Getting 2009 off on the right foot ...

2008 was not the best of years. From a historical perspective it will leave an indelible mark on us all. There was the election, the credit crunch, the continued wars around the world. The economic downturn hit our family as well. There were many positive things that happened on individual, family and professional levels.

There were great times with friends and family, starting off with a remarkable family trip to Disney World for fun and a couple of races. I got to travel around the country and to Europe to compete in events and to meet old and make new friends. There are loads of posts and pictures on the links to the right. There were disappointments and triumphs. One private dream was sweet but didn't come true.

I don't know what 2009 will bring for me and my family. I think we are all up to the challege. I have some public goals and some private dreams. The year starts out for me with new classes and a marathon in Houston, one where I hope to achieve a very challenging personal goal. My family and friends have been there for me as I work towards these goals. I hope that I have been there for them for their goals as well.

Perhaps, it was symbolic today, as I drove over to the Kimberton Waldorf School track. I usually run at the Phoenixville HS track which is a modern rubber track, but that one is closed when school is not in session. The KWS track is an old, and not particularly well-maintained cinder track which holds a special place in my heart. It was here that I did my first track workout with Leah who reminded me to start off slowly. The school is located on Seven Stars Road opposite the Seven Stars Farm in beautiful Northern Chester County. I've been on the track when a hot air balloon landed in the field next to it and when the cows got out of their pasture to graze on the field. There were runs when the wind blew accross the open field and runs when the sun set in the west.

I have a very specific goal for the Houston Marathon in a couple of weeks. This goal involves setting a personal best in the marathon. I set my previous record in 2002 at the Philadelphia Marathon, where my friends Leah and Joan pushed me over the last few miles towards a great time, earning my first qualification for the Boston Marathon. I've written elsewhere about my trials and tribulations at Boston. One of these days I will have a great run there. In the meantime, I will take each race as it is. My time at the Philadelphia Marathon was 3:39:45. I got close to it in Chicago in 2004 and in Memphis last year. Aging says it will be a challenge but my recent racing results point to a real possibility of it happening. I've been training according to the plan for a 3:39 finish in Houston, a flat course which offers a good opportunity for the PR.

This week my training plan had me doing a hard track workout today. I drove over to KWS with a cloudy sky, a 34F temperature, and a stiff breeze; not the best conditions to train. About halfway through the workout the wind picked up and the snowflakes started. It would be easy to just quit the workout, but I am stubborn. I know it probably would make no difference if I completed the workout or not, but 2009 is a new year and I have my goals.

I had one of my cameras with me and so I took a couple of pictures of the snow in the frozen mud of the track. Next week the Phoenxiville HS track will reopen, but today it was through the ruts and cinders. I guess that what life is all about, getting through those ruts, and the cinders in the shoes.

Becky's Sixth Birthday

On Sunday, February 3, 2008 we celebrated Becky's Sixth birthday at Howard and Danielle's home. Click on the photograph above for some pictures from that little get-together. As one of the proud grandparents, it was a treat to see how she has grown into a bright and lovely young lady.

Disney World 2008 Family Pictures

It was a wonderful trip. Between us we took nearly six hundred pictures. Aimee and Howard completed their first half-marathons and I completed the Goofy (half and whole marathons). There's plenty of information about the race on my "Tour" site. Click on the photograph above to see some pictures of the family wandering around the park.

The Blizzard of '66

It is Christmas morning, 2007, and it is anything but a White Christmas. In this morning's Philadelphia Inquirer, staff writer Joseph A. Gambardello asked us to remember where we were over forty years ago when the Blizzard of '66 hit. He points out correctly that over half of the world's population now alive was not alive then, but I was.

I was a junior at Case-Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio majoring in management science after having discovered that my dreams of being a nuclear physicist went up like the dreams of beating the "enemy" in Viet Nam. It was the end of the semester and I was headed home to Philadelphia for the Christmas-New Year's break. It was a dreary (it was always dreary) Friday morning in Cleveland with the snow blowing West-to-East as it always does thanks to the "lake effect". After a challenging semester of classes and even a stint working on a neutrino-tracking computer in the Morton Salt Mines a mile under Cleveland, I was ready to come home to family and my girlfriend, Sue. There was a summer job interview scheduled to work at UNIVAC out in Bluebell using my developing programming skills.

I had about $30 in my pocket as I boarded the train from the East side of Cleveland and my dorm on campus to the West side where the airport was located. It was always snowing in Cleveland so I didn't pay much attention to the weather forecast. There was no Weather.com (and no Internet for that matter) and the classical and jazz stations that I listened to were not too good at getting the word out. Airfare from Cleveland to Philadelphia in 1966 was $25 so I was in good shape.

When I arrived in the Cleveland Airport I surveyed the situation and saw the boards posted with cancellation signs all over the East Coast. It seems that there was snow falling and airports were closing left and right. It was time to go home, so I quickly called Greyhound to see if the buses were running and sure enough, they said "Yes". I boarded the train back to the center of the then desolate Cleveland to get on the bus (about an eight hour drive) and paid the $16 fare and we were off ... or so we thought.

It was some time around 8:00 PM that evening and the snow was coming down that we arrived at the Ohio-Pennsylvania border and the entrance to the Pennsylvania Turnpike. There was one problem: the Turnpike was closed. The bus driver entreated the State Trooper and we had an escort on the closed Turnpike as far as Pittsburgh. I think it was around 9:00 PM that the driver stopped at the station in downtown Pittsburgh and told everyone to come back in the morning! At this point I had about $10 in my pocket but I wasn't sleeping in the bus station. Not me, I was much to civilized. I walked a couple of blocks to the Fort Pitt Hotel and was able to secure a clean though aging room for $7 for the night and as I recall had a good night's sleep after I called home to tell the family where I was.

The next morning we awoke to a bright and sunny sky. I used what was left of my money (about $3) to eat a very good breakfast since I figured it would be a long day to get across the state to Philadelphia. We boarded the bus and the driver welcomed us in a friendly voice and we started eastward. One problem: The turnpike was still closed so the driver gave us the scenic tour, mostly on US 30 which parallels the turnpike for most of the state. There is a reason they built the turnpike. It was a very long drive and at around 6:00 PM we made it to the Harrisburg bus station and the driver said that was as far as we were going. OK, you can count; the pockets are empty and we weren't going anywhere. Fortunately, Sue had a friend from her Camp Nockamixon days who lived in Harrisburg. I gave her a call, asking to borrow cab fare, and arrived at her house where her family was a welcome site. I had a good home cooked-dinner, a warm bed, and a great breakfast before returning to the bus station for the last leg of the trip.

