Ellen Running in Philly

ellen_philly1
Originally uploaded by sean82tf

Since Ellen elected to not post any pictures of herself running, I figured I would do the honors. She did great and finished well under 3 hours as you can see by the clock time (which is probably about 10 minutes fast). Great job! I am also trying out the flickr blog program to see how well it posts on blogger considering they are rival companies. I hope everyone is doing well!

Gnocchis and Nipple Guards

The family reunited for yet another run—The Philadelphia Distance Run—on September 16. Richard and I flew down to Philly and were joined by Sean and Tiffany. Downtown Philly is gorgeous. We stayed a stone’s throw from Love Park. Like typical tourists, we took advantage of the photo op.

Katy and Sherman picked out this absolutely great Italian restaurant, Upstares & Sotto Varalli, http://www.varalliusa.com/. The service, food, and of course, the company were all superb! If you go there, ask for Ed. You won’t regret it. You’ll get great gnocchi, but don’t even think about asking for chocolate covered bananas! This will help you order with minimal verbal abuse from the wait staff:
http://www.merriamwebster.com/cgi-bin/audio.pl?gnocch02.wav=gnocchi

Since S.D. in August I had trained a total of four miles. But I ran my best time this year. It had to be the gnocchis!

Unlike me, Sean had been training faithfully. Coming in with a solid performance at the Virginia Beach Half Marathon two weeks earlier, he was perfectly positioned for a personal best; except for that pesky nipple problem. Speaking with my brother Mike a few weeks back, I knew Sean was not alone in his experience. Mike offered to give Sean a pair of lightly used nipple guards. Since the ideas of used nipple guards kind of grossed Sean out, we went with the concept, but not the actual artifacts. Fortunately, at the runner’s expo we found an answer. http://www.nipguards.com/info.asp

The rest, as they say, is history.

Baltimore / Rascall Flatts

Thursday night, Dad and Ellen flew down to Baltimore and tried out the Washington Metro System taking a bus and the metro to Columbia Heights were I was able to meet them and walk back to my place. For dinner we decided to walk down to Dupont Circle. On the way, we passed throug Meridian Park which is a block or so from my condo and took this lovely picture of Dad and Ellen.

We had a wonderful dinner at Stars Bistro. Formerly called Mimi's, they add a little character with singing servers. Good food and excellent service.
On Friday, we took a stroll through the National Mall and visited the National Archives as well as the National Portrait Museum. It is amazing how much stuff is in all of these buildings that I have been walking by the past couple years and the amount of time that it would truly take to see it all. We got to see about a quarter of what we had intended to, but it was fun nonetheless. That afternoon, we headed up to Baltimore and watched the Sox win. Before the game, we strolled through the Inner Harbor and went on a paddle boat tour. Due to capacity limitations, we weren't able to all ride on the boat shown, but we did get a more traditional paddle boat that we waded around on for a half hour. Needless to say, I did all the paddling while Dad, Ellen, and Tiffany just vegged out. Jk, Tiffany definitely held her own.

On Saturday, Tiffany and I went to the Rascal Flatts concert at Nissan Pavilion back down in Virginia with a bunch of friends. We got there around 3pm and tailgated the event. Talk about awesome people watching. The rednecks just poured out of the woods. It was a sight to see with all of the jacked up trucks with semi-trailer exhausts and confederate flags flying. One truck even turned their tail bed into a swimming pool using the blue coverings that you see on damaged roofs.

On Sunday, I had a softball game in the morning (which we lost both games) and then we headed back up to Baltimore for the afternoon game. At least the Red Sox won. Unfortunately though, after the game we didn't have anytime to relax and get a bite to eat since traffic getting to the airport to drop Dad and Ellen off was a little rough. Fortunately, we'll all be meeting up again this weekend in Philadelphia for the half marathon. With the cooler weather to be expected, it will be interesting to see how that affects performance.

Virginia Beach

With nobody to run the Virginia Beach Half Marathon with me (Sean Murray had to cancel to attend a wedding), I almost bailed on making the trip down. Fortunately, Tiffany suggested we go together and stay with her cousin Nicole in Newport News. It turned out to be a fantastic trip. On Saturday, we went to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg and rode some roller coasters.

As you can see from the picture, left to right, Nicole and Brian (Nicole's fiance as of Wed) weren't having as much fun as Tiffany and I were.

On Sunday, we woke up hecka early and drove to the beach. The race started at 7am. I arrived at 6:50 having not eaten or drinken anything. Good way to start a race. Good thing I didn't have to use the restroom either though since the lines were ridiculously long. The course was relatively flat with the exception of one small bridge that wasn't anything crazy. The first half of the course though was all shady in the residential part of the town and got sunny once we were back on Pacific Ave and running down the boardwalk. It was a fun race that I thoroughly enjoyed. I ended up getting a time of 1:47:25. My goal of 1:45 has yet to be reached, but I am getting closer. I'll have another opportunity up in Philadelphia and then one more try during Fleet week in October.

I'm looking forward to a fun weekend spending time with Dad, Ellen and Tiffany and seeing the Red Sox play in Baltimore. I'm trying to get Friday off to give a tour of the city. Considering I haven't done any of the touristy stuff yet, it will be new for me too.