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Monday, September 28, 2015

Two Points

Around 70 but a high chance of rain at TRY time this week. Being late September, this could be our last 70 degree run for the year? (But who knows nowadays.)

A special congratulations to Duerr on completing the Adirondack Ragnar (relay) race from Glens Falls to Lake Placid over the weekend. I am quite sure this is the first time a core TRYer has done such an event? Duerr, think you could come up with a TRY length explanation of what it was like to go through such an extensive relay event? (Let me know on the side and then hopefully could get it posted within 2-3 weeks while it's still somewhat fresh in your mind. Definitely not needed immediately though. You probably need some rest.)

We had a firsthand account of completing the Lake Placid IronMan several weeks ago and further below we have an insiders account of completing a Disney race weekend. I hope other people in the group find these unique experience tales at least somewhat interesting? In some cases it may spur you on to do something similar yourself? Or perhaps reading about it enough to let you know it is something you would never want to do? (Hopefully Duerr will agree to the Ragnar story and we add yet another special event story to our catalog.)

Our general knowledge link for the week is near and dear to my heart. Plus, I've seen firsthand that it is near and dear to a couple others of your hearts as well. You know who you are! This just happened to show up in my twitter timeline a few days ago and I thought it was a perfect thing to pass along - Why Your Nipples Get Hard During a Workout. (Don't you dare follow the advice about covering them up. Don't. You. Dare! Let our post workout erect nipples do us proud!)

We'll finish up with a long look into the Disney race weekend that a few TRYers participated in on Labor Day Weekend out at Disney Land. If you choose to read on you'll learn a lot about the race set-up, a bit about the Disney related fun, and a whole lot about the mind of our Miss Berman, a self proclaimed Disnut. (I made that up, but it works, right?)

A note of explanation - once I learned that media and communications students often take internships that do not provide pay, I've lobbied the local colleges to get me an intern to help with TRY. They finally fell for it! I'll introduce the intern in a future week, but for now her first assignment was to interview Berms, via email, with some loaded questions and see what would come of it. Enjoy! (I'll chime in a couple of times as the editor. It turns out that free help only goes so far and does not get you perfection.)

Thanks for your time for being available to sit down with us! Can you explain to me what this "Dumbo Double" thing is all about? How do the logistics of signing up and even race day work and would you recommend this to a friend? (Even if they aren't into Disney?)

Thank you for being willing to have this interview! Pleasure to be here today! The dumbo double dare challenge is a 2 day challenge of 19.3 miles. Day 1 is a 10k and day 2 is a 1/2 marathon. Any racer interested can sign up individually for a single event or you can sign up for the challenge which gets you into both events. The challenge was around $325 if I recall.  Sign ups for these races are early and sell out fast. Our sign up was in February and there was a little sigh of relief when all 5 of us who had been interested successfully got in! Think the boilermaker on steroids!!! We were all ready to go on our computers at the race opening time! Race day you say? It should be called early early morning race, lol. Start times for all Disney races are pre park opening so they are early! Our start time was 5:30am which means our happy house was up and moving at 3:30am for both race days allowing us time to get ready, eat, walk over to the start line from the house we rented, last minute bathroom stops (usually a little challenging in costume), see any hoopla going on and get into our corrals. If you have run a 10k or more within a certain time frame prior to the races you can submit that race time and info to get yourself in the appropriate corrals. Between all of us, and our race times we started in corral b for the 10k and C for the 1/2. I believe the half had all the way up to g if that gives you and indication of the size of things! I would definitely recommend this to anyone...just be warned, there will be sleep deprivation...but when you are having a ton of fun you just don't care :)

Sounds interesting, does it give you any perks for the Disney park itself?

One perk is that you get to run though the parks while their [sic] "closed". But for after non race times, they did actually put out an offer of slightly discounted park tickets to runners so that was nice!

With that in mind, would it make sense to do this WITHOUT planning on doing the parks thing? It seems like even though they are disconnected, it's only naturally to curtail them into each other, right?