Day 3 of the adventure and the bus driver (same one) continues on the non-Turnpike route since they still haven't opened it. It took nearly a whole day to make it from Harrisburg to Philadelphia but at sometime around 7:00 PM that evening I arrived at the Greenhill Apartments in Lower Merion.

What should I have done? Simple. Stay in my dorm room one more night and the airports were open the next day. But then I wouldn't have a story to remember about the Blizzard of '66.

One more note about that trip. While I was in school I grew a beard. No, I was not a hippie, just lazy. One morning between Christmas and New Year's I was to have my interview at UNIVAC for the summer job that I was very much interested in getting. Dilemma. Having a beard in the 60's was tantamount to being a druggie, a hippie, a protester, an outcast. Though a little out of the mainstream, I was not any of those, so I did what was prudent the morning of the interview: I shaved off the beard. Off I go to the interview and meet the interviewer, a nice man somewhere above 30 and I couldn't help but smile: he had a beard. At the end of the interview he indicated that I would get the position for the summer and then I told him about my beard and he smiled. It turned out to be a great summer job.

I returned to school after New Year's 1967 and the season was tumultuous to say the least. The war in Viet Nam raged on but my classes progressed. After the spring semester I returned home, took a trip with my parents to Sansom Street Jeweler's Row where I converted some Bar Mitzvah money into highly compacted carbon and proposed to Sue while the Six Day War was going on in Israel. I kept off my beard during this period and it stayed off until September when Sue and I were married before my senior year. Back in school and the beard returned and has stay on in one form or another, ever since.

Ten years ago, to celebrate my 50th birthday, I took a trip around the country with my bicycles and visited my children living in California. It was a most wonderful trip. On the way home, for nostalgia's sake I stopped in Cleveland. In the thirty years that I was away, the fire-ridden Cayahoga River was cleaned up, dead Lake Erie was revived, the city was reborn with a new stadium and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame opened (Cleveland had NOTHING to do with Rock and Roll).

Travel is still an adventure.

Thanksgiving 2007 Photographs

http://www.yermish.com/Family/Thanksgiving2007

Thanksgiving is one of the American holidays that seems to make sense, even if the travel issues can be horrendous. The travel news this year was good. US Airways didn't lose too many bags, the roads were not a complete disaster and the weather cooperated. Both of my children and all of my grandchildren made visits to Susan's house for traditional Thanksgiving dinner (along with my father and her boyfriend) on Thursday and joined me for a stroll (or run) down the lovely Betzwood Trail of Valley Forge Park where I spend many hours training. Aimee, Howard and Steve ran/walked the trail while Danielle kept herd of the children as I vainly attempted to capture their appreciation of the colors of nature. As one can easily see from the gallery (click on image or link) of photographs, though Susan and I have gone our separate ways we have much to be thankful for.

More Family Pictures

With all of my travel and race posts over on the IraMan blog, I have been remiss in getting to posting some photographs of three-fourths of the grandchildren over the summer. Click on the photo above to see them.

Brazil Picture Gallery Posted

Click on the picture of Ed, me and Jay (or head over to http://www.yermish.com/Brazil2007) and go to a gallery of photographs of the Brazil trip for Ironman Brazil. There are images from the Ironman, views around Florianopolis, a couple of parties, the magnificent Iguassu Falls, a bird park and scenes and adventures in Rio De Janiero.

Captain Midnight

A little over twelve years ago just after I started a new phase of my life a fellow Choral Arts Society singer and veterinarian suggested that what I needed was a cat. I had never had a cat, or dog for any length of time for that matter. I didn't think about the idea until a few weeks later she called to say that she had the perfect cat for me, a neutered, declawed male cat, a year-old needing a good home. For some reason, I said yes. His name had been "Blackie" but that didn't fit. I thought for a while and came up with Captain Midnight, after a long-forgotten radio hero (sponsored by Ovaltine). For the first few months it was difficult for both of us, but then we settled into a good routine.

He was a good, loving cat, though he tended to offer his affection on his terms. He would jump on my lap but I couldn't put him there. Most mornings around 5:00 AM he would climb on my head to announce that it was breakfast time and it usually took a couple of tosses onto the floor before he got the message that he'd just have to wait.

For most of twelve years he was healthy and happy, but a few months ago he took a downturn. My friend Anne did a valiant job of managing him while I was away in Brazil but I knew what was going to happen. The vet said that his liver and kidneys were pretty much shot and there was little that could be done. This morning at 9:15 AM I said "goodbye" to my companion of twelve years who always met me at the door when I came home. He will be missed.

Yesterday, I received an e-mail message from one of the founding board members of the Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia. The last concert that I sang for that organization was on Sunday, May 19, 2002. We sang in Verizon Hall to celebrate their twentieth anniversary. At the concert I had the joy and privilege to sing a major piece of music written by my son Howard. Now, five years later, after the twenty-fifth anniversary season, the organization is in grave difficulty financially. I don't know what will happen with Choral Arts but I will have wonderful memories of the music, the people and the connection that brought me my friend Captain Midnight.

First Leg of Tour - Family Pictures

Pictures from Thanksgiving 2006

Pictures from Hanukkah 2006

It took a while, but I've finally edited and posted pictures from Thanksgiving in Stow, MA and Hanukkah in Marlton, NJ. Shortly, I will create a main page for Family pictures, etc. at family.yermish.com. There is also the main page at home.yermish.com.

For those interested (assuming anyone actually reads this thing), I've completed the first leg of the Tour (see: iraman.yermish.com) and I met my goal for the first race. The next race is the Lonestar Triathlon in Texas on April 1. I wonder if there is some significance to that date?

Morris Yermish Gallery

It took three years since his 90th birthday celebration, but I finally got a website up which features my father's sculpting and includes a selection of photographs from his collection of slides. Click on the photograph above or go to http://morris.yermish.com

IraMan Sexy at Sixty World Tour

The website for this crazy year and a half is up. It should be a blast. Click on the image above or on the link on the right to go to the Tour website.

Dublin Marathon ... Priceless

This was my second trip to Ireland, and my second trip to meet my brother Neal in Ireland for an athletic adventure. The last trip to Ireland back in 2001 was to scoot around the Ring of Kerry on my tandem bicycle. That trip continued an ad hoc series of shared athletic adventures begun in 2000 when I ran my first and presumably last marathon in Washington, DC. Obviously, I was wrong with that presumption. We had a ball on the tandem, though I’m not so sure Neal was having fun as we careened down a mountain road along the coast in a cold rain on the longest day of the year to complete the 107 mile Ring. We survived that and have run and biked in many places. It is a good thing for brothers to share passions even when they live half way around the world from each other.

