These little beads of sweat…

So, where are they and why do they come out? You know what I am talking about, when it’s a scorching day like today, in the mist of summer and every single move you make outside in the scorching heat. Then add humidity to it and then it’s all over. It’s as though you are swimming in a pool of air water. Every run, you come back with your shirt just SOAKED with water and SWEAT! But where does it all come from?

Hate to say it, but it’s the sweat beads of your skin that just exhilarates your body into a small cool down of any way it can. It comes out of all of your pores, any kind of exasperation, is the perspiration of sweat beads of water, salt, urine (any kind of excess water) and sweat! Although, have you ever really examined these small sweat glands of yours? What makes the glisten of your skin shine so brilliantly in the sun. You know that the only other time that makes a women (or man) sweat so nicely is when they are well…you know….do I have to say it for you? Ha!

But really, have you ever recognized the small beads of sweat? I mean it’s quite the amazing aspect of how water just puddles into these round renditions on top of your head, on top of motionless skin that just beads up and stays motionless. Even while in motion, these small beads of sweat can show up anywhere. Legs, arms, shoulders, that’s really almost all of your skin right there. The very worst is when sweat drives a down pour on your face. Salt just goes into your eyes, leaving you blind for a spit second. The taste of sweet salt running down your forehead to your nose to your lips…Hell even your lips sweat…

Although really I get this stuff from whom I run with. I mean JG won’t let me take a picture of the sweat on top of his head. L brought this blog up when I had see her leg sweat on one running morning. SR brought the whole idea of lip sweat. There are a whole lot of people that think about this stuff…and my shoulder that beads up every so slightly and just stays with me on a run.

No one allowed me to take a picture of their sweat pores…or pretty little sweat beads. So therefore, you all have to see my cleavage sweat beads on my own skin…

Enjoy and happy running.

The Running the Cocaine Trail…

Ok…not at all. More like running the coffee trail or the banana trail for that matter. Colombia was absolutely an amazing country. In short, I had gone over to Colombia, the country, not the college in NYC, to attend a very close friend’s wedding. There, I ran a total of 12 miles and ran twice.

The first day was around the complex that we (friends and I had been hooked up by the bride and groom to stay at this massive sports complex, filled with 3 pools, go-carts, basketball nets, soccer, pool tables and Ping Pong, etc) Knowing that Colombia was a pretty dangerous country for Americans, I did not want to endanger myself, so therefore I stayed within the complex’s 2 mile dirt path radius. Running on a dirt path around these massive bamboo forest that hang over your head, jumping over massive puddles, it was a whole lot of fun. I ran the complex 3 times and was pretty exhausted, but how can this be? This was only 6 miles, one loop around Central Park? I had thought that I had been out of shape, since I had not really ran much before I had gone away.

The second day was our last day in Colombia right before we headed to the airport for an all day flight back to the United States. I had decided to run around the complex for one loop and then out of the complex to see the outside village to the end of the road. As I was half way around the loop of the complex, I see a black stray dog. I slowly panic a little, but continue to run and hope that the dog did not follow me. Little was I wrong, where the dog ran after me. I stayed calm, continued to run and hoped the dog would get tired. Although, I couldn’t shake him, I continued to run. The dog was doing no harm to me, he actually was running side by side next to me or trailed behind me. I was really surprised, and actually glad that I had a running partner. I continued to finish the lap around the complex and then decided to run outside of the complex. Thinking the dog was going to stop when I had crossed the line outside of the complex, he didn’t. He continued to follow me, so I continued to run.

Running in the morning was so beautiful though, I had to run in the morning due to the vast schedule that we had from our hosts. Watching the sun rise over the mountains, looking at the different culture that is so different than America and watching the village do what they normally do on a regular day to day basis, was amazing. I love traveling, love seeing different cultures, love different aspects of life and running along side of the whole aspect of that allows me to see that.

