Quick Hiatus

Back in Michigan after a long day of travel. Don’t have my bags, but thanks to Coach Henner quietly yelling at Bumbi and I for not bringing our spikes carry on, I have some flats to race in tomorrow for Shay! It’s nice to be back, and I’m a little jet-lagged, but going to be ready to roll tomorrow.

The race in Dublin was alright, it’s hard to complain about a sub-4 mile, but was disappointed with the race. Still trying to get a big one, but sometimes you have to wait a long time for them. (Bumbi and I did spend some time listening to Rage Against the Machine after the race to get over it.)

For those of you have enjoyed the daily posts during July, I’m going to take a little break. I’m going to be up north and not check internet all weekend. I’ll post a recap of the entire trip sometime next week once I get back. Happy summer.

Let’s Go!

The Final Leg

Mmmm. Chocolates.

Made it to Dublin for the last leg of my European tour yesterday and now getting ready for the mile this evening. It is a pretty stacked field with 9 guys under four, so I’m pretty excited about what could go down. Overall, I’ve been pretty happy with the spacing of my races, although I wish one more could have been in between Brasschaat and this, but gotta role with the punches.

Staying at a Holiday Inn Express near the airport which is about a 5 minute walk from the track. It is a pretty Americanized hotel, so it’ll be a nice transition from here to home.

Last year leading up to the last race (which was in Brasschaat) I was ready to get the hell out of there and get back on American soil. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t excited about going home, but this year has gone by a lot quicker and I could definitely stick around for a few more races if there were any great ones. However, The Ryan Shay Mile is going to be way too much fun, so I want to get home for that anyways.

And I am running in Halifax, Nova Scotia on August 3rd to finish out the season. I’m entered in both the 8 and 15, and will probably find out a few days before what I’m actually running. It will be a nice way to end the season.

Lately, I have been reading books that I only really half read in middle/high school. Been getting through “To Kill A Mockingbird” lately, and Holy Sam Hill, that Scout is a pretty awesome little girl. I loved what Atticus had for his kids after Mrs. Dubose passed away: “It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.”

Right now, don’t have a link to the race...will post online tonight either here or on twitter how the race went. It’s 20.00 Ireland time...so 3pm for the East Coasters.

Go time this evening in Dublin! Let’s Go!

Adios Amsterdam!

Bumbi and I over a scenic canal (stolen straight from his blog...boo yah)

So first off, my apologies to those expecting an awesome new bball dunk. This wasn’t like a normal LBPjam in that the real things are actually athletic feats. I was a little disappointed with the fact that I’m not that good at soccer. However, even though LBPjams are fantastically amazing in an athletic sense, they are also meant to be fun, which is what I had when I was making the soccer jam.

But now I have to peace out on Amsterdam and head to Dublin for the Morton Mile tomorrow evening. It is looking like a pretty good field with 8 sub-4 guys, so should be pretty fun. Hopefully I’ll have internet in Dublin so I can give a few more posts from this side of the Atlantic.

Then I’ll be heading home to meet Kara Goucher in Michigan and head up north with the fam for the Ryan Shay Mile. Really looking forward to that one and hopefully can have a good race there even with some possible jet-lag setting in.

Then I’ll have only one more race to go with a trip to Nova Scotia for an 800 or a 1500 there to close out the season on August 3rd. Should be a nice little way to close things out.

Finally race tomorrow night, just got excited again! Let’s Go!

ps - leaving the LBPjam here because I haven’t been taking as many pictures lately seeing as I see the same things ever day.

Presenting: The Latest in LBPjams

Some beach soccer in the town square:

What would a trip be without a new edition of and LBPjam? While LBPjams became a hit this winter, I steered away from them in the spring after receiving messages from people like my cousin saying: “be careful.” However, you can’t contain the athlete within me, and I decided that a new edition of LBPjams was a highly necessary part of my 2010 European Racing Vacation. But, being in Amsterdam during a time when the Dutch were playing for the World Cup, I became inspired to do something with more worldwide appeal. So, I give you
“LBPjam10(euro)”.

