Home, happy and thankful

I just got back from another trip to Netherlands and Georgia. It was a relatively uneventful trip overall, busy with work almost constantly, but I guess this is what I signed up for. I will say that it did feel different being away from home so close to the holidays. Thankfully, the airlines all came through for me and I got through the 25 hour trip back from Tbilisi smoothly.

I have the next week off from work and am really looking forward to staying home and in one place for a little bit. I have a feeling that 2012 might be crazier than 2011 if that's possible, but for the next 9 days, I'm not going to worry about that. I'm going to enjoy being in Rochester and hopefully get some skiing in, although there's still nothing on the ground here. I'm also looking forward to the next few days of seeing some of the friends and family in the area. Overall, I just wanted to quickly say that I'm back in Rochester, happy to be here and thankful.

Happy Holidays!

West Yellowstone recap

As I said, his post would come in rapid succession following my previous post.

After getting back from Philly on Sunday, I headed to West Yellowstone, MT on a plane leaving at 6am Monday morning. Every year there is a massive ski festival that takes place in West Yellowstone the week of Thanksgiving. It's a common gathering point for passionate XC skiers of all ages and abilities to start the season and this would be my first time participating in the festival. I am relatively certain that I saw more XC skiers last week than I will see the rest of the year combined.

The trails were in mid-winter conditions and the weather was pretty good throughout the week. Basically every day I was there was pretty much the same - get up, eat breakfast, classic ski for 2ish hours, shower, eat lunch, relax for about two hours, skate ski for 2ish hours, eat dinner and go to sleep early. It was definitely the type of groundhog day I could get used to! Also on the trip was my buddy Jason and several of the RNR juniors as well as Duncan and two of his kids (who are high school skiers for HF-L), so there was a decent contingent from the Rochester area.

This week is also the first SuperTour races of the year, which is essentially the highest level of racing in the North America, the top skiers in the US and Canada are on the World Cup in Europe, so the SuperTour is basically the Triple-A series for nordic ski racing. For the top skiers in the US that aren't on the USST, these races were huge as the winner of the overall series for the first two weekends, gets an automatic starting spot in the next World Cup series, so there were a lot of people specifically trying to peak for these races. There were also a lot of other skiers like me that were there mainly for training, but jumped into the races to get a hard workout in and get the first races of the year out of the way. There were 3 race options throughout the week, however, I only opted to race once as the main thing I wanted to get out of the week was a maximum amount of training volume. The race I opted for was a 15km skate race on the 2nd to last day of the trip. As far as the actual race it was pretty much what I expected - painful - it was the first race of the year, which always hurts; it was at 7,000 feet altitude; and I was doing the race after skiing about 4 hours each of the preceding 4 days, so I didn't put a lot of stock in the result of the race. It went ok, and I felt like I skied pretty well, but was definitely feeling the effects of the week. Nonetheless, it was good to put a race bib on and go for it. It was also a really cool atmosphere with so many people out on course watching the race and cheering for everyone. The course seemed pretty brutal, there were two big hills and the rest of it was constantly rolling, so not a lot of rest, but definitely a good course to put in a hard effort on.

Overall, the week was a success as I skied over 18 hours, hopefully made some technique improvements and competed in super-competitive race on tough course. In addition to that, it was also great to be in the same place as so many people that are as passionate about skiing as I am and to remember why skiing is so awesome and why we spend so much time roller skiing, hill bounding, trail running and, for me at least, so much time on treadmills the other 7 months of the year!

Ok, enough of my banter, here are some pictures from the week:
Jason, Stefan (former RNR junior, now a sophomore at the Air Force Academy) and Gavin (junior at Pittsford).

This is the full Rochester group shot except for Jason (who took the picture).

Jason trailside after the race on Friday. The sun was out almost every day and I don't think I've ever seen a sky so blue. I guess there's a reason they call it Big Sky country.

Jason in the 15km race. All of the race pictures were taken on "Telemark Hill" (coutesy of Mike Wojick). The hill was really steep near the top.

Me on the hill. Notice the dude with the Middlebury ski jacket and purple scarf. Not sure what that face is all about.

