with little kids as we were pummeled with noise from nearly every direction. A little girl actually began to play the recorder, which happens to be the most shrill and obnoxious instrument ever created. I went on for hours.

Around 3:00, we stopped to get gas. There was a convenience store and fast food place, so we got some chips and candy to keep us occupied. We picked up a few more passengers, including a large black woman who sat across from us. About 30 minutes later, I heard a commotion and loked over to see that she had been carrying a live chicken, held upside down by its legs. And I thought I was uncomfortable!

The only stop we made was in the city of Esmareldas, a port city about 30 minutes north of Atacames. Esmareldas, to be frank, is a pit. It is a dirty and dangerous city. I´m glad we didn´t have to get off the bus. Luckily, though, a lot of other people did, which made the last 45 minutes almost calm.

After seeing Esmareldas, I was a little nervous to see what Atacames would be like. Finally, almost nine hours after leaving Quito, our bus drove up to a seemingly central area. I realized I was still a little anxious. For one, we had forgotten our ¨Lonely Planet¨ book, a travelers bible in Ecuador, and neither of us could remember the exact name of our hotel. Eventually, though, we got off the bus and found someone who knew where we were talking about.

In Atacames, most of the roads are too narrow and crowded for cars, so people get around in suped-up tricycles, which are basically motor cycles with two front wheels and a bench to sit on between them. Kinda cute, actually.

The entrance to our hotel was on the main drag of Atacames, which was a road right along the beach. On one side were scores of touristy stores with $3 tshirts and hemp necklaces and assorted seafood restaurants and pizzerias. On the other side, the beach side, were about 20 similarly designed thatched-roof, open air bars which looked out at the ocean. We were feeling pretty good about our hotel´s location.

We walked down a path through some very jungly plants and trees and came across two rows of secluded cabins. A man with a long mullet approached us and asked if we wanted a room. We followed him to a main lodge with a sitting area, an outdoor dining area, and the check in desk. We explained that we had a reservation, at which point I discovered that my homestay mother, who had made our reservation, did not actually know my name. It was under ¨Taylo¨.

The mullet man showed us to our room and we were amazed. We had the second floor of a cabin, with our own private balcony which looked over a pool, equipped with our own hammock and beach chair. Inside, we had two large bedrooms, a small kitchenette, and a bathroom (with hot water!!). The book had been right. Cosy it was.

We unpacked a bit and headed down the main drag to get some dinner. We ate at a pizza palce which would become our second home. At that point, a few bars were already beginning to get some patrons, so we decided to go back to the room and rest abit before going out.

Having been on various buses for 18 of the last 24 hours, Benedicte was pretty tired. It took all of my convincing and effort just to get her out for a while. We walked down the strip looking for a place that wasn´t too crowded but not totally dead. We settled on one place with no floor, just the sand of the beach, and swings that hung from the ceiling around the bar.

The town is famous for its fruity concoctions, so we both ordered a few (virgin, of course) drinks. They do have really fresh fruit here. The atmosphere on the beach was pretty crazy. Incredibly loud Latin music blasted from every bar and created a cocophony of noise that made it nearly impossible to think.

We made it back to the room around 1:00 or 2:00, with many of the bars still in full swing, and had no trouble getting to sleep.