This was one of those rare trips where everything went as planned. The flights were all on-time, smooth and landed early. US Airways’ infamy for losing baggage was forgotten. The hotel reservations were perfect and its location ideal adjacent to the venerable Trinity College, a quarter of a mile from the race start and the hubbub of the Temple Bar. Even the fickle Irish weather chose to cooperate with the minor annoyance of some blustery winds during the marathon.

I met my brother at the airport, he arriving a couple of hours after me. We engaged a taxi with a very friendly driver who cheered us on for the race ahead. The drive to the hotel was slowed by the news of a bomb scare on a bus in downtown Dublin. It was just a minor blip on a great weekend and one that gave my brother fuel for stories about such events that are regular in Israel (with much sadder results).

Click image to go to gallery

Our first plan was to do some running and, after coordinating our Garmins in the new environment we headed out, map in hand for a good afternoon run. We ran along the river and through some of the neighborhoods competing and not competing at the same time. Over the next two days we explored the city with cameras in hand. I took my usual selection of doors and windows and we found the U2 wall where Neal wrote his daughter’s name, Yonit, on the wall with others from around the world.

Sunday afternoon, my friend Tom O’Donnell who I run with in Valley Forge and share stories and post workout pig-parts, arrived with his son, Tom, Jr. The senior Tom has run a few marathons and I think I may have had a little credit for getting him through the Philadelphia Marathon last year in a time good enough for him to enjoy his first Boston Marathon this year. His Boston marathon was much more rewarding than my obvious disaster (see below). Most significant was how his son, Tom Jr. reacted. He decided to train for his first marathon. I mentioned to Tom that I would be meeting Neal and he talked with his son and they agreed to run Dublin as the younger Tom’s first marathon. It would also give them a chance to visit some of their ancestral homelands.

I found what turned out to be a great place for pasta the night before the race where we enjoyed a great pre-race dinner. The highlight was a table of about twelve very attractive Irish lasses out for a night on the town who arrived shortly after we did. The hotel had a good early morning breakfast for the runners and we awoke to a warmish and dry, though windy marathon morning. Around Trinity College we walked to the marathon start, no need to drop bags at the finish. I jettisoned my Icicle 10-Miler t-shirt to keep me warm before the race start and off we went, right on time and in perfect conditions.

The race course started out through the city and headed away uphill away from the river. I felt fantastic and after a few miles felt myself in great shape for a good day. As I discussed in a previous post, it doesn’t take too long to know whether the day will be good or not. This one felt special, so I settled into a pace that was equal to my PR pace. The course ran through lovely Irish towns, through glorious Phoenix Park with football and rugby fields and back down to the river. At mile 11 we made a turn both into the strong wind and up a long climb towards the high points of the race. This grueling section took its toll of many runners and though I felt strong it probably took more out of me than I wanted.

We wandered through more Irish towns up and down the highlands around Dublin. From miles 15 to 18 the course was generally downhill and I was still right on my PR pace and then at mile 19 we experienced the Dublin equivalent of Heartbreak Hill from miles 19 to 21 including a short, steep climb in the 21^st mile. At that point the PR (3:39) pace was history and with a little calculation with the few still working brain cells and the readings on the Garmin I saw that it was easy for me to throttle back and still finish the marathon with a time well under four hours and the coveted Boston 2008 qualifier.

I finished the race happily (3:54:11), picked up my medal, goodie bag and t-shirt, wandered back to the hotel. While waiting for my brother and the O’Donnells to finish I stayed along the race route in front of the hotel to cheer on slower runners as they labored through the last half-mile of the race. Many seemed very appreciative of my strong vocal support of their efforts. Others were in the inglorious mile 26 haze.

Finally, we met in front of the hotel, celebrated each of our accomplishments, especially the completion of young Tom’s first marathon. After a good nap we headed out to wander through town to find a good post race dinner. We settled for a decent place in the Temple Bar area and spent hours sharing experiences.

On Tuesday, after the race (it was Monday like Boston, a national Bank Holiday), I set out with my camera to do my now standard recovery walk through town to capture my personal view of the city. Shortly a selection of the snapshots will appear here and more serious work will show up in the months ahead. Neal and the O’Donnells chose (intelligently, I might add) to hop on the on-off touring bus that circles the city for a standard tourist attraction. When we met afterwards, we headed off to Yamamora Noodles where Neal and I ate for our last meal in Ireland a few years ago.

Wednesday morning we each headed our own ways after a great experience of running and sharing: a pair of brothers, a father and son. As it said on their T-shirts, “It was priceless.”

Fascination with Numbers ... Continued

If you've read this blog before you will know that I have an unhealthy fascination with numbers. Yes, my training log on the computer has every workout since 1992 fully totaled and graphed. So it was with glee that I got my new GARMIN 305 to make sure I was really running 20 miles and not 19.5 (and overestimating my true speed). Based upon my long runs (which turned out to be not quite so long) and long bike rides, the little device seemed uncannily accurate except for one situation.

Once a week I hit the Phoenixville High School track for some sort of torture (like Yasso 800s or 3 x 3M @ Tempo). I follow the rule that says to alternate track directions to lessen the pressure on the knees. Over the last two months with this device it has been strangely consistent. It always said I ran shorter when I ran counter-clockwise (normal track direction) than when I ran clockwise. After a while I learned to subtract 10 seconds from the pace when going in the seemingly shorter direction (Confused yet?).

Yesterday, while running away from a pack of mostly overweight middle-school students it hit me. Duh! My watch was on my LEFT hand. When I ran counter-clockwise it was traveling a shorter distance then my RIGHT hand. When I ran clockwise the watch is on the outside (closer to lane 2) and was then traveling a longer distance. I laughed at myself and said that couldn't make up for the 2-3 % difference in distances that I consistently found.

Then I did the math ...

Making simple assumptions (equal quadrant track) gives the curve on the track a radius of 31.8 meters. If I simply add ONE meter to the radius (about the width of a lane), the total distance around the track turned out to be 406 meters, about 1.5% more. Even adding about two feet (distance apart hands are when running) there was a clear 1% difference. The straightaways are the same so there was a big chunk of the difference I saw. The other part could be easily explained (though I wasn't going there) by the fact that watch checks its position once a second and it would cut the radius into little chords a bit shorter than I would get if the measurement was continuous (remember your calculus with epsilon and delta?). I had noticed that the slower I ran the closer the GARMIN said I traveled the 400M around.

