Crackheads rule!

5/10/2010

Well, been feeling more and more like a homeless person lately. Eating and sleeping out of my car. Me and Wal-mart parking lots of getting very friendly. I’m actually getting pretty good at sleeping in my car, I wake up surprisingly refreshed! I’m also pretty sure people have been messing with me while I sleep, throwing stuff at my car and scaring the crap out of me. I just think its funny. New age homeless!

The other day I had quite a funny experience. I was sitting at a red light in Eugene Oregon. All of the sudden a man opened up my driver’s side door and sat down and said his daughter and wife were stranded and he needed a ride! Boy this caught me off guard. Always lock your door! I couldn’t turn down a man in dire need could I?

Anyway, I’m pretty sure he was cracked out, he was sniffing uncontrollably and wiping his nose. Very friendly guy, born and raised in Portland Oregon. He asked me about my trip and I let him know I am headed to physical therapy school. I love telling people that because then they start telling me all about their ailments. Its great. I tried giving him some tips on his hip bursitis and then he had to go! Turns out I think he just needed a ride, not so dire a situation. Eugene the crack head, great times. Cocaine is a hell of a drug!

My mother always said don’t talk to strangers, but this guy jumped in my car! What could I do? Anyway at one point the reached into his pocket for something, I thought for sure it would be a gun. Lo and Behold, a cell phone. Whooo. Making friends across the nation!

Eugene Oregon

5/10/2010 - YMCA training today.

Horrible session. Tired and no motivation. I went too fast into the heavy stuff again. I need to keep the training different and I think I went back to heavier stuff a bit faster then I should have. Anyway…

Squat Clean
135 x 3
185 x 3
205 x 1
225 x 1
235 x 1 - felt horrible - actually a personal best for this weight but really shouldn’t have been that heavy

135lb squat clean x 10/10 pullups - 5 rounds
Finished at 9:05 - extremely slow, I had no go at all.

I hate days like this. I guess I just need to rest up and hit it harder later. Oh well.

San Francisco

5/8/10

Training - felt real stiff today after yesterday

Am:
21-15-9 of…
Barbell Squat Snatch 95lbs
Ring Dips

Finished in 4:50sec. Wasn’t motivated here. No fire.

PM:

3 sets of 500m rowing

1:40
1:33
1:36

My body is dead, really not producing much force here. LONG WEEK!

San Francisco

I did almost all of my training at Gold's Gym in San Francisco

5/6/2010

Am: Strength day - lower body

High Pull from Hang
135 x 5
185 x 3, 3

Barbell Thruster: In Video

135 x 3
165 x 3
185 x 3
205 x 1
225 x 1
235 x 1
245 x 1
255 x 1 - UGLY! new best by 20lbs awesome, I'm so pumped my overhead is still going up even at a lower body weight

Overhead Squat From Rack - same depth as last week
Ended up missing at 195 and dropped the weight prety hard in the rack. Figured Gold's was not happy so I moved on.

Turkish Get-up
35 x 1
65 x 1
75 x 1
85 x 1
100 x 1 (right side only)
90 x 1 (left side only)

Left is much weaker, fun exercise

95lbs Barbell
x 25 Overhead squat
x 25 Power snatch
x 25 thruster

All weaknesses of mine, I forget how long it took. I was shot from the other stuff.

PM:

Ring Dips:
Bodyweight + 25 x 5
+ 45 x 5
+ 70 x 5
+ 90 x 3
+ 115 x 1

Weighted pullup
45 x 3
90 x 3
115 x 1,1,1 - 30sec. rest between not tough

Lots of ring pushup variations

Band assisted 1 hand pullup
green band + 1 red band x 5
green band x 3/arm
green band + 2 reds x 8/arm

Great day. Here is a video of a man walking with a cat on his shoulder in san fran

San Francisco

Well, I had some extra time so I visited San Fran, a place that seems to have a little for everyone. I stayed with my buddy Shern and he was a great host even though I only gave him an hour notice! Besides training, I'll get to that later, I had an oppurtunity to walk around the city quite a bit.

The city pretty much looks like they tried to place a city on top of a mountain. Shern explained this is because San fran is such a great port city but I almost pooped my pants trying to park on Shern's street at first. Driving gets pretty easy after that.

