Surfing in Barbados

On assignment for Uncommon Caribbean, I recently headed down to Barbados to learn how to surf.

I’d never been to Barbados before and was really impressed. I grew up in the Caribbean and have been to a decent number of Caribbean islands, but Barbados was really special. The people seemed extra nice and laid-back. The proximity to Trinidad provided me with many of the Trini tastes I grew up with. The hotels from the Elegant Hotels Group I stayed at, especially The House, were well run, quality establishments. The rums were delicious. Many of the beaches were exceptional. The nightlife seemed thriving for locals and tourists alike.

And, on top of all that, there’s surfing! There’s a longer surfing post at Uncommon Caribbean with all the details.

Surfing was a ton of fun and something I will certainly remember to try again… And it would be difficult to not remember how much I loved Barbados.

Walking in the Atlas

Back from a month in Morocco largely spent trekking across the High Atlas Mountains, there’s one question people keep asking: “Was it what you expected?” What I expected? I had no expectations since I’d never done anything like this before. I simply couldn’t imagine what it would be like.

Physically, it started out demanding. Quickly became extremely demanding. Then settled into a rhythm of continuous challenges that began to feel easier only due to their consistency. Somehow when a day was ending and you imagined there was no way you’d be able to go on, the following day you would do just that.

Walking

Visually, the mountains were truly stunning. Everyday we would find ourselves dwarfed by the most ruggedly gorgeous vistas. Interestingly enough, the 3 major climbs on the trip (Jebel Mgoun (13,356 ft), Jebel Anghomar (11,837ft), and Jebel Toubkal (13,671 ft)) revealed the least inspirational images. Not to say that seeing for miles over the High Atlas wasn’t inspiring, just that there were more varied, interesting things to see walking the valleys and high passes.

Berber Girl

In the end, however, it was the people of Morocco that really made the trip an extraordinary experience. Passing through the nomadic and semi-nomadic berber villages that hadn’t really changed in thousands of years, being accosted by inquisitive village children, spending time hanging out with our berber muleteers smoking Marquis, eating lunch at Young Mohammed‘s house, taking time out from doing my laundry to challenging some village kids to a game of “king of the rock” in a cold river, celebrating my birthday at a gite with an improvised chocolate/mint cake… these all made the trip the truly amazing experience it turned out to be.

On a side note, my new gear performed flawlessly! The boots alone were lifesavers that earned me the distinction of the only member of our group without hideously blistered feet. Additionally, I used every single piece of equipment I brought. Even my Adventure Medical Kit.

I should do my absolute best to remember as much of this time as possible… hopefully some of the thousands of photos I took and placed in a Morocco Photoset on Flickr will help.

Muddy with some nice new dings

Grabbed some pants from Patagonia yesterday, hopped on the motorcycle and rode up a bit past Bear Mountain to Mount Beacon Park. After a roughly 10 mile hike and some gorgeous views, the verdict was that the boots and socks worked great. (Only 1 small blister.) The synthetic shirt dried quickly after getting completely drenched in a downpour and the pack kept mostly dry. Only loser was the new pants that stayed wet for the remainder of the hike. Still, nice to be completely alone up here:

Mount Beacon Top

Oh well… I should remember to get out again today…

I’ve never camped before in my life. I’ve slept under the stars before, sure, but that usually had nothing to do with an interest in getting away from it all. So, here I find myself one week away from a 22 day, demanding trek across the Atlas Mountains in Morocco with not a clue as to what I’ve gotten myself into… or what I need to make it through.

My biggest fear (today anyway) is that I’ll be ill-equipped for the trek and get something painfully gross like black toe where I start bleeding out of my feet and losing toe nails… or something worse. With that in the back of my mind, I began the process of researching gear and equipping myself as quickly as possible in order to have time to test everything out before I find myself cold and broken in some desolate landscape with Arabs speaking French.

The first thing I noticed when I began to outfit myself is that there’s no getting around looking like a stereotypical hiker. It was hard to do, but after enough looks from store employees after I asked for an item that “looked cooler” or had “less straps”, I resigned myself to the idea of function over form.

Anyway, here are the spoils of an afternoon spent visiting Patagonia, EMS, and Paragon:

Round 1 Trek Equipment

1. SCARPA Men’s SL M3 Backpacking Boots: I am not messing around with my feet. These seem to be top of the line.
2. Marmot Precip Jacket: I don’t expect much rain next to the Sahara, so I didn’t go wild on a hardshell waterproof layer.
3. Marmot PreCip Pant: I really hope it doesn’t rain…
4. Marmot Afterburner Jacket: Yes, this is my first fleece article of clothing ever, BUT it’s name is “Afterburner”, so that makes it automatically cool.
5. Pearl Izumi Grip-Lite Glove: I’m a little worried these won’t be warm enough when we start getting to altitude…
6. Patagonia Men’s Active Brief: If I have to walk 8 hours a day wearing the same underwear over and over, these things better be made with magic and rainbows.
7. Eagle Creek Undercover Leg Stash: How cool is this thing? Top secret document storage. (I wanted it in black, but oh well…)
8. NALGENE 32-Oz. Wide Mouth Tritan Bottle: Yeah… I needed a water bottle… I still need another one, but “testing” out the Nalgene first.
9. SMARTWOOL PhD Outdoor Light Crew Socks: They were out of medium thickness, so I’m testing out light. Still need to buy 3 or 4 more pairs if they work out.
10. NIKWAX Footwear Conditioner: To help break in the boots with the added benefit of waterproofing.
11. Casio Men’s Solar Atomic Pathfinder Multi-Band Watch: I can’t go to the wilderness without a cool gadget or two. This thing does temperature, barometer, altitude, digital compass and more.
12. CAMELBAK Omega 70 Reservoir: A bit of an impulse purchase based on a recommendation from the guy helping me at EMS. The idea of riding a camel with a Camelback does appeal to me, though…
13. OSPREY Talon 33 Pack: This was one of the most difficult purchases and the one where I truly resigned myself to function over form. It does have a pretty evil looking, skeleton bird logo, so that’s cool.
14. OUTDOOR RESEARCH Helios Sun Hat: “SolarShield™ fabric provides UPF 50+ sun protection”… so I assume that’s good.
15. Adventure Medical Trail Easy Care Kit: Only rated 1-3 days… no problem!
16. Black Diamond Contour Elliptic Shock Trekking Pole: I always thought walking sticks were for old people, but everyone I talked to assured me I would be happy I had these.
17. Men’s Merino 1 Crew: This thing is amazing. Super thin wool feels soft and delicious on your skin. Plus the cut is actually slim instead of boxy. Very nice.
18. Men’s Capilene® 2 T-Shirt: Yes, the wool Merino is nice, but its price is very high, so I thought I would test out the synthetic alternative and see if I could make do.
19. Men’s Capilene® 2 Bottoms: I hope this stuff works…
20. Eagle Creek Travel Towel X-Large: “Extra large size allows for full body coverage.” That’s what I’m talking about… but seriously, this thing better dry in a hurry.

Notice there are no pants on this list. Every pair I saw looked horrible and I just couldn’t bring myself to purchase a pair, but after doing a little more research, it would appear that I have no choice but to look like a dork if I want to be comfortable.

Oh well… once I get the pants, I need to remember to put all this stuff to the test and quickly finish gearing up.

Cheering station for the American Cancer Society on the boardwaylk

In what could be misconstrued as a cruel drive to see her man break under pressure, my woman signed me up for yet another running race. Although this race was only 3 miles more than the previous one she’d signed me up for, those 3 miles plus the word “marathon” in the title had me dreading this challenge up to the second I found myself in a mass of over 11,000 runners and the starting horn blew.

That said,  a big chunk of the course was on my home turf, so 1.5 times around Prospect Park was no big deal. A nice bonus was running with my woman and her friend which made it feel more casual. Then it was off to Ocean Parkway for the last half of the race and that’s a pretty straight shot with an easy grade. The final bit on the actual Coney Island boardwalk was a little rough with runners tripping and falling all around me on the uneven wooden deck, but somehow I managed.

In the end, NYRR Half-Marathon Grand Prix Presented by Continental Airlines: Brooklyn was a tough challenge and a great experience. My official time: 2:05.

I should remember to keep running as it usually makes me feel great.

(photo by: mason13a)

Got to 100 miles this morning with Nike+.

I should remember to run more often…

Whether for genuine encouragement or simply to torture me, my woman signed me up last month for the Cherry Tree 10 Mile – Race for the Hardcore which I took part in this morning. Being only my second race since starting to run last Summer and since it was twice as long as my previous race, I was very nervous going into today. I genuinly was afriad I wouldn’t finish. Thankfully, I did and with a decent time at that—approximately 1:27.

Unfortunately, my uncalibrated Nike+ didn’t return the correct distance. Oh well…

I should remember to keep running as it makes me feel fantastic.

Update: Looks like someone caught me in their shot, but still no official times posted…

I guess it had to happen eventually… Since I started running this Summer (though sporadically), I was bound to run in an official event. And with my woman being the woman she is, she was bound to sign me up for one sooner rather than later.

That’s how I found myself among a couple friends and quite a large crowd of folks in Prospect Park this morning getting ready to run 5 miles.

I have to admit, the Turkey Trot was a lot of fun. I finished in around 39 minutes and hopefully I’ll remember to do something like it again… although I imagine my woman will remember for me in case I forget.

Update: Turns out I finished 258th out of 1288 runners! Pretty good for my first race, I think. Official time was 39:41.83 with a pace of 07:56.4.

After just getting Nike+ and 5 runs using Nike+, I decided I could complete a full 10k and be a part of the Nike+ global Human Race event… What the hell was I thinking!?

Anyway, I did complete it, although it was extremely difficult.

I should remember to try to work up to these types of things sometimes…

After years of thinking I would never get into running, I’ve joined the whole Nike+ movement. I don’t know what happened. I started running a little at first. Just a hit on vacation. Then, last year, during the Summer, I socially ran with my woman on occasion, but I never craved it… Now, I dunno… I get urges…

I just need to remember to actually get better as evidenced by my second Nike+ enabled run: