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Living in North Boston, NY, I’m surrounded by hills. Big hills. Lots of them. They beg to be explored, run up & ridden on. Already being a distance runner & semi-secretly harboring a crazy thought that I might some day get into triathlons, I recently picked up a 2008 Trek 1.5 road bike.

It’s pretty much the stock bike, with the exception of the components having been switched out for Shimano 105s. Of the two cranks, it’s got the compact 53/39. Prior to looking into this bike, I didn’t know much about road bikes, but with a lot of help from a handful of friends, I ended up deciding I’d like something with a carbon fiber front fork / seat post, low-spoke count wheels & at least 105 components. After getting over the initial price shock, I set a goal to see if I could pick up a 2008 model for ~$1000 as the 2009s were coming out.

While at first I had shyed away from Handlebars (what many consider the premiere bike shop in the area), for fear of them focusing on catering to a higher level customer than I, I headed there one day after work when I hadn’t carpooled & told them exactly what they were looking for. The salesperson simply said “we can do that for you”. I was very happy with their service – the amount of time they spent with me, the salesman (Will) & the number of bikes I rode & the fact that they went out of their way to get me what I wanted. They gave me drinks while I test rode, include a formal fitting with the purchase of a bike from them & offered to switch out components – while I’m sure a lot of the other shops would have done this as well, there wasn’t even a need for me to ask.

Since I’ve been training for a marathon, I haven’t gotten out on the bike as much as I’d like – I doubt I’ve cracked 100 miles. I was a little afraid of getting in & out of the SPD (clip in) pedals, but haven’t had any problems since my very first ride. Compared to running, I don’t like facing away from traffic as I ride, but love being able to go 30+ miles per hour. Now that the cables have stretched, some minor adjustments are needed, but I’ve been very happy with the bike so far. I’ve hit some big hills & look forward to more.

This morning I ran the Run for the Grapes Half Marathon in St. Catherines, Ontario. I completed with a PR of 1:36:10 – a 7:20/mile average pace. I’m very happy with this. My splits were:

1. 7:53
2. 7:02
3. 6:57
4. 7:03
5. 7:06
6. 7:13
7. 7:33
8. 7:30
9. 7:12
10. 7:31
11. 7:11
12. 7:40
13. 7:29
14. 6:29 (.1 mile)

After the race, I was happy to find myself on the first page of the result sheets – my time placed me 70/400 overall, 61/213 of all males, and 9/12 in the 25-29 male category. (Geez they’re fast north of the border!) More details can be found on the results page.

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This past Sunday I ran the 2008 Rochester Half Marathon, completing in 1:41:29 – a 7:46/mile overall pace. This is the third year I’ve run the Rochester half, previously finishing with 1:45:05, 08:01/mile pace (2007) and 1:52:40, 8:36/mile pace (2006). While this was technically a PR (personal record), the split from the first half of my 2008 Buffalo (full) Marathon time was faster, falling in the 1:38s.

Ask anyone who participated this weekend about the race and odds are they will tell you about the weather. Wham, the D&C & RNews all mentioned the oppressive heat and humidity in their marathon article summaries. Forecasts the week prior called for race day temperatures in the 70s, a 60% chance of rain and wind. The day prior to the race was rainy and depressive, but still warm. As I headed to bed the night before the race around ~11pm, it was 72 out. At 5am the morning of the race, it was still 72 – but there was no rain. After the race, when I arrived back at my friend John’s place near Cobb’s Hill, it was a scorching 85. The heat and humidity were no fun for me, yet others on the course suffered even more – the wind arrived up shortly after my finish & those who ran the full were exposed to the sun for the majority of their extra half along the canal.

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This past Memorial Day weekend I ran the Buffalo Marathon & successfully completed it with a chip time of 3:29:53 (8:01/mile average pace), just reaching the goal I’d secretly set of a time somewhere in the 3:20s and besting my previous 2007 Niagara Falls time by nearly 9 minutes. Overall, I finished 124 out of 710 full marathon finishers & 8/43 in my age group. (Detailed results can be found by following the link from the results page.)

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After 4 apartments in three cities after graduating college & with the amount of gray hair I’m starting to show, I figured it was time to buy a house. A couple months of looking later, I ended up purchasing the one below:

The house is located in North Boston, NY. Most people who I work with gasp at how far away they think it is when I tell them this, as most of them aren’t familiar with the Buffalo Southtowns, but I’m literally within walking distance of both Hamburg and Orchard Park. When I first visited this house, I was focusing on searching in Hamburg. After looking at several in the Village of Hamburg one day, my real estate agent & I headed to this one. As we left the village & passed the Hamburg town golf course, I began to wonder where we were headed. When we crossed under the 219, I didn’t think I’d have any interest in living in the area, but once I saw the house, I loved it.