The first night Shern took me out on bike to a park at night. He gave me his room mate's bike with brakes that were pretty much shot... Anyway I was terrified going down these hills having little to no control over my life. Shern has always been a dare devil and apparently stop signs and stop lights mean little to nothing to him.

Anyway, at the park with hung out with some of Shern's friends. Shern hangs out with what are called "hipsters" basically a cool to be poor type of crowd. It was fun. I think I spent about 45 minutes on the swings and monkey bars. Shern's friends spent about 2 hours wrestling each other in the park and then we went home!

The next day I walked around Valencia and Mission street. Mission street was a funny experience for me. San Fran is pretty peaceful and loving. I'm used to New York, Philadelphia and New Brunswick. Mission street has ample homeless, cracked out dwarfs, and one homeless guy was even carrying his cat on his shoulder like a parrot. Pretty entertaining. Normally these shady characters would have made me run the other direction, quickly. However Shern was saying everyone gets along and is pretty friendly. I took his word for it!

San Francisco pretty much does what it wants. Public Urination and nudity are legal. Drinking in public is alright with a brown bag. Everyone smokes marijuana. Pretty open minded city.

Car Eating

5/5/10 - Eat Hard to Train Hard, or something

Wanted to post what my eating has been lately.

Upon rising :

1 can sardines
2 handfuls of Nuts (raw either almonds, walnuts, pecans, cashews)
Instant coffee mmmmmm!

Post training:
2 bananas
1 scoop 20g whey (biotest)
5g leucine
5g superfood (biotest fruit + veggie supp.)

1 can trader joe’s chili
2 handful of nuts

Training meal

1 can of chili or beans + brown rice
1 apple with almond or peanut butter

Training meal

1 can of chili or beans + brown rice
Broccoli and hummus

I also eat a couple larabars in between because they taste awesome!

Dreadfully low on vegetables I know. The supplement is not a substitute but come on I’m living out of my car!

5/5/2010 - Day of Driving, a Day of training

Woke up a little later then usual, feeling a bit run down from yesterday. I threw down a can of sardines and walnuts and got the blood going. Packed up and headed off toward San Francisco to visit my good buddy Shern, a friend since as long as I can remember. He’s always been one to follow what he believes in no matter the norm. Great way to live your life if you ask me.

AM Training:

Trained this morning at the bottom of Bridal Veil waterfall in Yosemite. Can you think of a better place to train?

Ring 1-hand Row x 15 left arm
30 split jumps
Ring 1-hand row x 15 right arm
15 squat Jumps (deep and explosive)
Rest 30 seconds and repeat, 4 total rounds.

Finished in 8:58 with a couple of stares

Noon training:

Did this one at an abandoned christian house off the highway

Ring pullups
Handstand pushups
Burpee + jump (no pushup)

10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 reps finished in 8:05 - wasn’t very tired here, could have pushed harder - back on the road

Evening training - holy damn San Francisco has some steep hills

I wanted to do track work, maybe a 4 x 400 meters with complete rest. Found a hill with some steps at the end I fell in love with.

150 meters + 4 flights of stairs at the end.

4 x wind sprints. Felt like I wanted to poop, throw up and pass out at the end of each set. Almost complete rest at the end of each. I really wanted to feel like I was redlining at the end of these, mission accomplished. I know I’ll be resting tomorrow. Plan for the end of this week and next is…

Mon:
AM: Max Effort Lower + total body Strength
PM: Max Effort Upper Strength

Tuesday: Triple session - hope to hit a couple cross fit gyms

Wed: Same as Tuesday, big emphasis on conditioning - hopefully some track work

Thurs: REST HARD AND EAT HARD - some foam rolling and stretching if feel I need it

Fri:
AM: Lower and total strength with some complexes/rep work
PM: Upper Strength, more emphasis on rep strength

Yosemite Falls

5/4/10 Yosemite Falls

I thought I would split this into two parts because it really deserves it.

Woke up bright and early at 5:45 am, banged out a can of sardines and a few handful of nuts and headed to Yosemite!