So the black dog is pretty winded and falls behind. I continue to run, although now the village people think I am pretty weird because there is a dog running aside of me. I could hear in the distant as I continue to run that the black dog is being hounded by other dogs in the village. Barks telling the black dog that he does not belong here and that this is their territory. Barks that these village dogs had given me like 2 seconds ago telling me that I don’t belong there either. So I turn back and head back to the complex and reunite with my black dog. As we pass some groupings of dogs, the dogs bark and snarl at the black dog. I quickly whistled and patted my leg for the black dog to follow me and protected the black dog from these groupings of local dogs. As we were in the clear, we headed back to the complex and I had gained a new best friend. I had wanted a dog that can follow me and pace me while running. It was so hard to not give any treat or to leave the black dog, because it had given me a little security outside of the complex. It was hard to say that the dog could not follow me and I had to leave it outside to leave on it’s own.

I later on told the bride, my friend, that there had been a black dog that followed me while running that morning. She stated that the black dog had been hired by her to protect me…I laughed. In all, it was a great trip…and the reason why I had been so winded after my two 6 mile runs in Colombia?

Colombia is a country out in the mountains. Little did I remember that the altitude from sea level (New York City) and the altitude from where I had been staying, were tremendous differences. The air quality, the altitude and the breathing had been different. I had been exhausted because I was not use to the altitude and had been running at my regular pace. It literally felt as though my 6 miler had been a 12 miler or a half a marathon…so therefore, I had been exhausted after all of my runs and all of my activities.

Man vs. Machine?

Check this website out: ESPN

A few days ago, actually weeks ago, on a group run with the NY Flyers, where GW told us about this guy with an amputated leg. Needless to find out that he had two amputated legs and I have great respect for him to continue running. Although this is huge! He, Oscar Pistorius, wants to run in the Olympics, where he has already captured the world records in the 100, 200 and 400 already in Paralympic events. But does his “legs” give him an advantage over the rest of the competitors?

This brings great debate on wither or not to allow him to take part in the Olympics to compete as a regular athlete. Does he have the fair advantage because his “I allow him to spring faster or allow him to get the extra push? Many would say no, yes or maybe. As a sprinter before, I would have to say that I don’t think he has quite the advantage as most people out say. Sprinting is all based on speed, talent and a lot of natural ability. Distance and endurance you can work on, speed on the other hand, I feel, you are born with. Your natural capabilities to sprint and exert a certain leg push and rotation of your legs, it’s all about sprinting which you have to exert this in short amount of time. Most people take their time or have a slower rotation of leg push, which limits their abilities to be a sprinter.

I mean who am I to say anything about that? I only ran in high school. I have never went to States. I was only captain of my high school team, which later I shall blog about my glory days as a high school runner…called “History of Track maniac”…but still…I feel that every opinion counts and would like to hear your thoughts…

I believe that he’s great for entering the next step and trying to conquer any challenge. Let him do whatever he wants to do, if people think that he has an advantage, chop off your leg(s) and see how it feels. I believe you then will change your mind and see the difficulties he goes through rather than the advantages that you may seem that he has. There are a whole lot of disadvantages that come with the advantages and I feel it all evens out in the end. With the times that he is posting up, more power to him…certainly I could never put those times up.

The fascination of fireworks…

“Ohhhh!” and “ahhhh” That’s what you hear on a usual night on July 4th, where it’s the most frequent time of the year that showcases FIREWORKS! That or you are putting on your own show and well that’s just illegal now… Talking about illegal, what is the real deal on sparklers and how that is illegal now days? Wow, back in my days, we had sparklers all the time!

So this goes out to my flyer friend, NC, who had inspired me to write this blog-gete. Yes, I know that I am late in entering this, which also goes out to my other flyer friend JL, who said that he had wanted to see some of my July 4th fireworks pictures and how he had been bummed that I had only wrote about the Nathan’s event…so this is my addendum to my July 4th entry from the Nathan’s Hot Dog eating contest.