The girls were gone in Finland this weekend (with some nice 4:10s for Maggie and a 4:11 for Liz proving her 4:09 was no fluke!). So I had plenty of down time. And while I didn’t injure myself, I did come close. And while I didn’t break anything in the house, I did come close. Not to worry, because instead I came out with a sweet LBPjam that I think you will all enjoy. There is even an awesome soundtrack and some video editing (albeit extremely poor editing, I wanted to get it up, so didn’t pull out too many fancy tricks that iVideo provide). As always, check the jams section of runLBP to see the vids after they have left the front page.

It is my last day in Amsterdam, and I have mixed feelings about it. Last year, I was ready to get the hell out of dodge and back to the good ol’ USofA. Now, I’m pretty excited about heading home, but I could stick around and run a few more races if I had to.

The mile in Dublin is shaping up to be a pretty good one, so I’m pretty excited about that. Then I’ll have to step up and deal with the jet-lag to be ready for the Ryan Shay Mile on Saturday, but I’m pumped about that as well and am going to run straight to Lake Michigan following the finish. Thank God for Northern Michigan in the summer.

Enjoy the jams…Let’s Go!

The Gouchers and Amsterdam Musings

Amsterdam...

It came to my attention recently that the Columbia Track Team adoringly called my brother, Will, Adam Goucher. For the non-runner out there, this is in reference to a running couple, the Gouchers (Adam and Kara), who are fairly prominent faces on the USA running circuit. The thing is, Kara is WAAYYYYY better than Adam. She’s a World Championship Bronze Medalist, an amazing marathoner, and, as it turns out, extremely good looking. Nothing against Adam, but Kara is definitely the bread winner in terms of being the better runner. As you can guess, Will was referred to as Adam Goucher due to Delilah being a legit runner. It’s not really fair because Will isn’t trying to be a professional runner, but I thought it a fairly funny nickname nonetheless. Then something terrible happened. I became an Adam Goucher as well.

My girlfriend was a pretty damn good runner, but then she had to go and place higher at NCAAs than I did the year before. I was watching the race in Indianapolis with my brother and Jeff Moriarty (Columbia’s runner who has taken all my school records). We watched nervously – me especially – as Christine rounded the turn and passed two runners to place 5th in the 800 at the National Championships. Pretty cool. I was pumped. Sent her the usual text. Then Moriarty called me Adam Goucher. It was like a knife in the heart.

Christine called and I forgot about it for a sec. Then she said this: “Wait a second…what place did you take at NCs last year?” as she realized that she had placed higher than me and laughed…Classic Kara, always rubbing it in.
--
Now just a few musings about Amsterdam…

1. There must be no problem with stage fright here. They have a lot of co-ed bathrooms and also have public urinals that are just out in the middle of the street. I am terrified of them.

2. The street names here are insane and when someone tells me to go towards one, I have no idea where to go. These are some of the street names: We are on Karthuizersstraat, next to us is Lijnbaansgracht, the Ann Frank Huis is on Prinsengracht, and I almost had an accident on Poopinmypantsinstraat. (ahahahaha. Elizabeth has told me I’m funny on more than one occasion on this trip. I always remind her that I’m trying really hard.)

That’s all for today. Had a nice workout with Bumbi and now relaxing on this nice Sunday evening. Last full day in Amsterdam tomorrow, I’ll have a treat on runLBP because of it…Let’s Go!

And for those of you holding your breath in anticipation...I did eat a Pizza Dog. It was awesome/awful all at once.

LBP Cribs

Short post today...but you get a movie to go along with it!

I didn’t get to edit the cribs of LBP Eurotrip, but check it out and you can see what the apartment looks like. Bumbi is coming up to visit today, and I’m supposed to meet him in like 15 minutes, so that’s why there’s not much going on for this post.

I did a little 4x800 workout tomorrow. There isn’t much of a point to do that much more working out...all the hay’s in the barn already. Now you just have to out there and give a good effort and hop something good comes out of it.

The only thing bumbi and I aren’t going to do today is hit up the red light district....NOT.

Alright, that’s all for now, maybe on some downtime later today there will be another post.

Race day getting closer, can’t wait!

Let’s Go!

There's Just Something About Those Shapes

Rocked my world...

“Dude, what the hell kind of art is this? It looks like a lizard puking up skittles.” – Tom Haverford, Parks and Recreation.