The 219 turned out to be it’s saving grace as well – I’m two farmers fields & a row of houses away from the Boston State Road (aka Route 391) entrance. A ride to work at UB with no traffic and good weather takes 25 minutes (it will take longer in the winter). Coincidently enough, the distance from work to the house is 26.2 miles (the distance of a marathon). While I do have do have a Hamburg address & pay Hamburg school taxes, the selling real estate agent had mis marked the house as being in Hamburg – had she listed it correctly as being in North Boston, I probably never would have looked at it.

The house was built in 1958. It is a 3 bedroom ranch of ~1100 square feet, with a car and a half attached garage. The roof was put on in 2006 & fresh paint and Berber carpet was put in right before I purchased it. The inside is very bright, with floor to ceiling windows in the (updated) kitchen and a picture window in the living room. The bedrooms are a little on the smaller size, which was one of my fears, but since I’ve moved in, I’ve had no problems with their size. The yard is 90×225 (a half acre) and has a large shed and an in ground pool!

Additional photos can be found in my House Gallery, but none of them seem to do the place justice.

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I’ve been running with the Nike+ setup for my iPod Nano since this past December. Since then, I’ve used it for nearly 50 runs & 365 miles. (You can see the results on my Nike+ page.) After all those miles, I think it’s time for a review. Read the rest of this entry »

This past Saturday, I did some shopping in stores around the McKinley Mall in Hamburg. It was a miserable day, with lots of rain. Late in the evening, the weather broke & the sun shone through brightly from the lake as it settled. In doing so, it formed the most brilliant, double rainbow I’ve ever seen.

Unfortunately, I only had my cell phone camera with me & the photos contain lots of power lines – they don’t begin to do the rainbow justice – but here they are:

Both rainbows formed complete arches over the mall, but I wasn’t able to capture that with the cell phone camera.

Today I left work at lunch to head home for an afternoon appointment. As I was traveling west on the 290, I passed the Paddock Chevrolet golf dome. Just to the west of it is a driving range, followed by a small knoll that runs parallel to the 290 for a couple hundred yards. Much to my surprise, today I saw a decent sized coyote walking the length of the knoll! He was about 3/4s of the way to the top and had a bushy tale. As he walked, his front paw broke through the snow, but he seemed completely unconcerned about the passing traffic.

It surprised me quite a bit to see him in this area, but this isn’t the first time I’ve seen one in the Northtowns – the day before Valentine’s Day this year, I was arriving to work at the north campus at the University of Buffalo, just prior to 8:30 (I was actually on time that day!). The end of my route to work ends with the 990 UB exit, which runs into the outer traffic loop surrounding the campus. Where the two roads meet is a small triangular bowl, formed by the outer loop and the entrance and exit to the 990. Much to my surprise that day, a very big coyote was making his way through the area. I’ve seen plenty of deer & turkey in the area, so it made sense there’d be a coyote, but it was still hard to believe one would be so close to campus. I was going pretty slow around the entrance and was able to get a very good look at the coyote, but had there been no one behind me, I would have stopped to see where he went.

Two years ago, shortly after I moved back to Buffalo & the day before I started my current job, a good friend of mine puts two gun raffle tickets in front of me and tells me to “pick one”. I choose the losing one & he wins a Remington semi-auto 30-06 with the other one.

Two weeks ago, I get an email from the same friend – “here’s two numbers for the gun raffle, pick one”. I write him back telling him I remembered how this worked last time & don’t like playing that game.

Well, this year the tables turned – this weekend I won a Remington Model Seven .243 bolt action
rifle with a laminated stock from the same (Tonawanda Sportsman Club) raffle:

I picked it up last night & absolutely love the gun. It took some digging, but I found out the “CDL” stands for “Classic Deluxe”. The stock is gorgeous & the bolt is has a sharp looking checkered stainless steel pattern on it. I’d shot a lower end Remington bolt action .243 this past summer & was very impressed with the way it shot, especially compared to the 30-06 my friend won previously.

I’ll have to pick up a scope and shoulder strap for this one, but other than that, it will make one fine deer hunting rifle. Lucky for me, the two counties I primarily hunt in New York (Allegheny & Cattaraugus) both in the past couple years started allowing rifles to be used during deer season.

Remington lists an MSRP of $929 for the rifle. Street price is ~$725. Either way, I payed $20.

A couple weeks ago a co-worker of mine, Rob, asked me a couple questions about work. While we’ve both been at UB for a while, up until recently we’d been in different groups within our department & hadn’t talked much. I’d heard from another co-worker of mine that Rob was into the outdoors and rock/ice climbing – eventually we ended up talking about Zoar Valley, how I’d like to explore more of it & how he was hoping to find some frozen waterfalls he’d seen pictures of. We started looking through maps & I sent him some photos of some falls & ice I’d seen while out a couple weeks ago in 18 Mile Creek at a place a friend of mine from high school, Brady, showed me.

The falls from 18 Mile Creek interested Rob, so we headed out there bright and early yesterday morning to scout/potentially do some climbing & then the same in Zoar Valley.

Rob descending down a waterfall in 18 Mile Creek.

Additional photos are viewable in my photo gallery & Rob’s facebook gallery.

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