4/30/2011 Following taken from Team Darwin page

15 years journey of iron, blood and good-times

15 years journey of iron, blood and good-times
It all started in 1996 at the Middletown YMCA.
The “Y” was a small dirty gym with a ton of free weights and old school experience. Joey and I did what most 15 year olds do, we bought Arnold Schwarzenegger The Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding and taught ourselves how to lift, maybe not correctly, but it was with barbells and dumbbells. One day stands out more then any other, that day was when we were going to squat “all-day” long, well I think we ended up doing 100 reps, but it sure seemed like all-day long. The “Y” was great and in some ways, our journey has made it back full circle, back to dirty, grime, 45lbs plates, barbells, thermal underwear and years and years worth of knowledge, created by 1000s of hours of hard work, trials and tribulations.

While lifting at the “Y”, I started doing Judo and that’s where I met my next training partner Big Dan. Big Dan was a black belt Judo player and at the time the biggest guy I knew in person. Big Dan and I starting lifting at World’s Gym, my first commercial gym and consequently my first job. I cleaned the gym at night 3 days a week for a small pay check and a free membership. Big Dan was a genetic freak, he was rep-ing out 405 like it was nothing and to a 16 year old, that was big dog weight, hell for bench press it still is 15 years later. We did the usual body part programming, chest and triceps and back and biceps. I distinctly remember having to lift up a 120lbs dumbbell to Big Dan, so he could do seated tricep extensions. For me at that time, it was a pretty serious deadlift-to-shoulder movement. Eventually Joey joined “Worlds” and that was our spot for a few years.


During college, I walked-on to play football at CCSU and that was my first introduction to actual Strength and Conditioning. Coach Erickson taught me how to power clean, squat, use a GHD and do walking lunges amongst other things. I hated him, I was a lazy college kid when it came to the weight room, I killed my self during football practice, but never wanted to sweat in the weight room. If only I could go back in time, he had platforms and bumpers for Christ sake, that’s what it’s all about…but I had no freaking idea. When the school year ended and the football players went home for the summer, we were given huge binders with the CCSU Strength and Conditioning program. It was a percentage based program and Joey and I were back at Worlds with a real program and we finally got real results, I don’t remember the numbers we put up, but whatever they were they increased a lot.


So what happened after football, I pretty much forgot everything I was taught in the football weight room, once again I was a college student with a million things on my mind and the gym wasn’t at the top of the list. A year or so later Joey and I were training together at Bigsky and we found another great book, Super Squats: How to Gain 30 Pounds of Muscle in 6 Weeks. This was a 20 rep squat program and it was hard and we really enjoyed it, I think Joey ended up doing 225 for 20-reps, which is pretty sick, especially for two guys who were smarter then most people at the gym, but overall still pretty gym ignorant.




I joined the Army and did only body weight stuff for a while. During my deployment to Afghanistan, I started heading back in the right direction, I flipped some tires and squatted again, heavy. I was focused on trying out for Special Forces, so I would find any excuse to go over to their compound. One day I was over there and I looked inside their gym, I saw different colored weights (Olympic bumpers), kettlebells and gymnastic rings? What the hell was that stuff? Well I wouldn’t find that until 6 months later.

First day at my new unit and a team guy said, hey if you really
want to get into shape, check out this website called www.crossfit.com .
I checked it out and found that Crossfit Central Connecticut was
located near my house. Well that was that, I fell in love with Crossfit (CF) and the first person I pulled into the mix with me was Joey. Constantly Varied Functional Fitness done at High Intensity, at the time it made sense and seemed to be the end-all be-all. I went to a Gregg Everett Olympics lifting seminar, Level one “certification” and Rippetoe’s Basic Barbell seminar. I was using dumbbells, kettlebells and doing power-lifting, Olympic lifts, gymnastics and it was pretty great. Tom Taylor was a great instructor and really hammered the fundamentals. At this time CF was still very underground, with only 2 or 3 gyms in Connecticut. Joey and I competed at the first east coast CF competition located in Albany NY. CF was growing in size and Joey and I felt we need to move to a larger and more well-equipped gym, CF USA.