I used to be an artist. I even went to art camp in 5th grade (worst experience ever at Mystic Lake Camp…I tried walking the 3 miles to my Uncle’s Bass Lake cabin at one point as my cousin Joe looked on helplessly). I wasn’t that bad of a drawer (see FishMan.jpg). I even painted some things in my day.

As I grew older, I strayed from my artsy side. Not that I didn’t like artistic things, I just moved onto different genres within the art world. Instead of an art connoisseur, I consider myself to be an expert in television watching (not an ideal artform to my mom, the librarian).

HOWEVER, yesterday we went to the Van Gogh Museum. I was walking through, enjoying everything. I thought the paintings were pretty amazing, and Van Gogh was pretty crazy so it was interesting to read up on him. I was writing down some of the paintings I liked so that I could look them up. And then. It hit me.

Holy hell. I felt like those kids must have felt walking into Willy Wonka’s Factory. It was “Wheatfields Under Thunderclouds” (http://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/vgm/index.jsp?page=4596&collection=627〈=en). Those blues and greens were so rich and the clouds that were jumping out at me. Then that little splotch of red right in the middle of the field. I stared at that thing for at least 10 minutes straight. Looking. I set up shop front and center and gazed. I was entranced.

I started out with a Parks and Rec quote. This is because I felt like Tom Haverford when he had an emotional response to art for the first time. (check it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5l3C9zBGa0 ). He says, “There’s just something about those shapes!” I was thinking, “There’s just something about those clouds!”

I considered it a major breakthough in my art loving life. Then, I turned back into a Boylan and powered through the rest of the museum right to the café and got a hot coco to cure my low blood sugar and bad mood. But I keep thinking about that painting. It’s crazy.

Now I have to go do a workout, and I’ll probably think about that painting the rest of my time here. Good work Van Gogh. Now Let’s Go!

SWULY

Cooling down at Olympic Stadium...

There are some things you hope live on when you leave a place. This being a running related web-journal, I always hope to leave a team better off than when I got there. However, this being an other-side-of-running-related-web-journal, I also hope to leave a team better off with awesome non-running characteristics as well.

I think at Columbia I did a pretty good job. When my brother left Columbia in ’05, he claimed that he wouldn’t have been able to make the team with the times he ran in high school. I had some stud times in high school, but I felt pretty similar when I left the campus. Now all my school records are gone, so my legacy has been left to remain in other ways (all I have running wise on the current team is my Penn Relays Title – hopefully they can get that on me too). Things like eating contests – Koronets anyone, bird rating scales, those are the thigns that remain. And now, the Columbia team is even cooler than when I left. They have names for each month with a way to live each one. While I often take part in a self-proclaimed Man Month, these kids do it every month. Currently we are in Swuly.

Swuly is all about getting jacked muscle wise. A lot of core is supposed to take place and a lot of picking up heavy things just to prove you can. While it isn’t ideal for me to be doing a ton of lifting at the tail end of the season, I salute the month, and have been doing some push-up wars by myself after my runs just to keep tone. Plus, I’m going to be heading to the beach in Michigan only a week from now so need to get my beach muscles ready.

Had a nice workout on the track yesterday…2x(4x300) at 45-43-41-39 with 90” rest and 9min rest between sets. It wasn’t easy, especially in some wind, but felt good to run 39 even though it was hard. Will be doing mini-workouts every other day leading up to the race in Dublin on the 21st.

Going to learn about Vincent Van Gough now. Let’s Go!

A-Train: my little sister's nickname.

PANCAKE SUNDAES

I’ve mentioned before how when you run a lot, you get to eat some things that don’t seem very helpful (see Mike Krisch pounding a 5Guys Bacon Burger with a cream cheese slice inserted between the patties). Yesterday was one of those days. We have been hitting up cafés pretty much daily and yesterday we came upon a pancake house. I had been there before but didn’t see the greatest listing on their menu: the pancake with ice cream, strawberries, and whip cream. Mmmmmmm. Delicious.

So Elizabeth and I got that pancake (Maggie opted for tomato soup, rookie mistake), and then proceeded to scarf them down. I don’t think that Amsterdam is really known for their pancakes (more of a crepe to me, but a little thicker I guess), but it was some delicious stuff. As seen from the sequence of photos that follow, I powered through mine much quicker than Elizabeth and then was extremely disappointed when it was done. My Uncle David out in Cali has a food column that he writes called “Lick the Plate”. I desperately wanted to do so yeseterday.