Moral of the story: RUN THE TANGENTS

Educational Expectations

Yesterday afternoon during my office hours I witnessed something that was truly sad. A University College student in my Visual Basic class asked for some help in doing a couple of assigned programming problems. The course is intended for Decision and System Sciences students in the Haub School as part of their major and normally would be taken after basic mathematics and statistics courses are taken, but sometimes they might not have one or the other of the prerequisites. We have UC students who have been granted credit for these courses from other schools, particularly junior colleges. In teaching this course I must assume a few fundamentals. I was not prepared for what happened yesterday.

The first problem involved a simple program for calculating total prices when there are discounts based upon volume. The student complained of being unable to get the result to show up on the screen. So I asked to see where it was in the program that the result was displayed. Sheepishly it was acknowledged that the calculation wasn't done yet, so I asked the student to describe to me how to solve this problem:

A product sells for $100 and there is a 10% discount. What is the selling price?

The bewildered student sat there with a blank stare, mumbling about once knowing how to solve this problem. I carefully wrote down the equations and the outline of the code for that calculation.

We moved onto the next problem. In this one, the program was to take three grades from student tests, calculate the average and select the appropriate letter grade. I thought his problem was with the second step which involves the use of a complex logical expression or an esoteric SELECT CASE statement. No, the problem was with the first part.

I asked: If you got a 100 and a 50 on two tests, what would your average score be?

Again, no response. There was no understanding of the underlying process of computing an average.

Many of my programming students do not have the talent or interest in become expert at the nuance of programming and system development and so we help them achieve an understanding of the difficulty that programmers and developers face. Others go on to become crack programmers.

Where did we go wrong in giving my student the false hope that he/she had the ability to do either?

Ilan and Melodie First Birthday Pictures

Here are my pictures of the Ilan's and Melodie's First Birthdays.
Click on the pictures to go to the websites.

Ilan: http://family.yermish.com/Ilan1
Melodie: http://family.yermish.com/Melodie1

LiveStrong, ChesapeakeMan and Beyond ...

It has been a while since I've written about events. The "Boston Massacre" is long behind me and I've had a very interesting summer. There were a number of smaller races, a pretty bad performance at Mooseman, a couple of good ones at other races, including a decent return to Timberman with my friend from Florida, Ed Deppmann. It has been a tough year from him as I described in my post from Tampa, but he had a great race in New Hampshire with me.


I hit my target of 1:45 at the Philadelphia Distance Run by almost a minute giving me the "privilege" of a preferred start at the Chicago Marathon in 2007 if I choose to do that race. We'll come back to that one in a while. I've trained hard, with a goal race of the ChesapeakeMan Ironman Distance Triathlon. Along the way I did my swimming, cycling and running, following a tough but reasonable training schedule. The schedule required a couple of 100 mile bike rides and I did one of them with my New Jersey club. Over the course of the years I would do the MS 150 ride down to Ocean City. This year I decided to do something a little different and made my plans and donations to the Lance Armstrong Foundation and scheduled the LiveStrong ride in Philadelphia for the 100 mile event. It is more challenging with hills and would be a new experience for me. Fortunately, the ride started about twenty minutes away from home and it was easy to get to the start of the ride that would wander through Montgomery County before heading into Philadelphia via Manayunk and the River Drives.

I pondered which bike to ride: the trusty Litespeed, now cleansed of aerobars and perfect for the hilly and tricky route, or the new Kuota triathlon bike. I wanted more miles on the new bike and loaded that one in the car and headed to Montgomery County Community College. I got to the start in plenty of time to begin at the announced start time of 7:10 AM. Of course, you can't start a charity ride without some speeches and this was to be the case as well. Finally, around 7:30 the 2,500 or so cyclists, many decked out in yellow and black for the ride of 40, 70 or 100 miles.

I started out pretty hard, pushing things to get away from some of the less skilled riders and closer to the front where things are safer on these rides. I probably went out too fast for a 100 mile training ride, but it felt fine. After about fifteen or twenty miles we were stopped at a traffic light and a fortyish woman stopped next to me said "Nice bike!" She was also riding a triathlon bike so we had an obvious point of contact to start up a discussion. Since I was riding this one alone, it was great to chat with another tri-geek. Terrie is a paramedic from New Hampshire and has done some half-Ironman events but said she was getting "too old" to do an Ironman. Then I told her how old I was when I did my first Ironman (age 57) and that she had no excuse. We rode together for a few miles and then I dropped her climbing one of the many hills on the ride.

About ten miles later at a rest stop in Fairmount Park I waited for her to catch up. This was her first trip to Philadelphia and I offered to give her a running commentary as we passed my old neighborhoods and one of the schools I attended. She was concerned that she was going to keep me back and I thanked her for making sure that I didn't push things too hard. This was supposed to be a long, easy ride. We had a great time exchanging information and tidbits. It was clear that she was very active in the Foundation and a really giving person. Then again, that's what this is all supposed to be about.

The day got warm and the hills mounted up. The ride through downtown Philadelphia along the Delaware and to the Stadium area wasn't all that pleasant. After a stretch of about 30 miles of flat riding it was time head back through Mount Airy and Germantown to get back to Bluebell. Even though she was from New Hampshire, our little hills took their toll. (My Garmin said we did over 6,000' of climbing but it tends to overstate that a bit.) She was happy that she had someone to share the hills with. She was having troubles with her pedals and that added to the frustration.

I guess it was around 2:30 in the afternoon when we finished the day's ride. Together, new friends approached the finish line of a day of sharing our love for cycling in a way that gives to others. We are the lucky ones who have good health and a willingness to push our bodies to the limit. With a little help from our friends we did our part to help others less fortunate.


Terrie and I exchanged stories and e-mail addresses and went our separate ways, she back to New Hampshire, and me back home for a great dinner with an old friend.

With the completion of the Livestrong Challenge, I had completed the long rides before ChesapeakeMan. There was plenty of swimming and running left, but my very challenging training schedule seemed well in hand.

On Friday, September 29, I headed down to Maryland. There were the usual Friday afternoon traffic problems and I arrived much later than I had planned. For a triathlete, there is nothing worse than last minute excitement. So many details must be attended to, so many bags have to be packed and checklists checked. I almost got it right except for one detail: loading up the bike with food for the first half of the ride. Though annoying, I knew I could get up a half-hour earlier and drive over to the transition zone to stock the bike with Gatorade, trail mix, Fig Newtons and Enduralytes.

As is always the case, I got no sleep the night before the race. That was OK. I understood this would be the case and was sure to have a very good night's sleep the night before. At 5:00 AM I gave up and made my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, packed the balance of the food in the transition and special needs bags and headed over to load the bike. I returned to the hotel where the race would start and headed down to the little beach along the river. The water looked calm, though I knew we would be fighting the rising tide.