I would not do this without doing the parks. It's totally doable but if you're going all that way, then you have to do it! However, Just remember, with those early mornings, depending how you plan your days, you will not be able to do it all!! This was particularly challenging for me and my housemates had to remove me from the park the night before the 10k, prior to fireworks and shows kicking and screaming?!?! Ok, so that's not totally true, but they were all told that although they couldn't see it my heart was breaking :) due to having our trusty guides Kelly and Aaron who had gone through this drill at Disney world, I knew that this was the right thing to do...this trip was a marathon, not a sprint!!

Interesting. Obviously there is plenty of cooperation with the resort. Do you know if the race is put on by the Disney company itself? Or is it done through some outsourced management group? I guess it isn't really relevant but is a curiosity.

That's a great question [name redacted] and I'm not 100% sure. Everything is called run Disney so I have a feeling it's somehow a subset or division? The photographers in the park were an outsourced company.

Just how big were the races? And is it obvious or can you at least tell after the fact how many of the people were doing the 'double'?

I looked for some numbers but all I could find were 2013 which had 17,500 doing the 1/2, 8,000 doing the 10k and 5000 doing both with the dumbo.  The morning of the half of you looked back from the start it was just a huge mass of people!!!!

We heard from your real estate agent that you were already a Disney "believer" before this. Did this experience do anything to change your beliefs for better or worse?

hahahaha, nope! Still a believer! And now I have 3 new Disney shirts, 3 medals and more pins for my collection!


[Nice set!]

It's obvious from the photos that you had a lot of fun with this. Do you think you will ever grow up?! And how did your level of commitment to the race compare to the thousands of other people around you? Did any other groups match or exceed your level of costume? 

Absolutely not! I am looking to relocate to Neverland someday! The fab 5 (Us of course) all agreed that we were some of the best group costumes out there! There were a lot of great individual costumes and duos but only a few other serious groups! I was surprised by the lack of costumes at times...but we totally stole the show! Got tons of compliments! Btw, Kelly's Sven costumes was one of the biggest hits! Everyone loved it! Kudos to jelly [sic] on that one!


[And she ranks Elsa near the bottom of her list. For shame! Plus a view of the early morning darkness.]

Speaking of costumes, quickly explain how the race day (and the race itself) handles the costume Disney characters.

You mean the actual characters vs us fake ones? There are character stops throughout the two parks...not nearly enough for my taste but that's just me? It looked like overall the majority of people do not stop but if you did, you would line up, have your picture snapped and get back on the road!


[Oh bother!]

That reminds us...why do some characters wear pants (like Mickey) while others do not (like Donald and Porky). Do Disney Believers understand this, or are you as confused as the rest of us are?

I am totally just as confused! But Donald gets very embarrassed if you ask him about it!


[Donald quite obviously not wearing any pants! And getting away with it.]

Speaking of confusion. Your group covered the big "controversy" about Disney acquiring Star Wars with humorous aplomb. Legally the answer is obvious, but in practice, do Believers have a term to differentiate between "core" Disney or "old school" Disney or whatever versus modern movies and purchases? Help us out here, how is this handled on the inside?

This is still a very sensitive subject and is still being worked out! I am trying to blend in with those modernist. It has been very challenging...they are quite determined to bring me to the dark side, lol and have been making me watch the Star Wars movie! Can you believe the nerve! I'm sorry that's all I can offer at this point in time.


[The above mentioned humorous aplomb.]

Well, that is helpful. But when you mix everything together it does admittedly take some getting used to. Which makes us curious, how do you personally rank the following Disney "princesses"? We'll stop there. Please rank them 1-13 (or more if you have any write in candidates that you just have to add.)

4. Aurora
8. Snow White
2. Cinderella
12. Merida
9. Rapunzel
7. Pocahontas
11. Elsa
1. Belle
3. Ariel
10. Tiana
5. Jasmine
6. Mulan
Leia- doesn't count! Hahahaha
That was an interesting challenge...belle is my #1, we're both book nerds.  The rest I sort of went on gut feeling! You did an excellent job with the list. Who was your source, Wikipedia? And I'm curious to know you're [sic] number 1!
[Editor's note - Aurora is from Sleeping Beauty, Merida is from Brave and Tiana is from the Princess and the Frog. I think everyone else is known by everyone? Obviously she is still fighting it since she disqualified Leia.]