About to head up to the track for some 300s, it should be a nice little Wednesday. Let’s Go!

Ps – Andrew Bumbi got a PR in the 3k last night in a meet in Liege – 7:51. Hopefully I can get him to come up to Amsterdam now because I’m starting to get bored.

View from Liz's camera. Started off even...

I take a commanding lead (don't think she knew we were racing...I didn't either, just was EATING)...

Dundee...

depressed...

Videos and Mad Men

Here are some links to the videos of the races….

The race: http://www.flotrack.org/videos/coverage/view_video/237334-2010-brasschaat-meeting-flanders-cup/346717-m-1500-h02-section-a

And the interview: http://www.flotrack.org/videos/coverage/view_video/237334-2010-brasschaat-meeting-flanders-cup/346890-liam-boylan-pett-after-1500-at-2010-braschaat-meeting

And then, I’m also in the kick of the week video on FloTrack…it’s too bad that I’m one of the guys getting outkicked.

It’s starting to look like I’m not going to get in a race until Dublin on the 21st. I would have liked to get into one more, but not much you can do sometimes, so will just wait around until that one and try to take care of business there. Plus I get to race in Charlevoix on the 24th for the Ryan Shay Mile, so there will be plenty of times to race.

With no races this weekend, it means there is going to be a lot of downtime. To remedy that, we have been watching “Mad Men” the show about the 1960s adtvertisers in New York City. These dudes were crazy. They drink like fish, whore around like they live in Amsterdam, and then make some darn good commercials. We have decided that Don Draper is all that is man. We have also decided that I am pretty much the exact opposite of Don Draper. I don’t know where that leaves me.

Was able to get in some barefoot strides on a soccer field this morning and now probably going to relax the day away. We went to the Heineken Museum yesterday to meet my friends from Columbia Jon and Ana who happened to be in town for the day. It was pretty cool checking out the old brewery and they had a lot about commercials. Overall a fun experience.

Enjoy the vids. Let’s Go!

Old Heineken Brewing Factory

Meltdowns and Comebacks

There was a sweaty train ride, there were a few breakdowns, and then there were some races yesterday in Brasschaat, Belgium. All in all, things ended up okay, but not before they started off miserably.

We trained from Amsterdam to Antwerp. Antwerp was about 10 kilometers from Brasschaat. The train ride was awful. I guess they don’t believe in AC over here, because I was sweating like a pig. Then some lady sat right across from Maggie with two huge bags and wouldn’t move them up to the overhead compartments, it was a disaster. There was supposed to be someone from the meet in Antwerp to pick us up and take us to the track. Sadly/predictably, there was not. After minor freaking out, we found the 640 bus. It dropped us off about a ½ mile from the track around 1 hour after we were expecting to get to the track. Maggie had to warm up immediately. Turned out, we didn’t care about all that jazz and ended up racing our butts off: Maggie PR’d in the 8 in 2:03.6, Elizabeth PR’d in the 15 with a 4:09 (5 second best!), and then I finally raced instead of time trialing and it worked out pretty well.

So I ran 3:41.39 for 5th place in the race. It was supposed to go out in 2:23 through the 1k, but the rabbit only made it to about 700 and the leaders passed the 1k mark in 2:29 or so…leaving me somewhere in around 2:30. It should also be noted that I was an idiot at the start and let myself get shoved around like crazy and found myself in last place 100 meters into the race (they put like 14 or 15 people on the start line of a 6 lane track, it was chaos). But even with all the shoving and everything, I stayed pretty calm and just moved myself up throughout the race. At 400 to go Bumbi took the lead (which he would end up not being happy about), and then we started picking it up. There was still a pack of people because it wasn’t too fastly (I know that’s not a word but it sounds right) paced and it was very crowded on the back straight and around the final curve. I tried to bide my time, but found myself with really nowhere to go even though I had a lot left the last 100. I was able to pass some people, but not quite as many as I would have liked. I wish I would have tried going wide around the turn just to see what could have happened. But you live and you learn and I was pleased with how it went. 3:41 with a 55-56 last lap, gotta like that!

