The Jersey Devil

Hahaha, I scared myself good tonight. I forget how I came about it but last night surfing the web I found the site www.njdevilhunters.com dedicated to searching for the Jersey Devil. For those less inclined to follow the link here's the Cliff notes version. In the 1700's Mrs. Leeds was giving birth to her 13th child in Leed's Point in Egg Harbor near Atlantic City. Due to a painful birth she openly cursed "let this baby be the devil!" And so the baby was born of human flesh but was begotten from Satan himself. Believed to be the shape of a horse but with wings and horns and is identified by a high, screeching shrill. That's him in the picture. He has since haunted the state of NJ killing livestock ever since. As a child growing up in the south Jersey and not that far from where the devil was born it was a terrifying ordeal to walk home from friends' houses at night through the thick pine barrens and swamps. One night when I was like 10 years old I was awoken by high pitched screams from the front yard. When I looked in the front yard the next day there were hoof marks in the moss. Maybe it was 2 cats fighting and huge deer grazing, who knows, all I'm saying is...that'll scare the crap out of a kid.

Fast forward 26 years, I started my run at 8:30pm tonight and it was unusually dark out. When I hit the mile long stretch of road that is completely desolate and runs through some woods and marsh land my mind started wandering to the topic of the NJ devil. LOL, I actually scared myself a little just thinking about it and started looking over my shoulder. I got the chills right up my spine! It was more of an invigorating scare since my imagination doesn't quite have the control over me that it did when I was just a kid. But I'll tell you what, I think I PR'ed that section of road. hahahaha Anyway, 7.5 miles tonight at an 8:23 pace and I felt like a rock star the whole way. It's another short work week so I'm hoping for big run numbers this week, over 50 is my target. Rock on peeps...and don't let the devil get ya!

First ride

This weekend I did a 16 mile long run from my house that I found on mapmyrun.com. It was misting the whole time but not particularly cold, maybe low 40's F. It started off with my normal run route but then shot over to Hartshorne Woods where I did the Battery Loop. It's a giant park now but used to be a military installation so you could see all the bomb bunkers from WWII era. I brought some Cliff Shots with me for energy and I do not prefer them in cold weather. I noticed this on a bike ride before too - when they get cold it's really hard to chew them and they stick to your gums and teeth. Same thing for Hammer Gels in the cold, they get very viscous and hard to squeeze the goop out. I think Gu and Power Gels are what I'll turn to sub 40F from now on. The run was good though and I had no issues other than getting a lost once or twice out in the woods.

Today I took advantage of the crazy warm weather (65F). I washed my bike (I can do that now!!!) and went out for a ride. I found a 50 mile route on mapmyride.com that was for some organized ride called Twin Lights Ride they do in the fall or something. You pass 2 light houses on the ride, which is where it gets its name. The 1st half of the ride wasn't all that great. The roads weren't as rural as I hoped they would be. And the head winds coming off the ocean were insufferable. Pedaling downhill in the big chainring and doing 12mph, it was tough. The 2nd half of the ride was much nicer, it went through some parks and was mostly country farm roads with little traffic. I haven't ridden in a long, long time. My butt needs to get used to being in the saddle for that long again. I chose 2 bottles of Gu2O and a Cliff Bar as my fuel today and my energy fell sharply at mile 45. The ride ended up being 48 miles and I was ready to get off the bike. I better get a long ride in each weekend in Jan to get ready for Spain.