So I have finally brought my terms to this aspect of “ooos” and “aahhhs” from the lat e night fireworks after the New York City Philharmonic had played in Central Park last night. So what is it that makes people go nuts about fireworks? Is it the aspect that it’s illegal and the same phenomena about illegal drinking? The whole let’s bypass the law or challenging bit? Or is it the fact that we are brought up in this nature to love colors…never the less when we were kids and expressed out greatest appreciation of fireworks then and always liked them since. Maybe it’s the fact that humans like explosions. Or it can be the fact that it’s an explosion with colored lights in the air. The fancy colors, the fancy shapes, the sound, the awe of experience….it’s all there!Maybe it’s the fact that we only see fireworks on special occasions such as July 4th in a once in a year thing. Or maybe after a cultured event such as the New York Philharmonic or a wedding or I don’t know…it’s special. This strange phenomena is both fascinating and strange at the same time, but still special. The smoke, the sound, the sight…it just facilitates all of our five senses….well three of the five at least.

What’s in your refrigerator?

You can tell a whole lot about a person just by looking at their refrigerator…what they eat, what their daily lifestyle is. Although if they live with a roommate that’s a bit of a tricky situation. Then you just have to trust them when they tell you that “these are their items” and “those are my roommates”…Not that I’m judging anyone, really now!
Although at times you can say that you can see a person by telling of what they eat, although you really can’t. (I know, I know, I’m being way too hypocritical now) In a ways you can, if they eat healthy and have a whole lot of vegetables and fruits and what not, but in actuality you really can’t. Since I live in NYC, people eat out all the time, they barely go back home or barely carry vegetables in their fridges because they don’t know when they will have time to cook them or they just return way too late from work and have already eaten on the companies expense. Either way, you can tell some sort of things about a person just from the certain things they drink to what condiments they use on their sandwich, hot dog or fries or rather tofu burger.

Although, you really can’t tell what a person eats just from the one time that you are there looking at their fridge because they can have a slower week and not cook as much, or they can have a different lifestyle food change of what they are preparing for the week. Either way, you can glimpse into their somewhat life and see what they seem to be preparing and also catch their personalities in some sort of way. From skim milk to whole milk, you can really tell what the person drinks and how they like their milk. Plain and simple…It’s not just in your refrigerator, you can just tell by walking around in your local grocery store.

There had been an article that I had read that had said how people were “shopping” for dates or picking up singles just at their local supermarket places. Hell, if you are the type of person who cares about what you eat and is a pure nutritionist, you would probably shop at a Whole Foods store. It makes perfect sense if you want the same out of a mate, who is conscious about their diet, food or nutrition to be “shopping,” while shopping. It may seem petty, but you know all about a person before we even meet them. Better yet, you know how he/she eats before you even meet them.

OH SHIT!

WARNING: If you are reading this while eating, you may want to stop reading or eating. This may contain graphic content that you may not want to read, so I warn you now. Or continue reading…Enjoy!

This may be my very first blog in which I warn people about reading before hand…wait scratch that, second. The first was probably my very own nudity picture of me being artistic way back when I was in college, oh wait, that wasn’t too far ago.

Ok…so I had been pondering about this blog for days while running, whether to put this in or not. I had been saying “no no no”, but well a recent conversation with one of my fellow friends, let’s call them RED, to make it seem like I really was talking to them about it, but maybe I was talking to myself? Anyways, let’s get down to business, shall we?

Port-o-Potties, peeing and ___? Care to venture a guess in the next P word that I will be talking about? Ok…going once, twice? Ok…so you had your chance to relieve yourself…(or rather leave and stop reading, but your still here reading now aren’t you?) Yes, POOP! There, I said it. I have been pondering about how runners relieve themselves before every race. Marathons, race day, any type of race, we wake up, poop and have it in our daily racing routine. RIGHT? Ok, if you don’t then well…your weird, because we all do it. Don’t be ashamed of it, we all are human now and we need to dispose of our daily waste by yup…POOP! There I said it again.

No but the real investigation was that there is a weird phenomena about runners that we get nervous or need to relieve ourselves, or we have it in our daily racing routine…or even I questioned that we all think that it makes us lighter so we can race faster. That or we just don’t want to stop during a race to poop or pee because it takes time away from our race time.