Also, I remembered that it was fun to beat people. I set out wanting to win the race, but I was able to beat some people that I really wanted to. I was finally focused on that for the first time all year instead of trying to run a fast time so that I could get a shoe contract. I sometimes forget that competing is the best part of this whole thing, and yesterday it felt good to beat some of the people that I did. Too bad 4 guys got me, but next time I’ll be coming for them.

Enjoy the pictures, still trying to figure out one more race in between now and the mile I am running in Dublin on the 21st…hopefully it can work out. Gonna be a tourist for a little this week, too bad the Dutch couldn’t win the game last night.

Let’s Go!

The track as we were getting ready to leave

A belgium beer waiting for the bus home.

Brasschaat Race Day

Just woke up and about to have some breakfast before departing for Antwerp Central Station in Belgium for the second race of my tour de europa. After a long week of preparing, its nice to finally get ready for race day.

Will have a pretty big breakfast today and then pack some sandwiches and snacks for the road. I race around 18:05 - they do military time over here - that’s around noon for you folks back on the east coast.

Not much else to report really. We went out to dinner last night at a pizza place to make it feel more like a track meet. For Dutch pizza, I was pretty pleased, but its still no Bee-Pizza, that’s for sure.

Short post today...here’s a link to the race:

http://www.acbreak.be/

On the left hand side click on the “FC/International Meeting” button and you’ll be able to find start lists and later on, I presume, results. A bunch of Americans flew 3000 miles to race in a different country. Pretty awesome. Bumbi, my training partner throughout the year, will be there, so i’m pretty pumped about that. Someone to warm up and cool down with is always nice.

Let’s Go!

Bees?

Beads?

oh, bees.

(they were all over at the track last year)

Layin' Low

The sight of me in my Dad’s house is nothing special. I plop down on the couch in front of the tv and set up shop for hours at a time. Meanwhile, my Dad goes in and out the front door doing lawn work, car work, or just relaxing in the garage so he doesn’t have to listen to the vh1 show I’m watching. One time around Christmas ’08, my Dad was walking out with a steaming cup of coffee in his hand.

He took a sip on the fly said, “Gaahh,” and smacked his lips approvingly. “That’s a good cup’a joe, Lee.” I peered up over the couch at him. “It’s too bad you don’t drink coffee.”

I groggily responded, “Well, I actually do now.”

He stopped in his tracks, “Well shoot,” he looked down at his mug. “It’s actually not that good.”
--
I have drank a lot of coffee on this trip. I think it is because there isn’t much else to do. Yesterday I had a pancake (crepe) and a cappuccino while relaxing around before my mini-workout. Both were delicious, and I’ve decided I’m going to head back a few more times to make it my regular stomping ground. Hopefully they like me by the end even though I’m not that great at talking to wait-staff in normal conversation.

Was able to do some strides at the track yesterday – 3 sets of 50-100-150 at 15 second 100 pace, then 14.5, then 13.5 for the last set. Do that kind of stuff just to keep the legs fresh and ready to move on Sunday for the race. It has been hot in Amsterdam (no, not comparable to the East Coast right now) so I jumped into one of the Amsterdam Canals after my run. I wouldn’t have done it, but a bunch of little kids were jumping in, so I decided to join in on the fun. It saved my day after the longest and hottest tram ride to the track ever.

Finally race day tomorrow…Let’s Go!

Bikes everywhere!

Anne Frank Huis

Normally, runLBP finds itself more on the fun-loving, light-hearted scale of the web-journal-sphere (I hate the word blog, and even more hate the word blogosphere), but today we went to the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam and things were put a little more into perspective.

This wont put things down in the dumps either. The Anne Frank Museum was really something everyone should see. You get to walk through the entire office that they were on top of and then past the moving bookcase and into the “apartment.” At first, you think, oh this wasn’t too bad…there are 2 rooms on the bottom floor…then you walk up a ladder-type staircase that leads to the living room/kitchen/bedroom. Then there’s the attic of the attic where you can actually look out and see the blue sky and a chestnut tree. It seems spacious and nice. Then it’s realized that the people were stuck in there. They couldn’t move during the day, had to have blackout shades up in the windows so that no one could see in. It is really intense to be in the spot and look out the window that Anne Frank looked out 60 years ago. It was an important part of history, and I was glad to have seen it.

