Feb 22, 2014

I headed to Valley Forge in the morning to meet Joanna for a long bike ride to Manayunk and back. After we got on our bikes and headed to the trailhead we found it covered in snow and ice still. People on mountain bikes were having trouble with it. So after standing there staring at it for a while in disbelief we went back to the car and tried to regroup. Disc golf! But oh-- the course we wanted to play is closed only on Saturdays. Makes sense. I should probably just drink beer. Not even good beer as it turned out. I went to McKenzie's and tried their sampler. Some of them were average, but mostly not so good. I'm not even sure what it was.

We decided to go to Wissahickon Creek. Surely one of the more popular hiking, biking, and running trails very close to the city must be clear by now. Or it's still a solid sheet of ice with some developing puddles. Well then.

More beer it is. We went to The Abbaye, the one place that can't disappoint! I got a couple beers, we split the vegan lasagna, which was awesome, and then I had peanut butter pie for dessert. Jorge was even there to serve us! And I got the pie for free because they were out of ice cream.

There was still a while until I wanted to go into Union Transfer for the show so I sat in the car and listened to a podcast while almost falling asleep at times until I actually did go in. The World is a Beautiful Place and I'm No Longer Afraid to Die was really good. I think I'd like to check out their recorded music. Into It. Over It. was up next and they were phenomenal. This is the first time I've seen them since I knew the songs so it was even better than last time. 

I was directly up front singing along and it was great except not being able to hear the vocals sometimes. Evan was really funny and played most of the songs from Proper. I didn't leave wanting much. I already can't wait to see them again.

Apr 21, 2012

After having a tasty omelet and a smoothie for breakfast, Ashley and I went to Valley Forge National Park for a trail run. We took opposite directions on a path that was quite hard to follow since it wasn't marked and it branched off frequently. Either way we had a good run and met back up near the covered bridge and ran together for a bit.

I came home after we made our way through traffic back to the city and got ready to go to the Oar House for Turtle Stone's launch party. I covered it for NJCB, but I was there to support Ben as well. Beers were on special and all three of the ones they brought were really good.

It was a really good turnout for them and it seemed like a lot of people really enjoyed their beer. I made a few contacts that I hope will pan out somehow. I'm looking forward to trying more of their beer.

At the last minute Ryan offered me his ticket to the Ultimate Mud Run in Millville so I took it and got my stuff ready quickly. It was an interesting environment and it seemed like the staff had no idea what they were doing. There were long lines and no directions at all. It was hard to find the starting line and once I did we stood there waiting and there was no ceremony to the start at all, we just all started running eventually.

The course was basically all flat so I was hoping the obstacles would make up for it. There were some good ones, like the cargo net. That was fun. There were a lot of tire climbs and stacks of hay bails.

About halfway through it started raining. This obstacle was fun and really difficult. I got almost across before I slipped off one of the hand holds and fell in the water. Shortly after this it started pouring. That's when I really started to enjoy it. Running in pouring rain and climbing over walls and through nets was really fun.

I wasn't all that muddy when I finished, partially due to the rain and partly because there wasn't much mud. I felt like I did pretty well over the 8 mile course. It was an overall disappointing course after doing things like the Spartan Race though.

Kate picked me up and we went back to the Oar House with Chuck. We had another beer or two as the bartenders got weird and started dancing on the bar instead of getting Chuck another beer. It was definitely different.

It was quite a fun-filled day and despite the disappointing nature of the race, it was nice being two miles from my house so I could come home and shower and put on clean clothes right after.