As the sun rose at 7:00 AM over the Choptank River, the 200 or so athletes competing in the full Ironman or the shortened versions with swim and cycling or just swim, I got in the water for the long swim downriver. The water was brackish but clear. It was very calm and sighting was relatively easy, especially since the first half was headed towards a bridge! I felt good and did not have any of the usual early race panic that was common in my early races. I think I've gotten that issue behind me. I settled into the rhythm, stroke, 2, 3, 4, sight ... It was a long swim thanks to the tide coming in but at least it was calm. It took what seemed like forever to get to the first half of the swim, going under the bridge. Clearly, the current must have had something to do with it. The second half of the swim had many more marker buoys which went on forever. About a half-mile from the finish we swam through a large patch of jellyfish and I got stung on my face and ears. I would feel it for the rest of the day. Nothing serious, just annoying. Finally, the end of the swim came and I clicked the Polar and saw the 1:40 which was right on top of my target and clearly reflected the current. Everyone complained of both the current (long times) and the jellyfish (swollen lips). I had a reasonably quick transition and headed out on the Kuota for the flat course on the Maryland Eastern Shore through farmland and the magnificent Blackwater Nature Reserve. No I didn't see any eagles. My head was down too much to keep out of the wind.

It felt good on the bike but I pushed a little on the start, passing too many faster swimmers. Of course, there was a bit of a tailwind on this leg. After the turnaround on an early out and back section before the two main loops, I realized that I was flying thanks to a tailwind. It was time to face the music. For the next twenty-five miles we headed into an increasingly strong wind. One disadvantage of a pancake flat course is that you never get a chance to coast. It is just pedal, pedal, pedal. At this point one of my age group competitors passed me like I was standing still so I knew (not that I had any hopes) that I wasn't going to finish first in my age group. There were four men registered in the 55-59 (geezer) group so there was a good chance I would "place". Around miles 30-40 I felt lousy and was concerned that this was going to be a VERY long day. Finally, we made a turn around mile 50 and picked up 15 miles of tailwind back to the transition and special needs area. Barring a shift in the wind (which seems to always happen), I knew that this same tail wind would be there for the last fifteen miles of the 112 mile bike ride.

I hit the 65 mile mark where I was able to rest a bit, eat a PB&J and down a banana. Quickly, I was off for the second loop of about 47 miles. I felt much better with the food in my stomach and went back into the wind. For a while it was OK, but at about mile 90 it was brutal. I was very careful to keep my heartrate under control. Given that this was my third Ironman event I knew that to take it easy and keep the HR in the 135-140 BPM area. Finally, the last turn came and I cruised the last 15 miles thanks to the strong tailwind. The finishing tailwind gave me a chance to relax and get the legs loose for the upcoming marathon.

Along the bike route I jockeyed with a number of athletes. One was a tall, slim 21 year-old riding a Cervelo P3 with Zipp 404's. He didn't get that bike with money earned at working at McDonald's. We chatted and he asked me what I expected to run the marathon in. I told him I should finish in under five hours and he was impressed. That was his weakest leg. It was his first Ironman and he asked if he should get off the bike to take a pee. "YES!" I said, and he was relieved (in both senses of the words). He never caught me again, but we did exchange pleasantries across the three loop out-and-back run.

Thanks to the tailwind, I was able to finish the bike leg strong and under my goal of seven hours by a couple of minutes. It would have been nice to hit 6:30 which I knew I could have done on the flat course, but the wind took its toll.

I started the run and knew that a solid 11:00/mile pace would be maintainable and would give me the sub-5 marathon and a sub-14 Ironman (and PR by a long way). It was a pleasant, flat three loop out-and back course through farmland and I was able to settle in very nicely at HR=140 and Pace=11:00/mile. I hit every stop, kept hydrated and fed and felt surprisingly good. I was wearing a pair of year-and-half-old Mizuno Wave Precisions which are really too light and had too many miles on them but they felt great. I passed a fair number of people on the run. Those that passed me were on the later loops of the race. There were six 4+ mile legs and I counted them down one-by-one and was happy how well I felt. Before the last out and back, I stopped at the special needs area and passed up the long-sleeved jersey since it was still warm and nibbled some more PB&J. I donned a lightstick since we would be running in the dark and headed out knowing that I was in great shape. At mile 22 I checked all the numbers and knew I had all of the goals well in hand. I could ease up a bit, knowing that I was going to be running the Dublin Marathon in four weeks. I walked about a mile over the last four miles, constantly checking that the sub-5 marathon was not in jeopardy. Finally, at the last aid station a mile out, I fueled up on some warm chicken soup, could see the lights of the finish area and opened up for the last mile.

As I entered the stadium with 300 yards to go another runner was about 25 yards ahead of me. I tried to sprint but he saw me and opened up as well. He finished 20 seconds ahead of me. When I checked the results the next day I discovered that he was the same man that passed me early in the bike leg. He came in second in the age group and I came in third. (He was 55 and I am 59 so I really beat him age-graded!) It would have been a piece of cake to make up that 20 seconds during the run but I couldn't know how close he was. Did it matter? Not one bit. I was the second oldest finisher and managed to beat 30% of the younger men and 50% of the women. Not bad for a man who started this sport just three years ago.

Final results: Swim 1:40, Bike: 6:56, Run: 4:48, Total: 13:46:41

A friend and her one-year old, future Tri-Kid met me at the finish line and I was very pleased. It was an Ironman PR by about 45 minutes and I knew that I was ready to undertake the adventure described below. I had a couple of pieces of pizza and lots of cold soda. It is amazing how little one can eat after an Ironman. I got back to the hotel, downed some Pringles, showered for as long as possible and fell asleep within milliseconds of my head hitting the pillow.

I awoke the next morning and felt surprisingly good with just some soreness in the quads. Now, I could eat. The hotel had a buffet brunch and I got my money's worth. After a less hectic ride home I was able to put things in perspective and finish the details of my plan for next year. All of the careful training and learning from my mistakes during the year paid off in a great Ironman.

So, here we go ...

Last year I thought about how time was flying. I would be sixty and I needed another challenge. Dean Kanzares plans 50 marathons in 50 days ... That was out of my league and financially infeasible. There was RAAM, but that was also kind of out of the question. What would be both physically and fiscally feasible? It came to me: a major race once a month for a year. To test the proposition, I ran the 2005 Philadelphia Marathon about four weeks after running the Venice Marathon with my brother Neal (See post below). I did both in under four hours and had little physical problem doing it. I just needed a good Ironman under my belt after struggling at Ironman USA in Lake Placid in 2005. Now, that is out of the way. At the tender age of 59 I figured out how my body can complete a good Ironman event.