Check out http://www.annefrank.org/ and you can see a little more about the Frank’s “Secret Annex.”
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I am officially entered in Sunday’s Brasschaat Meeting. I will be running the 1500, and it looks to be a pretty good field. It will be interesting to see how it all goes and hopefully I find myself in the mix. Will head up to a track today to get in some striders and then take it pretty easy tomorrow before heading to the meet on Sunday. I’ll put up a link to coverage of the meet once I find it…Let’s Go!

Top of the Anne Frank House

Shrimp Nuggs, Chicken Nuggs, Macadosh, mmmm.

Spinach For Strength

A young Liam was a fairly odd fellow. Rarely was I actually just a young Liam, but I instead found myself in character at nearly all times of the day. For a time it was Tigger from “Winnie the Pooh”, then it was Leonardo, Donatello, Michaelangelo and Rafael from “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” (with corresponding blue, purple, orange, and red arm, wrist, and headbands to go along). For a while I wore a belt so that I could hold swords and daggers and knives and guns on my person at all times. Then a coonskin hat sat atop my head so I could be Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone. All of this was fine and dandy, but then I got into Popeye.

I’d squint one eye, curl my lip around a cork pipe, stuff spinach through the small opening in my mouth, and sing: “I’m Popeye the sailor man/I’m Popeye the sailor man/I’m strong to the fin-ich/Cause I eats me spinach/I’m Popeye the sailor man!” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ9SYgTk_hY for reference.)

The looks my Mom got on the street were less than encouraging. But she provided the pipe, and I ate A LOT of spinach, so my iron levels were fine, and life was good.

Sadly, I wont be going to the pictured Popeye Coffee Shop in Amsterdam. It turns out, we are looking for cafés if we want some coffee, which seems a little backwards to me.

The workout on Tuesday ended up being a pretty good one. Ran 2x800 in 2:25 (meant to run 2:30) and then ran 2x4-3-2…going 65 pace the first set and then 58 pace the second set (although I ran a 55 in there and it felt really good to move pretty easily through that). It’s fun running at an Olympic Stadium, especially one from 1928.

We’re about to do some museum sightseeing today...looking forward to it.

Let’s Go!

The sites in Amsterdam

Our coffee maker to avoid the Coffee Shops.

Hobbits in the Red Light District - Innocence Lost

One would think that a true Dutch Football Fan would want to watch the game with a bunch of other Dutch Fans, not a bunch of orange clad tourists who think they’re at the hub of it all and don’t really know what they’re cheering for. So that’s why I think the guy who called Maggie and I Hobbits while sipping on a glass of merlot wasn’t really a great representation of the Holland Faithful. But I digress, because that was one cool Soccer game!

It was extremely fun heading to a pub to watch the game. A lot of energy in the streets, orange streamers everywhere; it’s like a when a professional sports team wins a championship and the town celebrates, only cooler, because EVERYONE cares so much.

So now they’re in the final, and we will probably not be here because we’ll be racing…wa wa waaa. Either way, hopefully they can pull off another one, because I think everyone will be a lot happier in this city if they do.

After the game, we decided to walk around and somehow we found ourselves in the Red Light District! (It was completely by coincidence and not planned at all.) As one of the sprinters at the track told us, “whether you agree with it or not, you have to go check it out.” She was completely right. The bottom picture is of us there, and if you look closely, you can see how uncomfortable we all are. And as Elizabeth said as we were walking out, “My innocence is gone.”

Let’s Go!
*One last side note...that PIZZA DOGG looks awesome...while there’s no skyline in Amsterdam, I think I found my savior...

Us after the game...

It's a PIZZA DOGG

Red Lights make us nervous...

Hup Holland Hup!

Cat in the wall? Now you’re speaking my language!

I have lived with a CatDog all year. It is a cat, but it is named CatDog. CatDog and I had one beautiful moment – a nap on a sleepy day with her curled up on the couch right at my feet – and a year full of me yelling at her for getting too close to my food or meowing outside my door as I tried to sleep. So when our “landlord” left us a note to make sure the windows were closed so as not to allow the cats in, I quickly obliged. Sure enough…cats are all over our courtyard. So those windows stay closed when we travel around town.