That list really drives home just how "watered down" Disney is becoming lately. In the park itself, how do they handle all of this? Which reminds us, what about the "junior" shows that are pushed towards the kids. Does little 'Sophia the first' get mention in the park too?

Yes! She actually comes out to do meet and greets. Kelly almost got her pic with her but it was time for her to leave and do mini princess things! There are also some interactive children's shows, but we didn't do those. Only show we did was the frozen sing along :)

(And don't even get us started on Pirates of the Caribbean! What an entertaining set of movies that is. So Pirate-y!!)

Yes! And there is another one coming out soon! Pirates of the Caribbean is one of my fave rides!!

But does that mean Elizabeth Swann/Turner should get princess mention too? -

Absolutely not! Now you are just letting your imagination run away with you! You are way too princess happy! Hahaha
[Editor's note - you do not have to be 'too princess happy' to appreciate what Elizabeth Swann brings to the table. She was voted the pirate king in the third movie for goodness sake! What a swashbuckler that poppet turned herself into!]

These are such confusing times! Is there a Believer newsletter or go to website that keeps things straight for you?

Yes, Facebook... Thank goodness for all my friends/acquaintances from my time down at Disney. I learn a lot of useful info from the blogs they post and the things they say! I learned a lot about when they were closing the maelstrom in Norway to replace it with a frozen ride. Way to capitalize even more on frozen Disney ;)
[Editors note - "Facebook"? What is that? Is that a book of faces? I really do need to get on the line one of these years to find out what all these kids keep talking about.]

Lastly, we admit that your real estate agent put us up to asking this...but will a real man ever be able to measure up to Mickey Mouse for you? (We can understand if those are some big overalls to fill!) 

hahahahaha, ([Name redacted] - remind me sometime to show you my pic with Mickey in matching overalls, lol) only time will tell!

Well, our time is up. Thank you again for your time and an extra thank you for being so candid and opening up your Disney life to us!

It was a pleasure speaking with you today.  Please let me know if we ever need to set up another interview...I feel as if we only scratched the surface!

Monday, September 21, 2015

The Butler Did It

This week is back to normal for TRY - meetup at OLP at 5:30. With very nice temperatures expected through the week, we are really being eased into the fall season.

A special note of congratulations to Matt who completed his first marathon on Sunday in Ro-cha-cha. Congratulations! Matt has REALLY upped his running game this year and has capped off his hard work with 26.2 smile filled miles. (I'm assuming based on his big grin near the finish.)



Awesome work this year Matt! Consider me impressed by all the time and effort you have put in.

Since I did fool some of you, I want to clarify last weeks "deception". The key line I wrote was "... Malinda Greene who has ran with TRY for her last time". Many of you saw through my word play, but some of you did not (understandably, since you trust me so deeply). The key to have known was that Malinda and Drew were getting married over the weekend, so Malinda GREENE will not be returning to TRY. I fully expect Mrs. BUTLER to show up in a couple weeks and pick up where Miss Greene left off. (So, "for better or worse", you have not seen the last of Malinda, just the last of her maiden name on race results.)

Since there were strong TRY tie-ins, I'll bore you with some of their wedding details...
It came to be that on a Friday afternoon on the 18th of September, in a sun splashed garden, that the handsome groom stood and waited for his beautiful bride to be, to get escorted down a garden path.







As she walked in there was a hint of tears and some obvious nerves -- on me that is -- Drew and Malinda and her father all seemed unreasonably at ease for the occasion. I'm sure the world has seen cuter couples stand before the altar, but in my own experiences I may have seen their match but cannot think of any that exceeded them? (Excepting me and my first wife, of course. But I'm trying to be unbiased here.)