This place is phenomenally beautiful. I’m not even sure if phenomenally is a word but I think it fits. I spent today at the valley in Yosemite, what this place is so well known for. What you notice first is all of the colorful pines. Once I got to my first scenic outlook the rest was revealed. Sheer rock faces extend hundreds of feet into the sky with waterfalls spraying water from their peaks. In the far distance are snow capped peaks and the sun blasting sunlight over everything.

Now you wouldn’t expect me to hike anything but the most difficult hike in the park and I didn’t. The hike is around 10 miles in total, which isn’t bad. What makes it difficult is the 2,700 foot change in altitude, about the same as the grand canyon.

I decided not to run this one given that I’d be exercising the entire day. I took my time and took some remarkable pictures. What was neat about this hike was that the top portion of the hike was covered in snow. The snow forced me to make my own trail to where I wanted to go. This was pretty scary considering you couldn’t tell whether or not your next step would put you through the snow. At the top of the falls was an intensely scary vertical drop off 3,000 feet up.


Now I spoke to a man named tyler earlier in the day and he recommended that I do the falls. Little did I know that he is OUT OF HIS MIND! The view at the top of the falls has a railing so that people don’t fall off. Tyler hops over the railing and hangs off the railing over the edge! I almost pooped myself.

A little later I spoke with him about that. He proceeded to tell me that heights no longer bother him as he walks to the edge again and looks over. He said something along the lines of, “what’s the difference between standing here and any other place? Except here I’m really close to death.” Agreed! After that he started saying he doesn’t get vertigo anymore unless he runs over to the edge really quickly and starts jumping up and down, which he did of course. Mean while I was clutching the side of the mountain about to throw up. Enough heights for the day.

Back at the camp ground I was lucky enough to have an extra 2 nights to stay if I pleased, because the previous tenants were nice enough to give me their spot and they had 2 days left that they paid for.

My neighbors tonight were a very friendly couple from New Zealand. They just finished up filming the movie yogi bear in new Zealand. Pretty cool huh? Anyway, they said they were working 16 hour days 6-7 days per week for the past 6 months working on the film. They decide to take 6 months off to travel the US and Latin America! I thought I was having a fun trip. Anyhow, big day tomorrow, I better get some sleep

More Yosemite training

5/4/10 - The highest quality Barbell you're going to find on the top of a mountain!

Time to stop messing around with my training.

Did a triple session today on top of a 5 mile ascent and 5 mile descent at Yosemite falls, 2,700 ft. altitude change.

AM training:

Set the rings up for muscle ups and

1..
2...
3..
Stop!

The first muscle up I did ended up pulling the tree down. Besides being hilarious it ended up being alright, I wasn’t hurt and found another spot, sorry for that Yosemite.

Muscle ups 10, 8,6,4,2
Jump Rope Double Unders 40,40,40,40,40



1 round of 10 muscleups and then followed by 40 double unders, then 8 muscleups and 40 double unders and so on.

Finished in 8:05

Noon training - altitude training! I did this one on the top of Yosemite falls, very make shift session

30 burpee pullups - to a tree branch
30 Giant branch Zercher Squats
30 Explosive pushups
30 Giant branch walking lunges
30 Situp to jump

Finished in 9:58 - very difficult after the hike. Cool place to train.



Evening training: Felt like dump after descending the mountain, but I’m trying to improve my work capacity so I saddled up, stopped feeling sorry for myself, ate a bunch, and then did this..

Hill Sprints: 100 yards uphill 4 x as fast as possible

Thoroughly exhausted after this. I just know someone else out there is working harder then me. Can’t let that happen!

Yosemite Gym

5/3/10 - Yosemite! Best Gym in California

Just entered Yosemite and set up camp so not much to write about yet. Getting pretty serious about my training now. I’m planning on 3 per days for the next couple days out here. Very intense stuff not lasting more then 5-15 minutes

Dynamic warmup and foam roll.

50-70lb Stone clean and press x 5
150ft steep friggin hill sprint

I did as many rounds as I could in 10 minutes, think I finished 6 and a half, can’t remember, I was too dizzy. Sleep time!

