Vacation in New York

Bonus family pics from my sisters visit to VA Beach..

Last weekend I flew out to New York to stay with my sister, who happens to live a minute from Central Park.  I flew into La Guardia and took a bus out to NY as oppose to flying into JFK and taking the metro and transfers everywhere.  Flying into LGA is the way to do it, so much less stressful. 

First day of my trip we took the Hudson train out to the Breakneck Ridge Trail to hike the "best" trail in the greater new york area.  The first mile of the hike was awesome...  hand over foot rock scrambling.  And speaking of breakneck I almost broke mine when I attempted a rock climb and realized after 10 ft up my running shoes had no grip whatsoever and I was stuck.  I came crashing down and cut my knee on a little rock. Nothing serious. I decided not to try any more rock climbs as I need to stay injury free for my racing.  The rest of the hike was cool.  We got lost for a couple hours.  Somehow we managed to hike in the completely opposite direction the trailmap said we were going.  We ended up at Lake Surprise.  Wow it was seriously a surprise.  There were little kids running everywhere. No adults anywhere. It was pretty awesome.

It was a pretty cool camp.  They had a trampoline in the lake!  I didn't want to cause a ruckus by jumping on it since we had to ask the camp director directions to get back.  We made our way back to Cold Springs and had a bite to eat at the restaurant. Then took the train back to the city.

Next day was spent running in central park, hitting up the stores and restaurants we biked out to Fort Tilden on July 4th.  I rented a bike for the day.  The ride was cool.  The directions took us along the Hudson River over the Brooklyn Bridge, through neighborhoods, and across another bridge to the beach.  It was about a 2 hour ride due to an onslaught of stop lights.  After arriving to Fort Tilden and being directed the wrong way by multiple people we finally arrived at the beach.  Its a beautiful beach and well preserved, oh and nude as well.  I did not partake, few do, but it was different.  Not much of a family beach.  If I lived in New York I would be at that beach all the time.. the water was just as clean as it is here which is saying something because VA Beach has clean beaches (except for the oceanfront due to trashy tourists).

Christi, Margret, and I at Fort Tilden beach.

We stopped at a nearby store, which has this in the back and who can resist a teeter-totter.

Later that night we viewed the fireworks show.  Super crowded with not the best viewing, but nevertheless it was pretty awesome.  My camera is not good with night shots though...

Next day was spent at the Museum of Natural History, checking out Columbia University and my sisters studio, and hanging out in Central Park. Then it was time to fly back home.  Another great visit in the books.

So far since my return I've done very little training.  Lost some motivation over vacation I guess.  I personally think the rest is doing me a lot of good.  Its important for me to take some time off from training to allow my body to recover from the first half season of racing.  Today (7/8) I start back up again though.  I'm rested and motivated to get after it again.  I have an olympic distance race this Sunday at Colonial Beach, VA.  I did the race last year and its a pretty decent course. Hopefully I can pull out the win. Wish me luck!