I mean seriously, what other sport have you played that you can think of that you had such a daily routine such as pooping before a game or race event or what not…maybe swimming (that was RED’s response), a Triathlon, Iron man or I donno? Certainly I had played many multi sports such as soccer, tennis, volleyball and others, these sports you really don’t think too much about it. I mean seriously people, why do you think we have so many port-o-potties before the race?

Do runners drink too much water? We think in our minds that if we pee or poop it all out of our bodies, it will make us lighter? Right? Is anyone with me on this one? Or am I just way too strange?

Post work/marathon Depression

Marathon training is like spending your life at work. For the past few weeks my work has taken over my life. But I still escape to do my base 6 milers and schedule my long runs in-between. Though, as I had taken a month off from racing and came back to do the Utica Boilermaker 15K, I felt good, but still felt as though my legs were not 100 % ready. My next race, the Nike New York City half marathon, is another month, which would give my body and my legs a good recovery period. But lately my work has taken over my life, where in the past two weeks I had been working on a housing competition in Dubai in the UAE (United Arab Emigrants). In my life, I try to keep a good balance of everything, although I do prioritize what needs more attention and at the time, my work had been calling. I spent the last two weekends waking up early to take pictures of my teammates while they were racing in different races. After that, back to work and worked long hours. In all, for the past two weeks that I had been working equaled out to being another two weeks on top of that…so my usual 40 hour work weeks turned into a 80 hour work week totaling 160 hours for two weeks. So whenever you work so much and go home at like 4am in the morning when there is no one out on the streets, you just feel as though work is your life. The day that the competition had ended, the day that I can finally see the sun when I had left work…I had felt lost in some ways. I had lost my identity, went into a solemn feel of lost ness and felt as though I had been going through post marathon depression…

Have you ever ran a marathon and had to taper the next few days afterwards. After a marathon, you get the marathon shuffle as I like to call it. Many of books tell you that there is a time period where you have to rest your legs because you had just ran a marathon for gods sake and you really should. But then you go through this post marathon stress and depression state, which I hate. Just think about it, you have gone through 4 months of constant training, running after work, or after hours or before or going through this routine. Then to all of a sudden change this routine and you are done with the marathon, suddenly changes your life completely. You need something else to do. That is why I have the blog, or rather where have you been all my life? This keeps me occupied for hours on hours of countless topics that I still need to write about. But really, am I the only one with this “depressional” state that encompasses around a post marathon type of depression?

Maybe I need to get a life or something? Maybe I just need to have something else in my life that I can occupy my time with…I need to try something new…maybe a tri or a bi is my next horizon…

Have you ever had post marathon depression?

The Race Numbers

Ok…in different sports, the number is one of the most superstitious things that a player can have. If he/she does well in a certain game or has an ego about their lucky charm, they will wear that certain number. Like in softball/baseball or soccer, etc…a person’s jersey is their claim to fame, their favorite number or some reference to some random number. But some numbers are just special, they have made their mark and represent much more than just a number. Take for instance, Robison Cano from the New York Yankees, his number is 24, which is 42 backwards to honor the late and great Jackie Robinson, whom was one of the first black major league players in baseball to play and break the color barrier that is today. Or Pele, in soccer, where almost everyone knows in the soccer world that the number 10 is his number.

So what does this have to do with running? Well…race numbers of course! Is there a certain race number that you have in mind that in some sort of race you get this race number in one of your 3, or 4 or 5 digit number and you feel lucky for that race? I mean what are the chances of getting the same number at a race from another race? I mean this has never happened to me yet, but I’m still awaiting the day in which I do get the same number. I have once gotten a number on a May race which was 5131, where if you sort of look at it in a different way it could interpret my birthday, May 31 or 5/31.

There is another race, the OBX marathon, where I had gotten the number of 923 and my sister was in the same race and had received the number 924. Where if you look closely at the title bar of my blog, I have an old picture of myself with the number 922, my sister, 923 and my mother, 924…I thought that was sort of freaky about the whole numbering system and race numbers.