Scratch that, ended up talking to my neighbors for about an hour about where to go the next day in Yosemite. Everyone has been incredibly friendly, which has been great for me considering that I’m all alone!

Sequoia National Forest

5/1/10 - BIG TREES!

Quite difficult to operate after skipping a night of sleep. Met up with Trevor in the exciting city of Exeter, also known as eggs eater, according to Trevor. Sequoia and Kings Canyon Park is stunning.

Sequoia trees grow to just below 300 feet and are as wide as 40 ft wide at the base. Words can’t really describe them so I won’t begin to try. Take a trip to Sequoia to see the largest trees in the world named general Sherman and General Grant!



Exciting notes in Sequoia, according to Pat the stranger, pomegranate juice will lead to easy aging and attaching a hammock to a tree in the dark will sometimes end badly, if you end up attaching one end of your hammock to a fallen tree, dangling to another tree.

Not as stable as a sequoia...


Kings canyon was equally if not more impressive. We did not do much hiking here but there was plenty of driving and awe inspiring views of canyons, snowy peaks, lush green valleys and waterfalls.



Finished up the trip with Guinness, caribou lou and burning about 50 pounds of pine needles. It was great to see Trevor again and hopefully it won’t be long until we meet again. By the way, that tree above is 40 ft. wide.

Las Vegas

4/31/10 - Vegas! - PM to AM…

Well, Vegas is very visually impressive. Drove down the strip and just got really excited. People EVERYWHERE! I parked at Bally’s loaded up some drinks and headed outside. Did I mention that drinking on the strip is legal? Its pandemonium out here.

One thing I immediately noticed is the squads of immigrants in groups handing out what look like baseball cards with pictures of naked women on the front and back. Basically these are escort baseball cards. Apparently these gorgeous girls will be at your room in twenty minutes ready to please! If you allow one person to give you a card, fifteen more will swarm you and force more prostitution playing cards into your hands. I got one card and fifteen seconds later was holding about fifty, lesson learned.

After walking around a bit and being friendly I quickly started hanging out with two guys I met randomly. They were hungry and wanted to go to a buffet at Bellagio. I already ate but tagged along. This ended up in a free 40 dollar buffet at Bellagio! Ostrich, quail. Swordfish, king crab, lobster, filet mignon, I was a kid in a candy store. After the stuff fest it was off to the strip again to check out the casinos. After a little unsuccessful gambling and free drinks our group grew a bit and we headed off to the bar coyote ugly. After a bunch of dancing and fun I decided I wanted to split off and do something else. At this point it was around 1am?

Found myself at a club dancing with a group of 40+ year old women for about 3 hours! Vegas takes you to funny places. After the club closed at 4 am I wondered around looking for the entrance and my car.

Bumped into two 22 year old guys in the restroom. One was passed out surrounded in his own vomit, the other I started talking to. Turns out he’s an active members of the bloods gang out of California. He kept saying something about living in p-750 or something and making these gang signs with his hands. Nice guy anyway. He says his three year old son is “bad ass” which apparentally means giving the finger to people, throwing gang signs and saying f-you to his parents when they ask him to do something. Gangster parenting!

After wandering aimlessly a bit more looking for my car it was getting light out. I bumped into a couple of girls walking to a “military base” of sorts. I’m pretty sure they were drugged out as they were extremely confused and kept asking me the same questions over and over again. Very funny.

Started talking to another young man on the streets who is living in cali and working to become a famous actor! He even gave me his card. I didn’t understand what he was saying at first, he kept asking if the military base girls were “working” Later he told me how stoned he was and I figured he thought they were either police or prostitutes.

He asked me to give him a ride and I agreed even though he had no idea where he was going. He was getting more and more paranoid from what I could see. He kept asking over and over again if I was working, which I reassured him I wasn’t. Out of nowhere he said, “I think I’m going to go the other way” and immediately started running away from me! I guess he thought I was a cop or a prostitute, great!

Finally I found Bally’s and since I had no one to tell my story to I tried talking to a couple on the escalator. They thought I was a crazy drunk and ignored me! Wow, I knew at this time it was time to get out of Vegas! I found my car and started driving to Sequoia national park to go see my old buddy Trevor from Rutgers! Sleep is the cousin of death!