They chose to honor me with doing the second reading which was on the "Foundations of Marriage". (Wisely choosing to not allow me to write my own words! I'm pretty sure I could have come up with one heck of limerick about 'There once was a wedding in Verona' however? I guess the world will never know?) It would be a bit of a stretch to say that I was representing all of TRY by doing the reading, but there is a thread you could pull that would unravel things so far that it could be said that the wedding would not have happened without TRY and the connections that were made through it. (The bride would surely counter that "fate" would have found another way for them to have found each other. Which I will allow is very possible, and that may indeed have happened, but will also say that all we know for sure is what did happen and that the roots of their meeting go back to the second year of TRY - a full year before they would eventually meet and go all goo-goo for each other.) Going further into the mushy-mushy stuff, I know this group has meant a lot to Malinda over the years and that it did help her bond and connect with the Syracuse area when she was still relatively new to it. Some of those thoughts went through my mind throughout the evening thinking about just how tenuous friendships and even love connections can be and just how unlikely the chain of events are that lead to someone finding their forever friend. A teaspoon of the right timing, a dash of availability, and a pinch of chemistry is all it takes for love to take flight.

The reception hall (at the Dibbles Inn) was thankfully strongly air conditioned and was tastefully decorated in an Adirondack and woodsy theme including the tables being named and personalized with names and pictures of some of the high peaks that the couple have hiked together. It was all a bit too "Pinterest-perfect" in a way that makes you want to strangle them and slap them in the face for making everyone else look bad. (The world would like to thank you for raising the bar to a near unreachable level, you douche-nozzles!) All-in-all it was a day and a wedding to be proud of and a memory I'm sure they will cherish for a lifetime. Well done you two! :-)

Monday, September 14, 2015

End of an Era

Due to a return of summer, there was a late decision to shift this weeks TRY run to A & K's in Cicero. Meet at "The Ranch at Gerelick Bay" at 5:30 for the run, 6:15 for the post-run festivities. Grill, fire, water access. RSVP yes if possible as a courtesy to our hosts.

(I had this all set to write, so I'll write it anyway, even though she will not be able to attend.) This week signals the end of an era even if it is not the finale I thought it would be: The longest tenured, reliable, attendee of TRY has done her last TRY session. She literally came into our lives on the run, in the middle of the Boilermaker. Through thick and thin, and at least five jobs that I can think of, she has always made it a priority to make it out to TRY on Tuesdays. She did the overnight running with the Relay For Life crew, when that was a thing, and is the cover girl and winged-wonder of the Paige's Butterfly Run Centipede phenomenon. (Where she also happens to be the only TRYer to be named on the trophy EVERY year.) I don't fully know her stance on recycling, but just having her on board made TRY more Green(e). Unfortunately you do not get to send her off in person this week...so, instead, take a moment out of your day to bid a fond farewell to Malinda Greene who has ran with TRY for her last time. :-(

Since I may not have provided even one paragraph of actual useful content this year...I thought I owed it to you to do a little field trip. So, on Friday morning I headed off to the extension of the West Shore Trail and did a little photo journalism. The trail reopened a week or two ago but I did not want to fight fair traffic and parking to see it. Instead, on a nice and still warm late summer morning I pulled into the parking lot to find about 20 cars in there (busier than I figured! There were even more than 20 cars when I finished up over 1 1/2 hours later). I walked with the double stroller and came across a lot of bikers (most of retirement age), a few walkers, a runner, and even a roller blader.

I did not measure the distance and they have not put down any mileage markers on that side that I could see, but the new ampitheater has to be roughly 1.5 miles from the end of the trail. There is more to it than I realized -  the main building has some sort of "event center" built into it, so the stage building itself looks rather elongated. There are two outbuildings (one on either side, a decent distance away from the seating area) that are bathroom/concession buildings. The mens room at the one I tried was closed, but the family restroom was open, so Joseph christened that with his burgeoning potty skills.

There is also a ticket building and a set of trails (that concert goers will walk in on) that are going to allow for some looping options (and terrain and long and medium hill options) that do not exist elsewhere in the Onondaga Lake park trail system. For now, some of the access roads are only crushed stones, so not idea for fancy road bikes, but for simpler bikes and for running, there has to be a way to do something in the range of 3/4 of a mile loop (maybe even a mile+? as the one "point" is deceptively out there) if you wanted to extend your long run or do some interval runs with some different hill choices mixed in. I'd want to get back there with my Garmin watch on to clock it to be certain, but definitely some boredom busting is available there now. (While still allowing the safety of being on park trails and away from traffic.) The bathrooms being available (maybe?) are a huge bonus instead of having only port-o-johns on that entire side of the lake.

The photos -

Approaching from the Solvay end on the main trail:




The "trail" becomes concrete and splits the seating bowl from the lawn area:



I very quickly counted about 50 rows of seats, so the trail itself offers one heck of a view of the stage. (The trail is supposed to be closed off during concerts but I wonder if they'll allow lawn chairs? Or it will have to remain open for access reasons?)



The view from the 690 side of the trail, looking back at the main building (in front of the bathroom/concession building on that side):



Something does not look quite right (to my untrained eye) about the "berm". But then again, our "Berm" does not look quite right to me either. So who am I to judge?



I made a point to check from above and you can see all the way down into the stage and it should be an unobstructed view even from the very top of the lawn area. (I know there is already a debate if chairs will be allowed or blankets only.)



Now, working backwards from how I took them, these are the buildings and signs you'll encounter after you would park in, or take a shuttle bus to, the huge upper parking lot.

The ticket building (everything is angled oddly - for aesthetics, I presume?)


Some signage:



Look at this one larger if you want to see detail of the entire layout. (The spur off of to the right, is the main park trail that could be used for a very long loop to get back to the "you are here" point.)



That's it. I hope this inspires some of you to get on out and check out the, once again open, extended trail system. It had been a long time for me and I was reminded of just how different the elevated view of the lake is. (With its views of the marina and the Liverpool side and of the Destiny and downtown/dome areas.)

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Whisker Biscuit

The current stretch of ridicu-hot days will last through today and tomorrow before finally giving way to 70 degree temperatures. But for tonight that means we will still have mid-80s at the time of TRY. Scale back your effort accordingly.

Speaking of effort: Sometimes all you want in life is a clam sandwich -

 


But life goes ahead and hands you a whisker biscuit instead -



I've been uncomfortably sick for a good portion of the past 36 hours. Thanks to the generosity of my first wife and her family I've only had to be upright for about 3 of those hours...so it was a beautiful Labor Day that wasn't for me. It would seem I'm over it now, but the matter of re-hydrating and getting energy back will take a while. And at this point there is really no way I can physically run tonight. I plan to be there, keeping my distance, and helping with the kids a little bit though. See some of you then.

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

To Clean The Nipples, Just Squeeze Them

Ugghhh. It's amazing how fast Tuesday morning seems to follow Monday night on some weeks. It's like there is barely a day in between the two? Since Tuesday snuck up on me, again, you get a quickly thrown together post.

It will not feel like September tonight with temperatures still in the low 80s at TRY time. In fact, the weather.com forecast has highs into the 80s all the way through next Tuesday! (Who wants a late September pool afternoon? Maybe we'll have to set that up with this late burst of warm weather.)

Sort of running related:
A couple family members came down for the Inner Harbor 5K, so I got to witness that and was surprised by how small it was. I think there were 200 or so runners (cannot find the results yet to confirm). As part of the Syrathon series I expected at least twice that! But, you can skip a couple of the 5K events and still complete the series, so this must be a very skippable one or Syrathon must not be a very big deal nowadays? It was very family friendly (it supports "It's About Childhood & Family, Inc") with Scooch and Otto and a bounce house and hula hoops...and information and giveaways that skewed young. So, it seems to have a nice niche going for it, but I guess catering to kids doesn't necessarily bring in families? The shorter run was a 2K, so not exactly an easy distance for younger kids so they may be hurting themselves with that? My overall takeaway was that it seemed really small for a Syrathon race.

NOT at all running related:
TRY Night at the Fair was last night and, just as you would expect, it got hawkward!


There were overworked beavers.



(Uh-oh, my baby bump is showing!)

There were silly farm animals.



And we all found reasons to "heart" NY.



(By the way, I cannot be the only person who reads that logo as "I heart nigh", can I? Does anyone else do that?)

Other than that we saw some motorboating piglets and learned some things about nipples and shower heads. The gruff German, for some reason, treated Matt like Poland, circa 1939, (the invasion started on September 1st...so maybe he was having flashbacks on the eve of the anniversary?!), and we shared a Defibrillator...which was interesting and good enough (not great) but sadly was not as battered as I assumed it would be. From that food stand I figured deep fried implied battered AND deep fried, but most of it was simply deep fried.