The plan:

On May 25, 2007 I will celebrate my 60th birthday. On May 27, 2007 I will compete in my fourth Ironman, Ironman Brazil, with many of the friends from the South Florida Triathletes I met in Austria in 2004. Then, once each month, I would do a Marathon, Half-Ironman or Ironman for the next twelve months, ending in a celebratory Boston Marathon in April 2008. Along the way, I will need a 4:00:59 in a marathon to qualify for Boston, but that should be well within my grasp. I will be running Dublin in a few weeks and my brother Neal and I will be working to get him his first 3:59:59 marathon. If he reaches his goal, I will reach mine.

The Tentative Schedule ...

1. May 2007: Ironman Brazil
2. June 2007: Tupper Lake, NY Tinman (1/2 Ironman)
3. July 2007: Mountain Man Flagstaff (1/2 Ironman)
4. August 2007: 5430 - Boulder Colorado (1/2 Ironman)
5. September 2007: Grand Columbian Washington (1/2 Ironman)
6. October 2007: Wineglass, NY or Chicago Marathon
7. November 2007: Ironman Florida
8. December 2007: Memphis or California International Marathon
9. January 2008: Goofy 1/2 Marathon and Marathon
10. February 2008: Austin Marathon
11. March 2008: California 70.3 (Half-Ironman)
12. April 2008: Boston Marathon
13. May 2008: Napa Half-Ironman or Wildflower Half-Ironman or ...

I will be on the list for Kona when I do Ironman Brazil, but historically, there is only one slot for the M60-64 group and the odds of the rolldown reaching me are quite slim. If that happens things will change in October and November. This schedule is organized so that there is at least three weeks between events with the exception of the last event. I may select some event later in May of 2008. I should keep the dream of Hawaii and I might just enter the lottery for a few years.

My goal is to both write about and photograph this project. The story might be interesting for others who are getting a little older and need their new challenges. As I prepare for and participate in, these events, I will post the progress. Send an e-mail message to me at ira@yermish.com if you'd like to get on the distribution list.

Some Days are Better than Others ... 2:59:59

I am sitting in the Tampa Airport waiting for my flight. There is wireless Internet here but for some reason my cell phone doesn't work. Go figure.

It has been very windy here the last couple of days and windy it was this morning for the race. The swim was horrendous (for me at least). I've done some Half-Ironman swims faster. Three quarters of the swim was into the wind and waves. I was really glad to see the turnaround buoy and get a little current and tail wind to help. The swim was a sad 39 minutes and then I hit the road for the bike leg. Fortunately, the first half was mostly downwind and I was cruising. As the day unfolded the wind got stronger so the second half into the wind was an annoying. At least it wasn't blistering hot and the humidity was surprisingly low for Florida.

When I got off the bike and got out of T2 I was a bit over 2 hours and I was hoping to keep the race under 3. The run started well and I felt fine. At least my Boston training got me in shape to pick it up on the run. With two miles to go I realized it was going to be tight, but I could make it if I worked my old tail off. I really picked it up at mile 5 for the last 1.2 in. Go figure ... With about 1/2 mile to go my leg cramps. I work it out and head out. It took one hell of a sprint from these old legs but my watch said 2:59:59 when I crossed the finish line. I was pleased to recover a decent race from a not so stellar swim. The new bike was a dream. I saved some energy for the run and it worked out great.

I had a great time with tri-geek friends down here and made some new ones. You know how great triathlon friendships can be. I spent most of my time with my friend Ed who I first met at Ironman Austria. He is 49 but despite protests had to race in the 50-54 category thanks to the new USAT age-group rule. It has been a tough time for him. He lost his wife three weeks ago after a long and debilitating sickness. He wore her initials on his leg along with his age. He'll be up for Timberman in August.

I would consider doing this race again, though probably not next year.

The numbers continue. These turned out pretty good.

It's all in the numbers ...

Here's the culprit ... just look at this little Post-It that was stuck on my computer monitor for the last month or so. That's the answer.
It all started back in the early 1980's. I was 25-30 pounds overweight, in the wrong business and having a bunch of other problems. I bought a bike and started a very sane, behavior modification diet. Over the course of the next twelve months I changed my diet and started riding a cheap and heavy bicycle. It was about two pounds per month but I watched the numbers week by week. The scale was my daily reminder. The graph charted the results. From 185 to 160 I went and there I stayed for twenty years, cycling and keeping the same diet strategy. Even in 1998 when I started running I maintained that same 160 pounds.

Then one summer in the early 2000's I took a trip to California to visit Aimee and Howard living near San Francisco and Los Angeles respectively. It was bad sushi or something that made the drive down the Pacific Coast Highway through Carmel and Big Sur a very long and difficult trip. The end result, two days later was the scale reading 152. There was a marathon coming and I knew that the lower weight would be better for the running. So I kept it off, kept the training up and found a new "set point". Since then, the magic number was 152. But there is another magic number.

I have this wonderful scale that gives a fair estimate of my body fat as well as my weight. There, the magic number was 7. Some mornings after a little Ben and Jerry's the night before the number was 8 but normally the reliable morning reading was 7. For the next few years those pair of numbers 152 and 7 were my signposts to good health.

A few years ago I started doing triathlons and despite the additional work those numbers held fast. But this winter the training has gotten more strenuous. I wasn't really pleased with Ironman Lake Placid. I did OK at the Venice and Philadelphia Marathons. I lowered my workout levels after Philadelphia and slowly the first number rose from 152 to 157 or 158. I wasn't concerned because the second number remained stable at 7% body fat. As my training got more intense as I focused on the Boston Marathon and the upcoming triathlon season, the upper body workouts (swimming and weights) became more important. It is quite normal for athletes to gain a few pounds over the winter season (not that I am an athlete, but you know what I mean).

I had a terrible Boston Marathon in 2004 due largely to (1) a really warm day (2) a really stupid move at dinner the night before. Taking a 15 minute break lying on the side of the road on the top of Heartbreak Hill doesn't do much for finish times. I staggered across the finish line and vowed not to make that mistake again.

With all of this in mind I started a very intense training program from Runner's World magazine which had me doing longer runs and more intense track workouts. As the twelve week program progressed I was pushing myself better than I could remember. I felt great. The program seemed to work. Twenty and Twenty-two mile runs felt comfortable even as I picked up the tempo in the last four miles. Insane 3-mile repeats on the track at tempo pace gave me quite a lift. I was ready for Boston.

