Beware the Bear

I think you have to be somewhat nutty to get up at 5am-- and really nutty to do it on a Sunday morning. But that's what we did. The purpose: swim 750m, bike 17.7 (hilly) miles, and then run 3.4 miles. It was the Black Bear Triathlon in the Poconos, PA. I'll be honest, I had not been looking forward to this. I had not trained as much as I should have, and I was worried the water would be cold, and I don't have a wetsuit. Well, the water was cold, the bike was hella-hilly, and the run was a trail run where I had to stop mid-way and get some pebbles out of my shoe.
I waded into the water -- about knee deep -- prior to the start of the race and the water was OK temperature-wise. The swim portion was an in-water start, meaning we had to tread water by some buoys while we waited for the horn to blow. About 25 feet from the shore, as the water got deeper, it also got colder -- it felt 10-15 degrees colder. My feet were going numb! By the time I reached the first buoy, I was beginning to warm-up, but my feet were pretty cold for the entire swim portion. My hill attacks were better -- I'm improving at switching gears, but I did have to dismount twice and walk the bike up some long hills. It was quite funny, I'd bike past some of the walkers, huffing and puffing all the way to the top, only to have them pass me during the downhills or the straightaways. And then the next hill, the same thing would happen. The last two hills I finally learned my lesson!
Despite these challenges, it was a friendly crowd and I did finish. In fact, my swimming time improved a lot from last year's NorthEast Tri. The volunteers were great. And as soon as I crossed the finish line, i was handed a bottle of water and made my way to the food! (pizza, rita's ice, pretzels, oranges and more.) All in all, it was fun.

The best thing non-tri related was the rental car. We took a scenic drive up to Beltzville State Park (the location of the tri) and we stopped at Hershey's Farm Market for lunch. (Incidental, you can also pick up half a pig -- which according to their literature is 5lbs of bacon, 20 center cut pork chops, i country style ribs, 1 ham-cut or whole, 15lbs large link sausage, 1 pork loin end roast, and 1 rack spare ribs). They also had a great candy section and an assortment of Amish focused literature -- which was kind of strange. But it was there we notice the trunk of the car. On the inside of the trunk lid was a tab -- looked like a car air-freshener. If you looked closely, it was a glow in the dark tab with a person jumping out of the trunk! You guessed it. This car had a tab for if a person is "accidentally" locked in the trunk. You might ask how I'm certain of this? Well, I tested it out, of course, post-tri. I climbed into the trunk and had ML close the lid. I saw the glow in the dark tab, pulled it and voila.....the trunk popped open!. Here's ML trying it out!

Sandwiches

I read the cookbook 'wichcraft: Craft a sandwich into a meal--and a meal into a sandwich by Tom Colicchio and with Sisha Ortuzar. It was good and put me in a sandwich phase. They had some nice veggie selections, but also helped inspire me -- mainly with different cheeses and veggies I might not have otherwise thought of -- like celery and avocado. I went through tomato and goat cheese, tomato and Havarti. I did smoked salmon with cucumbers and an avocado spread. I used brioche and multi grain and even plain whole wheat. My favorite was from the book though. It was a take on french onion soup, but in sandwich form. I sauteed some onions with garlic and butter, but them on whole wheat bread with Gruyere cheese and then grilled the sandwich. It was really good --- all 4 times I made it!



Now I'm off to the triathlon! My goal: to finish.

Bike Rides and Pie Crusts

In preperation for the Black Bear Tri, I've actually started biking outside. I did two rides this weekend -- granted they were fairly flat, but it was still better than nothing. One involved doing loops of Haines Points -- which is not as scenic since they moved The Awakening and the other was the Mount Vernon Trail (which I rode with SM and KM). I still don't enjoy the biking portion of the tri, but I think I'm getting better at shifting gears and not getting as tired out going uphill. We meant to go all the way to Mt. Vernon (which would have been nice since I've not been) but we lost the trail in Old Town. I had read it was tricky, and I don't think having this handy map would have helped. But on our way back to Theodore Roosevelt Island (which was our starting point) we stopped in Old Town for a snack and watched a guy playing glasses. (Yes, crystal glasses filled with different amounts of water to effect tones). It was really fun -- especially watching him "tune" the glasses by pouring increasing amounts of water into the glass until it hit the right tone. We also got to ride under a plane as it approached the landing strip at National Airport!

So, to celebrate all the biking, I bought two whoopie pies from Whole Foods --they were yummy!!! I really want to try making them. On Sunday, I did a 4 mile, hilly run which ended at the Dupont Circle farmers market. I picked up some ricotta cheese, eggs, and first-pick squash. All of these went into a quiche tart that I made for dinner. It was quite good, if I do say so myself!

Post Hunt 2009

Sunday was the Post Hunt 2009 and LC, ML, LT and I participated! The short answer -- the Hunt is a "quirky urban brainteaser" that had us going around downtown Washington, DC solving clues that would get us to the end. Here's the boring answer: In The Washington Post Magazine there were several number "answers" but only 5 correct ones. We had to go to 5 spots where we'd be given clues and from those clues we'd fine the 5 correct number answer. At 3pm they give you the final clue and from there you have to know where to go, be the first to solve the puzzle, get to the right spot and hand in a cellphone number. Needless to say, we weren't the winners, but we had fun trying.

Some of the clues were fairly straight forward. Statues: a Ghost next to a Canon, a vacuum cleaner, eyes and an hourglass translated to Boo-Canon or our 15th President Buchanan, for the Brits out there -- the Hoover was a reference to our 31st President Herbert Hoover, and lastly Eyes and Hour-glass (minus the glass, of course) was #34 President Dwight D. Eisenhower. While I'd love to be able to see we new what president was what number, we were aided by a president pencil that had all the presidents in order and that were found in our Hunt goodie bag. (That plus an ice-scraper. I'm still puzzling about that one.)

The hardest one was the Statues. There were two human "statues" dressed in togas and striking poses and volunteers who were handing out a clue. The clue was "According to ancient Native America legend the earth was pooped out an an Eagle PLUS It is believed to be the world's largest freestanding Polyp MINUS Little Alice loved hanging out with Uncle Henry, but she kept a sledge hammer ready in case he got frisky." This was the puzzle that really stumped us. The clue just told use it was going to be an equation of some sort. The key was the statutes. On the Hunt map there were 9 statues and if you went to all the statues there was someone with a number. You had to figure out which numbers to use. We got to the right answer, but not by going to all the statues. The final clue gave us a number to call -- and it told us an important message followed the fours. Three of the answers contained "4" or "for" or "fore" so the message was "cinematic poster next to toy" the problem was we forget the 4 in the 3rd answer which would have given us let. The final clue was "cinematic poster next to toilet" which was on the Post Hunt Map. At that location was a Star Wars poster with R2D2 and CE-P0 -- map coordinates that led to a boxer. You then had to go to that location and look for a boxer -- in this case a volunteer walking a boxer dog. So while we were going to the toys on the map, other teams won 00 and in under 30 mins. It was really quite impressive!


Still, there's always next year for Team Elphor (yes, we need to come up with a better name)!