Mark "Bear" Smith

Last weekend Mark and Rich Mirocco went up to northern CT near the Rhode Island boarder for an "adventure race". Much like Bear Grylls in Man v. Wild, Mark and Rich decided that surviving a normal triathlon was not enough and participated in a race that included going to multiple check points out in the wilderness as a team. They had to mountain bike, kayak, or run to get to each of the check points. Some of the checkpoints were actually over water, so they had to do each of the different activities. Unlike a normal athletic event, the course was not mapped out and the fourth task outside of the biking, running or kayaking was to read a map with a compass. They were doing really well until Rich saw another team going downhill another direction. At that point, they had biked such a long time, Rich was looking for any downhill route and barrelled down the wrong direction:-) After getting back on the right track, Mark and Rich ended up finishing 4Th out of 46 teams, which is amazing for their first attempt at one of these races. Attached are some pictures of the race, along with a pic of Rich and Mark at Barcelona chowing down that night after the race.

80's Hair

So today Mark and I went to the Linens and Things in Fairfield. We needed a new down comforter and the Fairfield location is closing, so everything was on sale. I went looking in the hair dryer dept and found a "waving iron" that looked like it would be fun. So the first picture is from the box of the iron that shows the "bed head" look that you are supposed to be able to achieve. The second picture is me trying for the same pose. What I ended up with was not lovely big waves, but rather results that were oftly familiar--reminded me of the crimping irons from the 80's!! Now, people try to tell me that 80's fashion is back, but I am just not going there. However, for Emily Scott, I am totally ready for our 80's New Year bash now!!

The destruction of Mogley

This was a Homer Simpson slipper once...

Wheelers in Fairfield

After a great Friday night out at Kristin's house (yes, we finally made it there after a year...if we had gone earlier, we may never have left:-)), Karen and Brian made their way up to New England for some boating fun. The waves were very high, so it was very much like the water rides at Great Adventure. The highlight of the boat ride was when Mark took us into Bridgeport harbor and then right into giant wake of another boat. A huge wave of the nastiest sound water flooded into the front, soaking Karen, Brian and Ali. We have never had water come over the front like that before...the bumpiest ride, however, was the way back to shore when Brian was driving...that's Jersey drivers for you:-)

SAS...one last one

Sean sleeping on the boat to Long Island before the swim...how little we knew at the time:-)

Golfing fun

Ali hit the links with the New York Principal team. Luckily I was on the team with Joe and Sixto. It was Sixto's first time golfing and Joe hadn't played since last year either. The first tee Joe hit three balls in the water and I couldn't get off the tee--that was when we decided not to keep score:-) From there it got much better and we averaged about par--good time was had by all!

Swim Across the Sound 2008

Happy Sunday to all!

As you know, yesterday marked the 21st Swim Across the Sound and the third year that I participated. This year was quite the experience to say the least. The event started on Thursday with the pre-race meeting, which highlighted one of the benefactors of the swim. It was the mother of a young girl, under 6 at the time, that was suffering from an extremely rare form of cancer to which there is no treatment and no cure. The girls’ biggest dream was to go to Disney. While SAS isn’t a make a wish-type of organization, it is about enhancing the lives of those suffering from cancer and their families. This girl’s family was financially strapped from the treatment, and could not bring this wish to fulfillment. SAS did. The girl died just two weeks after returning from Disney after a two-week deterioration. What was great is that they wheeled her into Disney where she laughed, played and forgot about cancer. All of your contributions made that happen.

The actual swim, however, was not so happy. I received an email on Friday that warned of high levels of jellyfish and that swimmers should plan on bringing wetsuits and jellyfish sting kits (neither of which I own). One of the members of our team (Amy) went out and bought a wetsuit for us to share and the jellyfish sting kit. Additionally, there were major thunderstorm warnings with the storms set to start around 2pm. Do the math—we started at 8am and typically this takes us between 6-9hours—we were going to get stuck in the storm. Our race started late around 915pm and the first swimmer in, wearing a long-sleeve wetsuit and swim shorts, looked like a fish jumping out of the water each time he was stung by a jellyfish. When it was time for my first swim, I was so intimidated by what was in there that I had pretty much psyched myself out before even entering the water. Once in the water, you can’t see what is around you—only green—right up to when the jellyfish come right next to you or from below. My first sting was from a big on that I saw myself swim over, but that my leg kicked down on. I felt all of the tentacles of the jellyfish wrap around my right calf. It doesn’t hurt for about the first two seconds—then the pain starts. I had to keep swimming, but now I wasn’t kicking and the waves were rolling in with the storm. I took another big jellyfish across the face, felt one hit my fingernail, and another smaller one on the left leg, not to mention the MULTIPLE jellyfish that I felt hit my covered arms and stomach. When I got out, I was dosed down with vinegar, so the pain stopped within about 15 minutes. Being in the water was a horror movie---you didn’t know when it was going it hit, but you knew that it was going to hit and it was going to hurt. Also, the maroon jellyfish are totally creepy looking at them up close under water.

Once we were about an hour into the swim, the storm really started rolling in—we could see the totally back clouds and the lightening in the distance, we think right around Norwalk. Of course, all of this was happening when we had a swimmer in the water as well! At an hour and a half into the race, they called the swimmer in the boat and called the race off. We were only about 3 miles into a 16-mile race, so still pretty far from the harbor and by this point, the black clouds were dead ahead. They were dark and swirling with clouds. As we got closer, the rain started and the captain sent us below deck. The thunder was the loudest that I have ever heard and was cracking all around us. The captain decided to pull us into Fairfield harbor rather than Black Rock because he thought that there would be a big back up with all of the boats coming in and he wanted to get us off the big metal floating electricity conductor as soon as possible. As the son of the captain was getting off the boat, we heard lightening crack as it struck something, which his mother and everyone else below thought was him. Luckily, it was a tree about 50 feet from the boat. We ran into the bait shack and waited for a ride back to Black Rock for about an hour. The mother was hysterical crying in the shack that was meant for about 3 people to be in and was holding 14 of us, one of which was the swimmer that was pulled out who was shirtless and still dripping wet. The ride was a long time coming because the storm was so bad that the roads were flooding, trees were down and electricity was out. Once we arrived at Captain’s Cove, Mark was there to pick me up and go home. I started wheezing that night and my mouth was swelling up. I took two Benadryl and passed out around 6pm. I woke up during the night with my eyes swollen shut and was having trouble breathing. I took some more allergy medicine and I have been weak all day long with a major allergic reaction. It is slowing now, but between the jellyfish, the anxiety, and the sound water, I was hit hard. Hopefully I will be looking back to normal at work tomorrow for everyone in my local officeJ

Thank you again to everyone that supported me and the swim. Though it was a rough ride yesterday, the Foundation is so important to our community that I don’t regret participating in the least (but do wish that they had called it off soonerJ). For next year…well, let’s just say I may be getting too old for thisJ