About a month ago I posted that sticky on my monitor and that was where the trouble started.

"Taper" traditionally starts three weeks out from a marathon. The mantra is "Reduce Volume but Maintain Intensity". But that sticky said I wasn't at race weight. So, I started to watch the calories. I had no trouble doing the workouts even though I was losing weight. Now, if you are a runner you know that the "book" says that it is OK to put on a couple of pounds during the last week of the taper. I knew the book. I preach the book. I ignored the book. I saw those stupid numbers on my monitor and they got the best of me. But because I was doing shorter workouts the lowering of my body mass was hiding the loss of endurance storage!

Here is the "proof". I felt great at race start. I did all of the right diet things the two days before the race. The weather conditions were perfect. At mile 1 things seemed great. My heart rate monitor said I was exactly where I was supposed to be. At mile 2 and 3 life was great. At mile 4 I noticed that my speed was not quite what my heartrate and training should have been. I never wear a monitor for marathons. Usually I can feel the race and things go well. They have for most of my marathons. I have my little pace-chart on my wrist with the mile splits. Lots of numbers. I always wear the monitor in triathlons to keep me from going too fast. I wore it this time to prove the training numbers over the difficult Boston course.

I had a very aggressive target of 3:45 for Boston. My training was based upon 3:40 since I knew that people like me will give up about 5 - 10 minutes to the hills in Newton. I did 3:40 in Chicago 18 months ago and 3:50 in a very muggy Venice race, so it wasn't out of the question, though it was hard. It was a tough number but one that seemed reasonable. I also plotted the pace for a 3:54 run which was what I did the first time in 2003 on a warm and sunny day. At mile 5 I could tell that the 3:45 was not happening as I drifted closer and closer to the higher range. At mile 10 as I entered Newton and saw Adira and Steve with their IraMan sign I had drifted right to the edge of the 3:54 time slot and the hard part of the course was ahead. There was no energy in my body. I didn't feel sick. I took all of the appropriate gels, water and GatorAde. There just was nothing in the body. By the half marathon point my split was 1:58 and I was dropping. I saw the Boston Red Sox win but I wasn't. There was not going to be a bottom of the ninth comeback for me.

The heart rate monitor is a wonderful tool for training. When I'm right I can keep my heart rate between 165 and 170 for hours. When I do long triathlons I keep it around 155 all day. By mile 13 I had trouble getting the heart rate over 160. When one is dehydrated the heart rate soars. When you have burned all of your fuel the heart rate drops. I remember the feeling at mile 18 of Ironman Austria. I felt fine but I just couldn't pick up my legs to run. There it was. The numbers said it. I had trimmed the weight and the storage capacity at the same time. Silly me. I knew better but those numbers on the Post-It got the best of me.

No, it wasn't a lucky 13th marathon. As the previous post suggests, I'm still game for marathon 14 (at the Chesapeakeman Iron Distance triathlon) which is just a warmup for marathon 15 in Dublin in October and marathon 16 in London in April of 2007 and marathon 17 in Florianapolis at Ironman Brazil and if all goes well in Dublin or London, marathon 18 will be where I try to even the series in Boston.

Now there's a lucky number: 18 = "Chai"

Boston 2 IraMan 1

As I was running the Boston Marathon yesterday there were signs along the way giving the score of the Boston/Seattle baseball game being held in Fenway Park while we were running from Hopkinton to Boston. Boston was down 6 to 5 in the bottom of the ninth. Just past Natick (around Mile 10) the signs said "Boston wins with a walk-off homer." That was another indication that Boston was going to win again with me as well.

The race started for me at 12:35 PM under just about perfect conditions. My training was great. My prerace nutrition was great. I felt great. At about mile 5 I realized that I wasn't going as fast I was supposed to. My heartrate and the speed I was running didn't match. By mile 10 when I saw Aimee, Steve, Adira and Ilan, I knew I was going to have a long day. I was just at my fall-back estimated time of 3:54 (my first Boston time in 2003) and way off my target time. The hardest part of the course was ahead and I knew I was in trouble. It was odd. There was just no energy in my legs. After a while I couldn't even keep my heart rate up to training pace. I was beaten like the Seattle Mariners. So I trudged back to Boston with a sane but totally unsatisfying 4:44.

So, my first Boston was my best. The last two were not two good. In 2004 I didn't eat right and I got sick. This year, I gave it my best and tried to correct previous mistakes. It just didn't work out right. I finished so one can count that as a moral victory. Perhaps, the fact that it was my 13th marathon (counting two Ironman marathons) had something to do with it. I think not. I had two decent marathons in the fall so I will not be able to chalk this one up to just getting old.

So Boston ... do you want to make it a best of 5 series?

Boston: Pre-Race Notes

I’ve just gotten back from a short run on a brisk and windy morning in Boston. It is clear that the weather for tomorrow’s Boston Marathon will not be a repeat of either of my previous (2003 and 2004) races. It is windy and a little too sunny but tomorrow should be a little better. There’s not much that I can do about it. I’ve done what I can to have a good and positively memorable race. I am a marginal Boston runner, qualifying by just a few minutes. In many ways that makes the experience special. Yesterday, on the shuttle bus ride back from the Expo I sat next to a young man from Quebec who will be running, but not on the basis a qualifying time. He raised over $6,000 for charity and will join a few thousand special people who earned their right to finish on Boyleston Street by caring about others and not just about ourselves.

It is fitting that there was an article in the New York Times about Boomeritis, a newly minted condition afflicting those of use born from 1946 to 1964. [Click here for link]. We run, bike, swim and train to outlive our ancestors. Maybe we do it for our ancestors.

Last Wednesday evening was the First Seder. I drove up to the Boston area for the first time this week to spend the evening with my daughter Aimee and her family and friends. It was an opportunity to also take some “studio” pictures of two of my grandchildren, Adira and Ilan. The weekend before, Howard and his family came over for a similar session for a project that Danielle was doing. So, Becky and Melodie also got the treatment. Here are a couple of images from each of those sessions. I’ll post a gallery of these when I return from Boston.

After my morning jog along the Charles with a return down Boyleston Street to the finish line (visualization in action) I showered and headed out for a few pictures. This city celebrates it's marathon like New York and Chicago. We won't talk about Philadelphia. Outside a church right next to the finish line was this poster ...















I know that in the past I have tended to spend too much time outside on the day before the Boston Marathon so I headed back but not before a little walk down Alley #440 and found this great little bit of graffitti ...


Massachusetts tends to get things right on that score as well.