About to head out to the track for a workout, so will leave some pictures up of our travels (head to the blog to see them...). It’s been fun so far, and got to meet up with my Aunt Kathy and Cousin Moira last night. It was great to see family 3000 miles from home.

Heading up to the 1928 Olympic Stadium for the Coach Wood Classic 1Ks followed by 5-3-2s! Let’s Go!

Olympic Stadium

The Track

The door to our apartment.

Cat in the Wall!?

Orange Shirts for a Red, White and Blue Flag?

Ireland wasn’t bad, but why not head to Amsterdam for a bit? I have no idea why they wear orange jerseys (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands_national_football_team#Colours, a quick wikipedia search can answer that for us), but I like them. And I love the fact that the town is painted in orange – not literally, but there are flags everywhere and blow up soccer balls hanging above the streets. And now I’m pumped up for the game tomorrow evening, where I’ll definitely try to visit a pub to check it out.

The first race wasn’t a great one, but it was a good rust buster (the common term used by runners when they’re not so sharp, or maybe its just an excuse for not running great), and I’m pretty excited about the possibilities of the rest of the races I could be running in. I ran 3:44.2 and took 8/9th place (still no official results online). I didn’t feel terrible, especially considering that I thought I was going to feel terrible after flying in the day before, but also didn’t feel that sharp and ready to roll. It wasn’t that quick of a pace—probably through 1200 in 3:01—which should have been nice for me, but couldn’t get the gears going once every one else in the race did.

Overall, the experience of the race was great. I got to hang out with my teammate from Columbia, Erison, who won the 400 at the race in 45.9 into a stiff headwind. We enjoyed a Guinness after the race (Erison hated it) while we watched the Spain/Paraguay soccer game.

Now, I’m sitting in our apartment in Amsterdam, and the place is NICE. Its small, but has a kitchen and is right near everything we could ever need (grocery store, all that jazz). I’ll post some of the pictures from Ireland right now (including the girls signing shirts – those girls then proceeded to make fun of me for calling a Lolli-Pop a Sucker, and even if that is the way 12-year-olds flirt, it was disheartening to say the least. Those will be on the blog’s page...) And then tomorrow I’ll probably post TWO times with some Amsterdam updates…the track we go to is real cool.

Let’s Go!

Elizabeth and Maggie: Irish Celebs

Murph-Dogg...

Irish Highs

It’s noon Ireland time. I’m on a bus from Dublin to Cork. I’m running on 2 hours of restless sleep and fumes from the cup of coffee I just gulped down. And like my Dad says: “I have to pee like a racehorse.” (Without fail on every drive home from Fraser to Bath after a trip to my Granny’s he’d be in the driver seat squirming around like a fish out of water situating himself to subdue the urge of the bathroom break he so desperately needed.) I writhe some, but then decide to sit still, thinking that if I move, my bladder will act in the wrong way.

Finally, the bus comes to a stop in a town center to pick up some more passengers. One of my travel partners and I rush through the aisle and ask the bus driver where we can go to the bathroom. He looks around hopelessly, then tells us to try the black door of the pub to our left. I racewalk to the door. I rush through and a man at the jukebox can tell exactly what I need and points me in the direction of the bathroom. The urinal is the wall, one of those ones with water rushing down at all times like a trough. I start going to the bathroom and then hear the music playing over the speakers.

I figured my first experience in an Irish Pub would include sipping on a Guinness and listening to Dropkick Murphy’s. Instead…it’s peeing against a wall while listening to Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing.”

And with that, welcome to “runLBP’s EuroTrip 2k10”! Posts will start appearing daily (given Internet cooperation) and you can follow me all around Ireland and Amsterdam and Belgium. I’m pretty excited about it, and definitely pumped to get some more races in.

I’m traveling with two Georgetown girls: Elizabeth Maloy and Maggie Infeld, and we’re going to hopefully have some fun while running fast. I’ll be around until the 22nd and they’re staying over until the 28th or so.

We start out our European season with a 1500 tonight in Cork, Ireland. They have been plenty kind to us so far by putting us up in dorms and feeding us our every meal. They like my name, and hopefully will cheer for me tonight. You can check out results here: http://www.corkcitysports.ie/viewpage.php?memid=133&parent=133

I go off at 3:05pm Irish Time (10:05 EST). Let’s Go!