This past weekend when I ran the Boilermaker 15K, I had received the number of 1111. What does that say? What are the chances of getting 1111? Four – ones in a row? Luck? Or am I just reading way to into it?

I mean in the Chinese culture, the number 8 is a very lucky number. The representation of a circle in a Buddhist religion means heaven, where double circles or the number 8 represents double happiness and good luck. So whenever I receive an eight in my race number, I think I will do well in a race, well not really, but it is a little more comforting though.

What do you think about your race numbers? Have you ever though about this?

Boiling at the Utica Boilermaker…

Traveling 240 miles out of New York City to experience a race is not much of a feat when it comes down to marathons, but for a 15K? There better be some damn good explanation or real great incentive to run this race. And there was.

Hearing about this Boilermaker Classic from one of my teammates, DG, after a group run, he highly recommended it. He stated that this was the best organized race there was around. I looked the race up, found that the Utica Boilermaker 15K was the largest 15 K in the United States. Hey, I have done some huge races and this one seemed like it was going to be a marathon-equipped event…and it was! But that was not the only reason why I had done this race. There was a more personal reason, my best friend MF, lived close by, in the Syracuse region and since I had been so close, I could catch up with her for the day.

Treating the Boilermaker like it was another marathon race, anywhere exceeding 5 miles (anywhere exceeding a radius from my house to anywhere in NYC region, which runs from my house to the Staten Island Ferry or my house to the very tip of Central Park = exactly 5 miles give or take) you need to prepare for and get up early to “travel” toward the day of registration, since you don’t live in that location of the race.

So traveling by train to car at a total of 5 hours with a gas break and a potty break, JT and I had finally made it to the OUTDOOR expo. Usually for marathons, these “expo’s” are indoors, I have never seen an outdoor expo before. Where we found ourselves getting our souvenirs, they gave out a pint glass with a Saranac logo, which took the place of a souvenir shirt. WHAT? NO SOUVENIR SHIRT? HOW CAN THIS BE? After writing about my shirts experiences, I did not take this “switch” lightly. I was actually quite annoying and JT let me know about it. But I was intrigued by yet another thing…my race number that they had given me. IT WAS ORANGE! The race officials had colored the bib according to your expected finish time. Each color (white, orange, blue, green, yellow, & grey) represented the different corals that seeded people. Orange meant that we were in back of white, which was the group that ran under a 1 hour total time, where white was behind the race elites! It was insane!!!

I am jumping ahead of myself here…So let me tell you about game day early morning. Since my friend lived about an hour and a half away, she lived in the rural districts of Syracuse, where there are cows. Never in my life have I woken up on race day to the smell of cow manure, which is almost like coffee, but has more of a punch! So, I had been right up at 5am, leaving at 5:30am and getting into Utica at 7am for the 8am start. It had been a cool early morning, but later not the case. There were lots of parking all around town which facilitated for the 15,000 15K people + the many that did the 5K and many more other races and volunteers that had coordinated this event. Being from NYC and having our mass MTA subway system, the car parking phenomena only occurs at marathons for me. Buses facilitated people from the finish of the race to the starting line, where you see masses amounts of port-o-potties to facilitate the 15K racers. DG, did not disappoint at all, it was a very well organized race for the amounts of people that had done this and I was really impressed.

Ok…so now back to the race starting line. The race had a certain presence to it. Maybe it was because I was with some of the very elite starters or maybe it was because I had not done a race in about a month. As the start came closer and closer, the trumpet of the Start, blared out the famous Kentucky Derby theme, many people had laughed. The national anthem had played where it really got into you…well at least it really got into me. Maybe it was the large American flag or maybe it was because the race was so close to July 4th. Then, the final arrival where the race started off with a bang, and I really mean cannon BANG!!