Mudfest

I'm taking today off because I went from 0 miles a week for 3 weeks to 27 miles in 3 days and my legs are a bit sore and tired. But I have to tell you about my run last night. I got home late due to weather and didn't finally get around to walking out the door for my run till 8:15pm. It was about 33F with a snow/rain mix trending towards just rain. It took quite a bit just to get out the door, the couch was my preference. Using mapmyrun.com I plotted another 3 miles onto my new run to make an 11 miler. About 1 mile into it things weren't so bad, then I planted my right foot ankle deep into a 1/2 frozen puddle. I dropped an F bomb as the freezing sensation took over my foot. There seems to be some drainage issues in my area as water puddles up on the side of the streets and in intersections. About halfway into my run is where I tacked on the extra 3 miles sight unseen. I started down the new road and I quickly deduced that I was running on dirt. The dirt turned into mud and there were puddles all over the place which was a menace to try and avoid. So now both feet are completely soaked and I'm kicking mud up on my back with every stride. This is cool. I hit this really long stretch of dirt road through the middle of nowhere at which point I thought for sure I was lost. I thought I had plotted paved roads. It was like a 2 mile long hurdle course jumping over the deep puddles in the ruts. It was really dark, raining, and no lights to be seen anywhere, it was pretty spooky. I think I actually scared myself a little bit out there thinking about how this is the kind of scenario where weird shit can happen to people. The dirt road finally kicked up steeply and I was greeted by an intersection I was familiar with from previous runs, I was probably about 8 miles into it by now. By 10 miles I was starving and didn't have much bounce left in my step. By 11 miles I was just glad to be home. I need to find some paved routes for when it is wet out I think. The safety vest worked great btw.

Xmas lights

My new neighborhood is very festive with their Xmas lights, almost to the point of being tacky. Some might even say they passed the tacky point long ago. My sister Jen said that after walking her dog one night while visiting. But alas we are Jerz folk, and Jerz folk can really do no wrong. Be it 8 ft high Santas, animated sleighs with reindeer, or my favorite - the over sized Homer Simpson nativity scene. I need to make myself stand out to the drivers on the road against all these flashing lawn ornaments and lights. At lunch today I ran out to get a safety vest for night running. I haven't had any close calls yet but I do some long stretches down some really dark roads. I'd rather look like a dork then not be seen and get clipped by a drunk driver. I picked this fine reflective vest up at an actual running store even though it looks like standard issue road construction gear. Last night I tacked on a bit more to my run and did about 8.6 miles. Tonight is 1:30 run which should be around 10 miles. Forecast is for snow tonight so I'm not sure how much my 1200 foot visibility vest will help if general visibility is only 100 feet. Go out and run! Peace.

I'm back!

Thank you to everyone who came down on me for not training. Combined with depression and self loathing it finally got me back on the horse. Before making my requisite 3 trips to Home Depot and 2 trips to Lowes this weekend I drove out a run route I found on mapmyrun.com that I modified just a bit. I ran it at 6pm today in the pitch black. It was a lot of fun running new streets in a new town. I love Central Park but I know that park better than the freaking squirrels at this point, it was time for a change! On the road I run against traffic, and at night oncoming cars make me blind where I can't see the road. With every car that passed I feared I'd put my foot in a pothole I couldn't see and sprain my ankle. But the roads were in pretty good shape and most of my route was not highly trafficked so no injuries on this run. I hit some good hills which I was pleasantly surprised by, you need those hills to be strong. After running up Serpentine Rd, which did just that up the side of a hill, I eventually crested at the Beacon Hill Country Club. The view from there was awesome. You could see the Jersey shore panorama from Atlantic Highlands to Port Monmouth and straight out to the Verrazano Bridge, Coney Island, and the Manhattan skyline. It's no wonder they put a richy rich country club right there. I ran 7.5 miles tonight in just over an hour, an 8:48 pace with no troubles. My life has changed drastically with my move and all my routines were turned upside down. I have to get a new routine in place quickly, one that allows for massive amounts of ironman training. This week I start imprinting that new routine. I'm dropping the marathon, repeating the last 3 weeks of my run focus, and following my QT2 diet to the T. It feels good to be back in training again, JoJo IS BACK!

From Ironman back to Joe

This is bad. I haven't done any workout in 3 weeks as of yesterday. I moved and had to do some renovations to the house to make it livable. Combine that with a project that is making me pull 12 hour days on a regular basis and 1:30 commute each way...Iron Joe starts to turn into just Joe. I'm only getting 5 hours of sleep per night so I'm not sure where I can pull an extra hour each day to train. The house work is coming to an end but the work project will go till Feb. I need to make this work somehow. Something has to give, I'm ruining my run focus. I think AZ marathon in 1 month might be a waste at this point.