2014 PTARC Triathlon

I ran a triathlon this weekend. I guess maybe that sounds impressive but in reality it was horrible. My legs hurt. Either I trained too much or not enough. It was probably the latter. I went out a few times to ride the bike and get my muscles ready but every time after the first time my legs lost strength really quickly. I thought I was overdoing it and wanted to save up my strength. I guess I should have beat myself earlier and then took the week prior off.

Anyway I thought it would be a cool life goal to cross off my list: Participate in and complete a triathlon so that is why I did it. I would have done it last year but there was a Weird Al concert that weekend so I had to pass. No such distractions this year. I was good to sign up and go.

When I woke up at 5am that morning (2014/06/21) it was raining like crazy and I thought they would call it off but about 2 minutes before I was ready to give up, it stopped raining. I was really worrying about it all that week so I would have felt bad if I wouldn't have showed up.

I found out the week before that there is construction on the Penn Trafford High School pool for the next 2 years so the swimming portion was replaced with a run. So instead of swim, bike, run it was run a mile, bike 13.5 miles then run 2.5 miles. As soon as it started my strength left me. I knew this was not going to be fun. Luckily I wasn't the absolute last person to finish the first run. You could tell a lot of the people who were in this thing had high levels of experience doing it. I think I was the only one that wasn't wearing fancy bike pants.

When we got to the bike part I quickly fell to dead last. The first 2 miles were horrible. It was all steep hills and I had no strength. I was seriously contemplating quitting. The only thing that stopped me was that I knew as a kid I rode my bike seriously long distances and if I could do it then I could do it now. Plus there had to be a point where there were no more uphills and the downhills started. If I could just get that far. It wasn't till the turn onto Lux road that happened. Going through Claridge was awesome compared to the first part. Nice and flat. There were cops or firemen at all the intersections too stopping traffic so I never had to slow down. In fact as hard as it was, I never stopped. Even if I had to get off my bike and push it up the hill (which I did once or twice) I kept my feet moving forward. Now all I had to dread was how the hell was I going to run when (IF?) I could make it past this part.

When I finally showed back up to the venue (the course was one big circle both starting and ending at the municipal building) I could see people were still running. At least I wasn't that far behind that everyone was done before I even got to that part. Ale and Isaac were there to cheer for me as I parked my bike. I love you guys. I started running. It also sucked. Maybe 1/5th of the course was in soggy wet grass mud too which was not cool. At least put some boards down or something. There were volunteers around the track making sure I knew where to go and to clap for us and tell us what a good job we were doing, etc. I guess that was nice.

The hills here were rough too. I probably walked for half of the time as I was destroyed physically but I kept going. I think I clocked in finally at just under 2 hours and as far as I know dead last but I did it. I feel I kind of got screwed that they took out the swimming. Can I still count this as a triathlon? I guess I will. Maybe I'll do it again and if I do I'll definitely train more. Riding your bike on the nice flat Greensburg trail is not enough to be able to handle those hills.

I finished!

Hopefully they will be posting the results here. (At least I see in past years there were people who took longer than 2 hours and even a couple DNFs)

Ale found the results on this other site

Heres my biking info
Heres my running info

Father's Day 2014

There were a few things that threw me off this past week but for the most part it was a great time.

For starters this past week was E3 and there was tons of good stuff going around. The Nintendo event started with Reggie fighting Iwata and that right there was enough for me to call a winner. They showed a lot about the new Zelda and Hyrule Warriors and they finally became available to preorder on Amazon.

There was an incident where a cop punched my car but don't get me started on that. I was kind of upset for like a day after but I have since calmed.

I also got a little irritated trying to convey a lesson to the boy via Ale. Not sure what happened there but I guess it worked out in the end. I'm still not sure.

Besides those downers I guess everything started on Thursday. Since the boy was going away for the next week we had our Father's Day celebration this day. We had an awesome cookout outside and the food was great. I am really liking the grill we bought last summer and I think I am pretty good at cooking on it. We cook pretty much every piece of meat we have in the house when we cookout so we don't waste the charcoal and then we have food to eat for several days afterwards. I invited my mother for like the 10th time to our cookout but like every time but one, she ignored the invitation and did not show up. Her loss.

The boy made me a gold trophy at Penn Pals out of a piece of paper and Ale collaborated with him to buy me a new power screwdriver set so that was good. It's nice to get something useful once in a while. The boy did fail to call me on Sunday but I guess I won't mess with him over it.

Friday was awesome too. I had a tattoo appointment with Danimus. A lot of progress was made on the 'I bleed black and gold' tattoo. It may even be finished the next time I'm in. I guess I will finally be able to show it off. After we were done we even hung out and did some stuff. I was kind of jacked how Dan never acknowledges my texts or anything so I wasn't expecting to do anything but it seems like we are still friends and I should let stuff like that go more easily. He showed me a lot of what he has been learning about beer. Apparently he is at a whole different level than I knew even existed. He's online trading beer and I rediscovered that the Giant Eagle in Irwin has an awesome section of craft beers which would ensure I never have trouble trying something I've never had before. I even got a bunch of new badges on the Untappd app from all the different beers I tasted.

Weird Al got permission from Iggy Azalea to parody her so a cryptic announcement was released this weekend. July 15th the newest Weird Al album will be released.

In 2 separate trips I rode the boy's new bike over 20 miles this weekend in training for the PT Triathlon which is this next weekend (June 21st). My legs were killing me the 2nd trip but I am super happy with the bike's performance. Hopefully the boy really appreciates that bike because it was not cheap. I am happy my bike is still able to be ridden as I've enjoyed the couple times we have gone out together riding. Hopefully that continues.