I know what that face is all about, this part of the course really hurt!

Gavin was the only junior from Rochester to race. It was his first 15km, and he couldn't have picked a tougher course to make his debut on, but he hung in there and fought hard.

Here's the trailhead.

A picture from the parking lot outside the trailhead.

The day after the race (Saturday) I was set to fly home around 1:30pm and wanted to squeeze in one last distance ski. So, I convinced Stefan to head out for a skate overdistance ski with me starting at 6am. As you can see, it was a little cold (that's not a typo and it's not in Celsius). Once we got going, it was an awesome ski and we saw the sunrise, which was pretty impressive. One of those skis that reminded me of why I love to ski so much (generally speaking though, almost every time I skied all week I was reminded of that). After the ski, Stefan gave me a ride up to Bozeman and I flew home without incident. When I arrived home however, it was 55 degrees out - that's 75 degrees warmer than it was in the picture above. Think about that - I flew to Rochester, NY (not exactly a place known for it's balmy temperatures this time of year) and it was 75 degrees warmer than where I started my day. Not sure if that'll ever happen again.

I feel really lucky to have been able to go on this trip and am very excited for the winter to come. Now, we just need mother nature to cooperate a little in the Northeast and get us some snow!

Wedding season finale

Ok, these next two posts will come in rapid succession because I've been very busy being very busy and haven't had time to post here.

Two weekends ago was my brother John's wedding in Philly. Nancy and I went down to Philly on Wednesday night and stayed with our close friends the Schneider's for a couple days before the wedding festivities kicked off. In addition to frightening a few dogs in the Schwenksville, PA area that saw me roller skiing around Scott's neighborhood, we also spent some great time with them and went to a Bela Fleck and the Flecktones show. We also drove an hour each way to go to a beer store in Allentown, PA, which may sound like a long way to go for beer, but it was like Beers of the World on steroids, defintely worth the drive. It was a great time all around.

Moving on to Friday night, we had the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner.

Saturday was the big show - the ceremony was at 2pm at a church in Media, PA and the reception was at a very nice country club in West Chester, PA. If was a very nice day and we're very happy to welcome Theresa into the family.

Here are some pictures:
This is a picture of all the Maynard family in attendance, except for John and Theresea who were off doing other bride and groom activities during the cocktail hour.

Keith and his youngest daughter Megan.

Sueann, Keith, Nancy and I.

My parents with John and Theresea.

Here's all the groomsmem before the ceremony - left to right - Harry (Theresea's brother), Matt, Keith, John, Tommie (best man), me, Jason (nicknamed Veggie) and Kyle (nicknamed Zorro).

John and Theresea just sitting down for dinner.

The day after the wedding we drove back to Rochester, I spent about 12 hours at home before heading to the airport to leave for West Yellowstone, Montana...

Long sleeve shirts in Rotterdam

I got home last Wednesday from a 10 day trip to Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and Germany again. It was pretty hectic and I was moving hotels almost every night, but I was able to pack a lot in to the trip. I'm also slowly becoming a little more familiar with the different areas of these countires. As with most countries, there are regional disagreements. In Belgium, this is a pretty serious situation between the Flemish speaking region and the French speaking region. The disagreements have essentially brough the political process there to a standstill for the past couple years.

In Holland, they also have some differences, but from what I've gathered, there are less serious. They seem to be NY-Boston type of rivalry between Rotterdam and Amsterdam. The way it was explained to me is the following - people from Rotterdam think people from Amsterdam are stuck up, over educated and all talk, conversely people from Amsterdam think people from Rotterdam are ignorant and have no culture. Anyways, our local partner there is a "Rotterdamer" and proud of it, and he had a great one-liner - "If you buy a long sleeve shirt in Rotterdam, the sleeves come rolled up, so you're ready to go to work right away."

I had one free day on this trip and was able to see some of downtown Brussels. I also visited the Delerium Cafe on the recommendation of my buddy Scott. It was quite a journey finding the place, but I eventually made it, only to find it closed...after I'd been walking around for most of the afternoon. Anyways, I found a place around the corner which had some type of affiliation with the Cafe and sampled some of the Abbey beers there. Here are some pictures from the trip:

Old looking cathedral in Brussels.