Crowds of people cheered along the sides, as you cruised along the first mile. They called this the “international mile” where they had many flags from different nations, cultures were represented, dancers were dancing and floats of different nationalities such as Polish, belly and Scottish bagpipers. All along the course there were live bands playing their hearts out at 8am in the morning. Usually neighbors would be screaming at these hard rocked kids screaming their hearts out to the masses amounts of people running, but not today. Today they were thumbed up, but masses amounts of runners showing their appreciation for the music along the way. Maybe it was the hype, maybe it was the crowds just cheering you on, but I went out FAST and I suffered from it. The coolness of the morning air soon turned into the humidity of the BOILING air of the BOILERMAKER, actually the boilermaker was taken from the Boiler plant that the race starts at that boils the BEER?...but really not. After 3 miles into the race, you wonder why you had signed up for the 15K race, rather than the 5K race. After all, it’s the tradition of the 30 year old race that encompasses the title of the largest 15K race in the nation. The course was a very challenging and hilly course, very beautiful, scenic and has amazing crowd support. Although there was a spot where you go through a golf course, which really looked like a park, which I had thought it was and later told it was a golf course. But that had the bulk of the larger hills. Then you pass by the Utica Zoo, which showcased a lama? Is this right? Because I was told that there was a lama, but I didn’t see any lama on the course…maybe I was going too fast?

The volunteers did an amazing job with the well needed water stations. They facilitated people with water on sometimes both sides, one side (left, which is the more preferable side), the other side (right, which is a little less preferred). They had water and ICE at some of the other stations. WHAT DO YOU DO WITH ICE? I have heard runners crunching the ice with their teeth, but they gave it to you in a cup. I have also heard that some runners take the ice and wet their hands with it. I don’t know. I used it for the water, when I didn’t know from the water cups to the ice cups. BUT LATER FOUND OUT AS A JOKE THAT YOU CAN PUT THE ICE IN YOUR PANTS! I think that was a joke from JT, but maybe I’ll try it next year. There were various water contraptions along the race (showers?), some people brought out hoses to hose down the runners from the Boiling heat.

As the race slowly became closer to the finish line, the 15K is probably the most difficult race to gauge for NYC runners due to the vast amount of 6 milers that we have within the park races. You can barely get the sense of a 15K event and mileage, but in all…it was a very well run race.

After thinking I was going to die of heat exhaustion after 3 miles, I had slowly recovered, ran my race and came up strong. Well not really. Thinking that it was a 9 miler, I used a lot of energy at the 8.5 mile marker and forgot that we still had another .3 miles still to go. Maybe next year I will remember that it is a 15K which equals a 9.3 mile race!

I ended up with a PR and ran an average pace of 6:43 min/mile. Total time of 1:02:07, and yes, I had forgotten, it was suppose to be a fun run…and I had a great time.

Space blankets vs. safety blanket

A special tribute to one of my dearest friends and co-workers, SL, who had given her time and consideration to make something so dear to my heart, which I will never forget because I will always have with me forever.

To many marathoners, the finish is the cherry on the ice cream Sunday. It’s the crème of the crop and the completion of a well deserved training regimen that has lasted 4 months of gruesome, intense cracking the whip. You may remember getting a silvery flimsy tin-foil like blanket called a space blanket which keeps your heat trapped and prevents you from cramping up. Yes, that glistening shiny thing that you may have used as a reflector for the sun, or an umbrella like contraption if it was raining or even a bag like contraption to carry all the free bees at the end of the race, where two hands are not enough to handle the mounds of food that you would need to replenish all the calories burnt from your previous 26.2 mile run. Some of these blankets have the sponsorship logo while others are blank, what you do with your space blanket after the race though is entirely up to you, although most of these are left behind in the trash can or out on the field somewhere.

Ok…so you get that part? Now, what is the safe blanket part? Well, to many people when you grew up, you either had a teddy bear or a safety blanket. Sorry folks, I had the teddy bear and the bear was a koala bear named no other than: Little Brian. When you were little you had to carry the blanket or bear around with you everywhere. Every picture you have probably includes your bear or blanky around. You probably remember some moments when you were a kid, where you cried all night because you didn’t have that security blanket or bear around and your parents were going nuts! Well…I have longed removed myself from my koala bear, Little Brian and have now moved on to a special kind of blanky. My blanky was given to me today…and is so dear to me that words would not describe the joy and wonder of when I had first seen it. To my friend, who is an amazing designer, your touch on an image goes beyond words.