Saturday after the bike ride I know I worked on and made good progress on my VGDB so that made me happy. I wish I had more time and resources to research and add all these games. I do it because I love it but I do kind of wish on the side that I could monetize it in some way. At lease showcase my skills to an employers that will let me do this would be nice.

The LA Kings won the 2014 Stanley Cup. They kicked ass. They were absolutely the best team.

The World Cup has started in Brazil and we watched Argentina beat Bosnia and Herzegovina 2-1 in their first match.

On Sunday I got a good few hours in on Watchdogs. That game is pretty fun and for as long as I played it for as much as I did I am still not even that far along. It is an extensive game to be sure.

Besides all that I got to spend a lot of time with my beautiful wife, Ale. I don't know what I'd do without her. We are still moving forward with the house. We do own the first acre of the property and we are still saving up I guess. I am still paying my student loan down and I hope to have that taken care of by the end of this year.

Done with Kennywood

I love roller coasters. I don't like waiting in line after line only to have the ride break and be shut down before I get my turn. That's the only way I can describe my most recent (and probably last) visit to Kennywood Park. I haven't gone for a long time anyway. I know I've taken the boy before but he was just an inch too short to ride anything good. He wanted to stand at the end of the Pittsburgh Plunge and get splashed all day that time anyway. We decided to go this time because Ale's parents we visiting and it seemed like a fun activity to do with them.

First thing I noticed that I didn't like was that they changed the parking lot structure. Used to just be able park anywhere, not anymore. It's pay. The free spots are way way in the back and seemingly insufficient in volume. Now I walk so I would prefer to park in the back but when I see the pay lot is completely empty and idiots are parking on the hillside in the free lot then I think we have a problem.

Second thing I noticed was the entrance fee is back to one price only. You have to pay $41 to get in. That seems like a lot for a regular person. That seems like a whole lot for people that don't intend to ride anything. What happened to General Admission? Ale's mom and sister aren't going to ride anything. Why do they have to pay full price when they are just going to sit on a bench all day? Luckily Ale researched and found so coupons so we didn't get totally ripped off buying admission tickets.

So we are through security now (because that's totally necessary). You walk through that tunnel that takes you under the road and BAM! You're in! At least that is still fun. The boy couldn't reach the ceiling. I remember knowing I was growing the time when I was able to touch it. So they took the Turnpike ride out and put in the Sky Rocket. I say let's jump right in and get in line. So me, her dad and the boy get in line. We wait 35 min. We're at the part that goes up the stairs to the area where you board the cars. We hear an announcement. The ride is shut down for maintenance. Wow that sucks. Should we wait it out or come back later? We were close enough we could see that some guys came over and are working on the brakes on one of the cars. We waited 10 more minutes and then left the line. This wasn't going to be running again soon.

The boy wants to ride the Phantom so we head that way. On the way we did stop and get on the bumper cars so at least we got that first ride under our belts.

When we left that, across the way was the Cosmic Chaos which I have ridden and enjoyed before. The line didn't seem long so we queued up. After about 10 minutes we can tell we will be in the next batch of people to get on. The ride stops and the people get off clearing the way for us. Excitement! Wait what are they pointing at? Where are those employees going? I hear another announcement. Someone yakked on the ride and they are closing for maintenance. Wonderful! We are out of here.

The boy had enough at this point. He starts dragging me towards the Phantom. I see a sign: "Only one car running today. Sorry for the inconvenience". Oh really? I pretty much have no choice. We get in line. About 55 minutes later we are in the boarding area. At this point I can tell 2, 4, 6 people in front of us so that's 3 cars worth until our turn. I also notice in the one working car they have that 2 of the double seats on the cars are blocked off. Their one car isn't even capable of a full load. The boy is really excited. At least this ride is working huh Dad? Don't jinx us boy, I said. Finally we are next. The car pulls in and the people get off. Announcement. Temporarily closed for Maintenance. FFUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCK! I could see disappointment clouding up on the boys face. Someone asked what was wrong and the guy replied something back that didn't seem to serious. In fact, as we all stood there for what seemed like an eternity but was probably just 5-10 minutes, no one looked at anything that I could tell but then all of sudden we hear the 'please board carefully' message. Yay! We can ride now! The boy was fairly terrified but he did it. We even got this cool picture Ale paid $15 for. :|

After that success we walked around a little and saw the other parts of the park. I told them where everything used to be around the park. We rode the train ride. I noticed they have huge dryers outside the water rides now to bilk stupid people of money. We went into the arcade where I explained I spend plenty of time in my younger years. They had almost all of the exact same games, Rampage, Double Dragon, etc. That was kind of depressing. While that was a Golden Age of Arcades some good games have come out then you should probably have here. Did they do nothing but rearrange them every year since then? We wanted to get some food or something but I said I had to at least ride that new Black Widow ride before we left so I went over to get in line solo. You stand almost under it to wait in line and it seems pretty impressive for that vantage point. I was excited. Too bad that 2 rides into my wait they shut it down. That's it, I'm out. Everyone got out of line and I went to find my family by the Merry Go Round. I'm pissed. I want to go. If they new the rides weren't ready yet or whatever they could at least warn you and charge you half price or something. So we left and I had to apologize to her family. This isn't what I expected. This isn't a good impression to show a bunch of people who have never been here before.

It's because of this total bullshit that I will not come back to Kennywood.