Hey everybody! I'm on a bus on my way from Atlantic City to Newark, NJ, where I'll be staying with Jesse “Hardcoretraceur” for a while. Quick recap of the events of the past few days:

I spent most of Friday hanging out with my sister, Eva, and packing. I acquired a military issue travel backpack and “assault pack”(basically like a school backpack) through a friend in ROTC at my school, Rochester Institute of Technology. The travel pack is basically a bottomless pit of pockets, holes, and storage containers. I managed to fit everything I'll need for 8 weeks into it, and then I can set up the assault pack with whatever I'll need that day. Needless to say, it's big.



Rob “Raw” Wolcheski showed up at my house to pick me up around 7:30, and by 8:00pm we were on the road to Philly! After setting up a nice playlist of Muse, Ratatat, Streetlight Manifesto, and Explosions in the Sky on my laptop (the radio sucks. :( ), we made the two and a half hour trip and only got lost once. Or twice...

We showed up at Drexel University and Tom “Quiggz” Quigley was kind enough to let us crash in his dorm for the night. We slept, then woke up, then checked the weather forecast. It was going to get up to 94 degrees, 45% humidity, and possible thunderstorms in the afternoon. It was going to be hot. After grabbing some breakfast at the 32nd Street Train Station, and then walked to the Philadelphia Museum of Art – aka the Rocky Steps. The jam officially started at 10:00am, but by the time we got there at 9:40, there was already a handful of people there. By the end, I counted a bit more than 25 people there, which is a great turnout!

More people arrived, and we decided to start warming up. Jesse and I led people through running, jumping, and QM-ing up, down, and across the famous Rocky Steps. We did a pushup workout – only ten pushups! - that probably took just as many minutes. I don't think many of the people there were used to this sort of intensity, and especially not in 90+ degree heat, but everyone did their best with the situation. I'm very proud of everyone, especially those who made through the whole thing!

People were pretty exhausted after the warmup, so after a brief rest we decided to get people moving again. Several “workshops” and stations were organized on various parts of the Rocky Steps. There was a workshop for climb-ups, traversing, vaults, and I ran one on precisions. My group went to the top of the steps where there were a lot of small cylinders sticking out of the ground. Our goal was to get everyone from one side to the other.e If you miss a precision or you don't stick it, you have to go back to the beginning. It took us a while, but everyone made it across. At the end, there are two much taller cylinders with a chain between them. I did a one-footed precision (I always called them cranes) and attempted to walk the chain. After encouraging someone else to attempt the jump, I discovered they'd never done a crane. We drilled them for a while, then worked on some plyometric jumping exercises.

At this point, it was time to find some shade. We went down to the bottom of the steps and hung out in the grass for a while. We drilled rolls, some more traversing from a cat-hang position, and then decided to move on. We traveled along a path next to a river, did some rail work (including some tripedal-balancing with a bike in the second hand), found some scaffolding to play on (a one-legged scaffolding race took place between Rob, who had bruised his foot a bit, and Jesse, who wanted the race to be fair. It was the saddest, slowest race I've ever seen.), and then decided it was time for lunch. After lunch, there was some more miscellaneous training at various spots throughout Philly and UPenn until it was about 6:00pm and time to leave. By the end, there was just a small group of maybe 8 people left, we said our goodbyes, and then headed home. Jesse, Mike “Pyro” Araujo, Jaimin “Miles” and I headed to Jaimin's home in Atlantic City.

The next day we got up early, (10:00am) and headed to the beach and the boardwalk for some training. It was almost as hot as the day before, and probably twice as humid. We did some balance and pain-threshold work on some rails (after QM-ing or walking backwards down 150 feet of rail in the blazing sun, jumping down into burning sand, and then running to the nearest water fountain to wash your feet off as many times as we did.. I'm pretty sure I can walk through hot coals now. On the way back to the car we did some Ninja Warrior style “Cliff Hanger” practice on the side of a building, and then called it a day, had lunch, and headed to the Greyhound Bus station. I'm currently in the bus on the way to Newark, New Jersey where I'll be staying with Jesse for a few days until the PKFR International jam in Pittsburgh!

I transferred all the footage of the Philly jam to my camera, and I've begun editing together a short video on it. Expect it out on the main page, and here, in a few days.


P.S. Shoutout to the NYPK, Chicago, and local guys who crashed at my place for (B)East Coast. Picture of that group on our way out for Day 2 of (B)East Coast in Silver Springs, Maryland below.

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