I will have dinner with my friend Jalaine this evening who will drive down from Concord, NH to interrupt her law school studies for an Easter Pasta Dinner with one of her Ironman buddies. We have lots of gossip to share. Tomorrow, after the race my daughter and company will pick me up after I've showered and we'll share some dinner before I head back to Philadelphia on Tuesday. With luck, I'll post something (more for my own benefit since not too many people actually read this thing) about the progress of the race.

Why I do triathlons ...

A friend pointed out a good article in the March 16, 2006 NY Times about why some of us take up the multisport events like triathlon. It reminded me of a cute cartoon my brother forwarded to me a while back ...

Gallery 21C - Posted

The gallery of pictures from my trip to Shanghai described below is complete. Please head over to Ira Yermish photo.graphics or click on the picture above.

Becky's Fourth Birthday

Becky was a little princess at her birthday ... Click on the picture to see more!

Gallery 21B - Italy 2005 Posted

I've posted the latest finished gallary of photographs from Florence and Venice on the www.yermish.com site. Click here to go to the gallery or click on the picture above.



To see the previous gallery, 21A, Click here or click on the picture above.

All the World Loves a Shopping Mall

A view from my room!

Friday Night …

After my afternoon nap following my exploration of the Old City of Shanghai with its pungent aromas and bittersweet incongruities, I must admit that I did something unusual. After a week of Chinese cooking, some very good, some not so good, I gave in for a craving for some good Italian food. The hotel has an Italian restaurant with a good reputation. As I entered a friendly European, obviously Italian, greeted me with a mellifluous “Bona Sera” … I was seated and asked for a glass of Sangiovese and he suggested a delicious wine from Moltepulciano. I selected a very good insalata di patate for my starter course. The breads and relishes were delicious. For my main course, there was an exquisite Tagliolini Verdi with Shrimp and Zucchini. For desert, an espresso accompanied my cannelloni with a delicious mango custard. I guess it is obvious that I have a preference for Italian food. I do have a reservation this evening for a very good Chinese meal to end this journey.

After my dinner settled a bit, I headed out to Nanjing Street, which is the highlight of the traditional Shanghai shopping world. Based upon my experiences this last week, EVERY place is a shopping place. It appears that the Shanghaiers have nothing better to do than buy and sell things. The main part of the street is closed to traffic and the lights are legendary. So are the street urchins. It didn’t take more than a minute before I was accosted by a young man wanting to know if I wanted a massage or maybe a young boy. More than a handful of young women asked me to join them for coffee. I’ve never been so popular. After a while I discovered it was easier to just keep moving.

Many people were out strolling in the sub-zero night area and all the shop girls stood shivering attentively. The lucky ones were cooking hot things for the evening snacks. I reached the end of the strip and turned around for home, keeping the “lighthouse” in my sight. I wasn’t lost, it was just soothing to know where I was going to wind up: in a nice warm hotel room with the sheets turned down and maybe a message from a friend or relative on the sluggish e-mail log.

Saturday Morning …

As has been my custom this week, I awoke early, downed some fruit, an energy bar and some coffee and headed to the fitness center. A few hardy souls like myself were toiling on the machines of torture. I put in almost two hours, producing copious amounts of sweat, headed for a shower and then down for a full and varied breakfast, complete with those delicious Shanghai Dumplings they keep bringing me. After breakfast, I headed out with the camera, this time with an extra layer of clothes because it was supposed to be even colder than yesterday. I was heading towards People’s Square, but did so in a circuitous way. The main streets on the way were lower middle class but the side streets and the back alleys were the most scenic.

The traffic, both pedestrian and vehicular was intense. I discovered one of the specialized jobs in China, “The Traffic Assistant”, wearing an appropriate uniform and baseball cap and wielding the requisite whistle. Not all of the cars were happy with these people.

I arrived at the area of the main square and saw the Raffles Mall where every standard western store can be found. Inside the mall, many stories in height, the Musak featured Billie Holiday. I wonder who picks their music. By the way, that syncopatingly-challenged trio was playing jazz again this morning at breakfast. In the mall, they were showing King Kong, appropriately dubbed in Chinese right next to the Starbucks and Kentucky Fried Chicken.

There are millions of people walking around Shanghai. There is no end to them. They almost all seem to be in a hurry to buy or sell something. There weren’t too many people in People’s Square. I guess that’s because you can’t buy anything there. There were a few people in the park, but not many. Who would want to be in a park on freezing day like today when you could be warming yourself and the Chinese economy by buying something?

The views from the park of the many skyscrapers and new structures were phenomenal. So was the obvious smog. Not a handful of people walk the streets with their faces covered with masks. Of course all the rest have a cigarette in their mouths. Maybe not all.

I looked at Shanghai Museum but decided that I was in no mood to look at old stuff so I headed back towards Nanjing Street to see what it was like in the daytime. No lights but many more shoppers. For at least one fellow the shopping got too intense or maybe his wife was lost in one of the malls. Since it was daytime, I was only asked if I wanted a watch or something. The girls must be resting.

After finishing with Nanjing Street, probably forever, I wandered back towards the hotel, again via side streets and alleys. On one corner there was bustle with many official looking men with “INSPECT” on their tunics. They appeared to have “captured” a street person who had constructed a small cubicle out of an old table or something on a street corner. The band of mighty keepers of the public good dismantled the edifice and loaded its content onto an official looking truck, much to the amusement of the onlookers.

I headed back another side street and a door opened and a young woman tried to get my attention. “No thank you”, I said and headed back to the hotel. I guess you can get anything you want in Shanghai, though I’m not sure what the price will be.

Shortly, I will indulge myself with a sports massage at the spa in the hotel. All those hours standing in front of class, or staring into space on the treadmill, or wandering the streets of Shanghai have left me somewhat sore. Then tonight, there will be that final classy Chinese dinner. In the morning I will awaken, perhaps do a short workout, have breakfast and head out to Podung Airport for the long flights home. Fortunately, from this end we get the prevailing Westerlies that shorten the trip a bit. Also, the first leg to San Francisco is only 10 hours and the second leg about five hours. Still, it will be a twenty-four journey from East to West, heading over the poles along the Great Circle Route.

It has been an interesting journey. Thanks for listening. In a few days, check here, or at www.yermish.com/Shanghai for the postcards. Since I took over 750 pictures there should be at least a dozen worth looking at. It will be months before the book comes out. You can place your reservations now by writing me at ira@yermish.com

Oh, and remember, if you were expecting a souvenir, don’t hold your breath. It will take a while for the good pictures to get processed. I’m still only halfway through the Italy trip!