City street in Brussels.

Massive cathedral in center city area of Brussels. This was only one section, my camera didn't have a wide enough lens to get the whole thing.

Here's the place that was closed.

Here's a shot of the place I found inside. The barrels served as tables.

They had like 300 beers available. It's a good thing Scott had given me a recomended list before I went to this place because I'd never heard of any of these.

This is a church in a small town in Northern Germany near Kempen.

Center city of that city.

Definitely a cool area, there was some type of festival going as well when we were there.

I'm headed to Philly for my brother's wedding and on to West Yellowstone on Monday, where the skiing looks to be shaping up to be amazing.

Penultimate wedding of 2011

I'm a few blog posts behind, so I'll try to catch up over the next few days. Last weekend was our 2nd to last wedding of the year. It's been a pretty hectic year with a lot of weddings of all types (in-town, out-of-town, traditional, non-traditional, etc). Nancy's college roomate Sarah (also one of the bridesmaids in our wedding) got married to a very close friend of Nancy's brother Doug, who's also from Penfield. Needless to say, there was a lot of "wow, it's a pretty small world" going on. They did everything for the wedding themselves and all of the food was locally grown or raised, which was a very cool concept. In addition to it being a cool concept, I'm more than certain it took an incredible amount of work and planning, but everything went off without a hitch and was excellent. Overall, it was a very unique wedding, but I think it was exactly what they wanted it to be. I hope that Sarah and Sky will be documenting everything that they did to pull this off, as I'm sure it would be a great case study in project management. Anyways, here are some pictures.

Sarah and Sky.

There were a lot of Colgate Alum there. Nancy's 2nd from the left and her brother Doug is in the back with the beard. One other item of note - Sky went to Dartmouth, so there were also a lot of his college friends there - apparently they have a dance that they teach to all incoming freshman. In the middle of the dancing portion of the night, they cleared the dancefloor and all the Dartmouth alum did this syncronized dance, which was one of the more impressive things I've seen recently.

Nancy and I contemplating whether to go to the snack setup or go hit up the lawn games during cocktail hour. The beer for the wedding was from Custom Brewcrafters (sticking with the locally produced theme) and everyone was issued a mason jar to drink out of for the night.

The guitarist (Ben) on the left also happened to be a teammate of mine in little league, high school and college baseball and we coached for several years together after college. He is also a great guitarist and Sky's brother-in-law, hence his involvement in the wedding. It was great to catch up with Ben and hopefully I'l be doing some coaching with him again soon.

As I mentioned, this was out 2nd to last wedding of 2011. The last one is a big one - my brother John is getting married down in Philly two weeks from today, so I'm definitely looking forward to that. I'm currently in Belgium and have been bouncing around a lot the last week. I'll be in Germany early next week then get home Wednesday night.

Lots to say, not a lot of time to say it....

just a very quick post to say the following:
- I went to Georgia, had a very productive trip.
- had a really long trip home.
- enjoyed a great weekend with the Ogbornes celebrating the life of their wonderful mother and wish I could have spent more time with both Ron and Rob and their great families.
- follwing that, I received an Ali-style knockout punch for 4ish days. I was boomerang-ing between a temperature of 103 and about 95, going back and forth between shivering and exploding with heat. I was easily the sickest I've been in at least 10 years, couldn't get off the couch for anything. Went to the doctor, they were useless...and I say "they" because I never actually saw my doctor (although I did speak to two others), even though this is the first time I've tried to see him in like 5 years. In fact, couldn't even get him on the phone over the course of 4 days. F-ing useless, anyone know a good general physician?
- things seem to have turned around, but I'm pretty exhausted.
- had to skip the trip to Texas with Nance. I spend so much time travelling alone, not that fun that I had to drop my wife off at an airport for a plane I was supposed to be on with her, also had to cancel dinner plans with my Uncle in Houston who I rarely get to see, bummer all around...
-I will say one thing though - Delta refunded the full price of my ticket - as much as people slam the airlines, that was cool...I didn't expect that at all, and they upgraded Nance to first class on the way there, so pretty sweet...

