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.”
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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!