Last year I had ran in too many races, 25 to be exact including my marathons. Also, if you are a runner, you know that with 25 races, you probably would receive 25 different shirts, ranging from a short sleeved T-shirt, to long sleeved t-shirt, to a tank top to a technical shirt to a sweater, you name it, we got it with the logo of the race and date written right over the front. So what do you do with all of these shirts? Many people like to wear their race shirt the day before the race (which I find a fo-paux against), the day of the race or even the time after the race. To me, I have a strict rule about these shirts, I don’t wear them. Sounds crazy, but yes, I have only worn one of my souvenir shirts once, and that was because it had my nickname written in the front of it: Crazy Asian. Any other time, I take it home, awaited the race to end, pinned my racing bib on the souvenir shirt and hang it on my wall.

To some people, they hang on to the good shirts, throw out the bad shirts or give these to good will. Others will use these shirts on training runs and run them into the ground. To me, my shirts are meaningful and is a souvenir to all of my races, either good or bad, PR’ed or not, each one tells a story…and that is why I cherish the blanky that was given to me today.

What do you do with all of your race shirts?

Fun Filled Fourth…

What better way to spend July 4th with a run to Coney Island? Yes, a RUN to Coney Island…I couldn’t believe that it was “that close” because by subway it takes about an hour to get to from Manhattan and the subway maps make the distance looks so much more than it actually is. Or I am just insane about my mileage now, and can’t grasp the concept of what can actually be run or to “hop on a subway” to get there?

Having planned a run already with JM days before, the game plan was quite simple, run to her place and run all around Brooklyn till we end up in Coney Island. We actually made it there in about 1hour and 30 minutes and the total distance was about a 10.5 miler, leaving us about 30 minutes to spare before the actual hot dog eating contest began.

A brief synopsis of what had happened at the Nathan’s Coney Island Hot Dog Eating Contest , they introduced all the heavy eaters in the beginning, a rapper came out to sing with these girls who can’t dance, crowds were amazingly huge and you couldn’t see a thing, started at 12:40 pm and ended at around 1pm. After watching Joey Chestnut and Takeru Kobayashi go head to head (66 to 63 respectively), a bunch of Flyers decided to join the 1 hour line to get some Nathan’s hot dogs.

After scarffing our food down like we were actually in the competition, we strolled around to the beach and happily made our way back to the subway and calling it a fun filled day.

When else can you say that you had experienced a record setting hot dog eating contest day of Coney Island Adventure?

Only on July 4th - Independence Day.

The “clean up”…

…on isle 6….

Many people change when they suit up into their running gear. The running cloths that they wear may symbolize something entirely different from their personalities from the everyday business life. Like Clark Kent to Superman, we may fool others when they actually see us on the streets with regular non running clothes on. The “clean up” of how we look from our regular business attire or even casual attire may have some reactions like…”holly s*&%, you clean up nicely…”. But that’s a compliment I guess, other than the usual attire of sneakers, socks and dri-fit clothing.

But what is wrong with that? I mean the more astonishing effects would be when you see people in evening attire, when people are in suits or a cocktail dress and your like whoooaaa!

You get to see the person and what they really look like…besides the sweat dripping down their faces…but in all, everything looks nice to me. I take the whole package, which explains if a gal dresses nice for beautiful occasions to dressing down in sweats and a t-shirt. Either way, what’s comfortable is comfortable.

Although that’s only the clothes, you can’t forget the gear now….the wrist watches that everyone has when they time themselves, the bandana’s (oh…that’s only me huh?), the wrist bands, sweatbands and oh don’t forget the running hat’s or visors now…trade all of that in for some shiny jewelry and brushed out hair? Yup! That’s the story of a runner, a double personality changing from what we wear…