So, as much as this post might sound negative, I always try to be a half-full sort of person...I'm looking forward and not back...but I will say one thing looking back
- Here's to you Mrs. O: You were too amazing of a person for me to describe here, and you left the world a better place than you found it!!

Knodel's wedding

I tried to come up with a witty or creative title for this post, but it's actually pretty straight-forward. My good buddy from college Matt got married last weekend in Buffalo and I was extremely honored to be apart of it. Matt and I were teammates and roomates in college and for another year after college. Since then, he's settled in Buffalo where I've hung out with him quite a bit over the years. For a while after college, Nancy lived in Buffalo and it seemed like I was there every weekend hanging with that crew.

There were a lot of other RIT baseball alum at the wedding including my other college roomates. Since I missed alumni weekend this year, it was the first time I'd seen many of those guys in over a year if not longer. I'm always amazed that we all came together at the same school at the same time and became such close friends and although we don't see eachother that often, as soon as we come together, it's like we've seen eachother everyday for the past ten years.

The weekend kicked off on Thursday night, when I made it to Matt's house after getting lost in Buffalo (my GPS led me awry again). I stayed Thursday and Friday at the house of another college buddy, Doogie (pics below) and helped Matt with wedding prep stuff and met up with a bunch of other Buffalo friends. The rehearsal dinner was Saturday at Pearl St and the wedding was Sunday in Delaware Park. The whole weekend was a blur and went by too fast, but it was great to see everyone and great to see Matt and Sarah so happy on their big day. Oh, and we also made sure to act like college-age guys as much as possible. Here are some pictures:

Sarah and Matt right after the ceremony.

This is us waiting for Sarah to come down the aisle.
Matt and Sarah's lovely daughter Julia, also the flower girl.

Three sharply dressed gentleman, if I do say so myself.
Here's the RIT baseball alumni picture. As always Joe B in the orange tie (future mayor of Rochester) is front and center.
Two outfielders, a pitcher and a catcher walk into a bar...Left to right - Brendan, Doogie, Joe and I.
Erin and Jeff, Ski and Courtney. Interestingly enough, I have a friend that we all call "Ski" that doesn't ski at all.

...and for two random pictures from the weekend:

The day before the wedding we had some time to kill before the rehearsal, so logically enough, a few of us found ourselves in a bar. The people in the picture are (L-R) George, Allison, Drew and Jeff (also a groomsmen). Two things that are unexplainable in this picture - 1) what is Jeff doing with his phone? 2) it appears that he's drinking his beer with a straw. This might be ok for some people, but Jeff sells beer for a living...here's to hoping Sam Adams never gets a hold of this pic.

On the way walking to that bar, I saw this sign. I am very happy to know that in the event of a nuclear attack, I know that I can go to this church to avoid any danger.

All in all, it was a great weekend, although it did take a few days to recover from (getting too old to act like I'm in college, if you get my drift), but it's always great to see everyone and worth every second of the time we get to see each other.

I'm currently writing this from the JFK airport on my way to Georgia. I get home on Friday and the Ogborne's are in town this weekend. I'm looking forward to seeing their ever-expanding family. Although I do wish the circumstances were better, it will be great to see them nonetheless. Hopefully I will have time to update again in the next few days.

13.1 miles, take 2

Last Saturday I ran my 2nd half marathon. I ran my first one earlier this year on very little specific running training. With all the travel I've had over the past couple months, I'm not in town all that much on the weekends so I wanted to pick a race that I knew I would be in town for, focus on it and train pretty specifically for it and also try a few different things in the week leading up to the race. The idea being to finetune my rest and nutrition in the 3-5 days before a big event (of which, I have several this winter).

I found this race a couple months ago that seemingly no one I knew had heard. It was called the Niagara Hospice Dash in Niagara Falls. This was the first year they had a half-marathon option (previously it was only a 5k). I knew I would be in town and with the proximity, it also gave me an opportunity to visit my Grandfather, who lives in Lewiston. The race course started in Artpark in Lewiston, which incidentally is about 3/4 mile away from the house that my Grandparents used to live and my mom grew up in. The course went through Lewiston, north along the Lower Niagara, through Fort Niagara (literally through the Fort) and continued north to the finish line in Youngstown. It was an extremely well run event and also included a lot of water stations and live music at several points on the course, which was very cool.

