Thursday June 21st: City of Brotherly Love
Bright and early Thursday morning with over 100lbs of bike and other luggage in my hands I got dropped off at SeaTac airport. I was tired of waiting in lines and am very inpatient so I pulled out the blind card and got escorted straight through security. The plane was late to depart which is pretty much expected these days. Upon arrival, former Seattleite and friend Ryan Asmus rolled up in his spacious SUV and we headed straight to the Cosbyesque neighborhood of Mannyunk. Supposedly, Mannyunk is one of the safer areas in the Philly area but when the first thing you see is a fire hydrant knocked over on the ground your opinion quickly changes.
My stomach was withering away and I needed food. Food supplements beer very nicely so we went to the Mannyunk brewery for some imitation carbo loading. While at the brewery I found out that in Philadelphia they have never heard of ciders and you can buy a case of beer at the bar. Drive-in beer stores are also encouraged.
Friday June 22nd The Talk
The first half of Friday was rather uneventful. The bike came together quickly and I left all the dirty work for Matt West to clean up. He knows his status and never complains! Later that night was my talk at the VIP dinner and Matt West continued his work in flipping the PowerPoint slides. The purpose of my trip was to give a motivational talk to the corporate sponsors, race organizers, pro athletes as well as participate in the Philly Tri. Upon arrival at the boathouse, we were greeted with mini Liberty Bells and a musician strumming out classics from his acoustic guitar. A little nervous, I awaited my name to be called to talk about myself for the next 30minutes. I hadn’t really practiced but considering it was my own life it shouldn’t be too hard I gave them my life story with a vision simulation and capped it off with a tribute to the organization that has put me on the map, The C Different Foundation. The talk was a homerun and even triathlon legend Dave Scott loved it.
A few conversations later and we were out of there. We had a night on the town ahead of us and so we took a ride through the local drive-thru beer store and grabbed a case, yes a case of tasty Sparks. A few Sparks later I was fired up and ready to head out to meet up with Matt Miller and Matt West for some nighttime entertainment. Don’t know whose idea it was but we found ourselves at a great family establishment, Dave and Buster’s. Every time I go in that place I am amazed at how many parents there are drinking tequila and whiskey while their kids are ten feet away playing skeet ball and Donkey Kong. Whatever happened to sitting down and playing a nice family game of scrabble? I don’t know the answer but I found a nice virtual boxing game and put some guys to the canvas before I took a spin in the race car while intoxicated.
One can only take so much of Dave and Busters before realizing its time to stop playing around in life and act your real age (hahaha).
Saturday June 23rd Uneventful Day
Saturday was not too amusing. The tandem needed some tune ups and so it was taken to the repairman. Little did we know that the repairman would not be enough for this race. The rest of the day was spent at the race expo smoozing with gear companies, holding down the C Different booth and spouting off a few more words of wisdom for all those frantic first timer triathletes that have lowered their IQ 50pts from anxiety. Maybe I was one of them one day but I swear I was never that bad. All of the anxiety floating in the air tired me out and I was exhausted. It was dinner time and we were feeling pretty original so we went to Olive Garden. The night was almost complete but just before we headed in there seemed to be a domestic dispute in the neighborhood and we didn’t know whether to prepare for armed fire or just continue walking by. Considering there were numerous drug houses in the neighborhood I think preparing for the worst is always the better choice. Despite this we chose to walk on by. We were lucky to escape unscathed.
Sunday June 24th A Race to Remember and Forget at the Same Time
Right off the bat I did a race day “no no” and changed my race day breakfast. I had no access to a grocery store the day before and I definitely wasn’t going to walk around on the streets of Philadelphia alone just for a banana and bagel. The mistake took its toll in the form of disrupting my “pre-race poop” regiment which led to a thrashing feeling in my stomach throughout the swim. At 7am we paid our respects to the stars and stripes and then jumped in the murky brown Schuylkill River. The Schuylkill river rates a near second behind the Hudson River on the “I wouldn’t swim in that river if you paid me” list. Regardless, the race went on. The swim was a straight swim downstream with a jack knife turn upstream to the finish. My “cookies” were still stirring throughout the entire swim and I had to hold back to keep from tossing them. We exited the water in a marginal 23:45 and got on to the bike for a fun and technical bike course. From the start of the bike there were signs that a higher power didn’t want me biking on this day. My stomach was still mildly upset, my left knee was that of an 80yr old and to top it off the bike became dysfunctional very quickly. Ten miles into the bike the chain fell off, then it fell off again and again and again. By bikes end the chain had fallen off 5 times and we were restricted to a single gear for over half the bike. With each loss of the chain we lost focus but with just two miles left I remembered that I was in a race. Matt had to go to the bathroom and said he would make a quick pit stop in transition. I had other ideas and said, “heck no, your going on the bike” and that is exactly what he did. Miraculously, his stream missed me even though I was directly behind him. I am proud to say that that was a first for Matt and I on the bike and it was definitely a bonding experience.
Now refocused, Matt and I started the run with vengeance. I had been restricted to running once a week for the past 3 months due to knee problems but it’s a whole new ball game when I get in a race. The run course was two flat out and back loops along the river. Blocking out all of the conversations from the crowd such as “look their tied together” or “I didn’t know that there was a team division”, Matt and I strolled through the finish line with a 38min and change run and an overall time of 2hrs 19min. Definitely not my best of races considering nearly 7min were lost fiddling around with the chain but with all of the chaos taken into account we finished strong.
Upon arrival at the finish shoot we were bombarded with Philly newspaper reporters who proceeded to ask us the same questions we have been asked hundreds of times. It is exciting knowing that these stories are impactful in the lives of the readers and motivates them to conquer their obstacles. Even more exciting to me was the fact that I was confronted by a blind female and her friend. She saw what I was doing and decided she wanted to get involved. From that point on a new C Different athlete was “born”. She will join 15 other blind/VI individuals at the NYC Tri in a few weeks.
After the media circus, I was on a mission to be a tourist. We met up with Ryan and headed to the famous training venue of Rocky Balboa. Of course, me being the cheesy one, I had to run up the stairs while throwing left and right jabs and then get to the top and throw my hands up in victory.
From there we headed to the historic district and paid a visit to the Liberty Bell. We were cheap though and didn’t want to pay for tours so skipped out on the first Congressional Assembly Hall and the Declaration of Independence. One thing that I did learn from this whole trip is that Ben Franklin was a “pimp”. I use this term differently than the modern definition. He pretty much had his hands in everything during his time.
It was time for me to say goodbye to Philly though and so we headed back to disassemble the red beast and board the plane home.
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