The race itself went pretty well, I finished in 1:25:41 (6:33/mile pace), which is about the pace I was expecting and was 4 minutes faster than I ran in Buffalo earlier this year. Additionally, the 2nd half of the race was as fast as the first half, which is probably the first time that's ever happened for me in a running race. I usually start way too fast and slow down big time. So, I took that as a positive sign for both my pacing and my fitness level. Also, I think my nutritional strategy worked well as I never felt out of gas and was even able to pick up the pace pretty well in the last mile.

The visit with my grandpa was also a nice added benefit as I don't get enough opportunities to visit him with my travel schedule.

Tonight, I'm headed to Buffalo for my good friend Matt Knodel's wedding. There's sure to be a story or two to come out of the next 4 days...stay tuned for the blog recap of that one!

Three countries and two states later...

It's been far too long since I've updated this. Since my last post, I spent another week and a half in Germany and Holland, then flew home, spent one night at home and drove to Vermont for our good friends Rick and Shannon's wedding. Germany and Holland were relatively uneventful all things considered, although there were a few decent stories from the Germany leg of the trip, hopefully I'll post about those in a separate post.

We left for Stowe, Vermont last Wednesday, with the bikes loaded up - the wedding was on Friday and we decided to make a long weekend out of it and stay until Sunday. The first day we were there it rained heavily, so our planned bike ride was cancelled. Instead, Jason and I took the groom-to-be on a nice trail run on the ski trails at Trapp Family Lodge. Rick bikes and bike races a lot, but isn't much of a runner, and the 7ish mile run we went on ended up being the longest of his life. He was able to make it down the aisle just fine the next day though. In fact, we went for a bike ride the morning of his wedding up to the top of smuggler's notch, which was a pretty fun ride and had some beautiful views all around.

Here are some pictures of the main event:

Here's a picture of the program. Skiing is a big part of Shannon and Rick's life and, given that we were in an area of the Northeast known for skiing, it was definitely a strong theme throughout the weekend.

Here's a shot of the ceremony - it was a huge honor for me to be able to perform the ceremony for two close friends. It was also a pretty amazing scene with the mountains in the background.
Libby, Nancy and Anne - these three hung out a lot over the weekend while Chad, Jason and I were biking and running. I think the shoe stores in Stowe may have been a primary beneficiary of this dynamic.

Here are the groomsmen (Rick in the middle) - coincidentally the best man (2nd from the left) and the guy all the way to the right both work at Harris and the guy 2nd from the right used to work at Galyan's with me...oh and that guy all the way to the left was a groomsmen in my wedding as well...so yea, pretty small world I guess.
This was taken right before the ceremony, I had to have my game-face on!
This was Rick and I while we were waiting for the ceremony to kick off.
Here's our table for the reception. They named all of the tables after famous ski runs from different resorts in Vermont.
There's the happy couple.
I don't know who these idiots are, but it looks like they found out where the Vienna Lager was being served.

All in all, the ceremony and reception were great. I think we were all also relieved that we had a free day after the wedding before having to make the long drive back to Rochester.

On Saturday, Nancy and I sampled the Trapp Brewery's new Oktoberfest seasonal beer and had lunch outside overlooking the mountains. Not a bad view.

After lunch, we all went up to Williston, Vermont and watched a pro cyclocross race, which was pretty exciting and involved a lot of heckling from some of the spectators. Not going to lie, Cyclo-cross looks really fun!

After one final dinner Saturday night and one last trail run Sunday morning, we hit the road and headed back for Rochester. After doing about 3 weeks worth of laundry and mowing the lawn, I was back in my office today for the first time in a few weeks. I seem to have picked up some type of a head cold, which I don't really have time for as I'm running a half marathon this Saturday in Niagara Falls. Hopefully I can shake it off quickly. I'm also looking forward to being home for a little bit here and hopefully get back into some type of normal routine for the next few weeks.