This gym had any and every piece of equipment you could or would want.
Joey and I climbed 20 foot ropes, pushed the prowler, and started
to really get into Olympic weightlifting. At this time our “fitness knowledge” had increased 10-fold and we were finding our stride in the game of physical fitness. The key to physical fitness was STRENGTH and that’s what we wanted to achieve. We attended a Strongman Seminar and began reading books from Dan John and Mark Twight. Also around this time, we started to really hate CF and especially the CF community. Joey and I noticed a ton of injuries occurring at CF gyms and an unfortunate event that was repeating itself time and time again. This event was inexperienced people going to a 2 day “certification” and then opening a gym
WTF, how was that possible and why was it allowed. As a result

of the shear watering down of CF and influx of non athletic people joining the gyms, Team Darwin was born. Before I go off on a why I hate CF tangent, I will get back on track, CF was our gateway drug, to much bigger and better things….Olympic Weightlifting.


So I did what I’d been wanted to do for a while, I built a garage gym and totally broke contact with commercial gyms. We started Olympic Weightlifting and took it a step further and contacted Gary Valentine of Team Connecticut Weightlifting and the rest is what you call history…Darwin Barbell Club was born, we became members of Team Connecticut Weightlifting, got 70sbig and I met Dan John…..scary what knowledge and dedication does for you…I’ve probably missed a gym here or there and a crazy program we did here or there, but hell it’s 15 years of shit, I remembered the important stuff.. Squat, always use a barbell, keep a training log and have great lifting partners.

4/29/2011 Lamentation Mountain (4/22/2011)

another car where it really shouldn't be, in the woods, and it is shot up

basically saying be careful because if not you will fall and die, obviously this is here because some did just that, they weren't careful and the proceeded to fall and die

looking south west, just to the east of the mountain is Meriden

Mr. L found something, he is looking southwest, i am looking northwest

looking north, if it was a nice day out you can see the Berkshires in Mass

So again this hike occurred on 4/22/2011. Myself and Mr. L woke up early, got some breakfast and drove out here to Lamentation Mountain.  We parked on what we hoped was a parking lot but it was actually an extention of someone's driveway so we hoped that his car would still be there when we got off the trail, and if it wasn't who cares the car cost him 500 bucks.  So we head out along the CT blue trail ( Metacomet), I think here it is called that Mattabasett, I could be wrong and I more than likely spelled it wrong.  Anyway, we head out and are walking through straight up shit.  The trail aka atv path was destroyed.  We followed this for awhile and prayed that we would pick up some elevation so we could get out of this shit.  Finally we did and pretty much picked up I would estimate 200 to 300 feet of elevation in around 300 feet of hiking.  That doesn't sound too bad but trust me it is, anytime a trail switches back and forth up a hillside or mountain side, it's doing that because the elevation gain would be too much to go straight up the side.  So we get to what we think is the top and realize that false summits suck because this one had I would say around 3 of them.  See this is a mind fuck (excuse my language but there really is no other way to describe it and get my point across).  I refer to it like this because well you think you are at the top of the mountain and well your not, it might flatten out for a little bit, but then it goes up some more and continues this for awhile until finally you are at the top.  So we continue this and then finally come out along the top and follow the ridgeline of Lamentation Mountain for the rest of the hike.  On a nice day you can easily see all the way to Mass and see the Berkshires.  We could see that far but unfortunately the pictures don't show it.  We could also see all the way to New Haven and see Hartford.  I would have to say the views we saw were some of the best so far.  While hiking we came upon a young man who we dubbed "Rainman".  He literally came out of nowhere.  We came over a crest in the ridgeline and there he was staring out over Berlin and looking west towards Southington.  We both decided that this kid was probably going to jump because that's what he looked like he was thinking about.  He wouldn't have lived.  Anyway we get away from Rainman and kept on going south east.  If we were to follow the trail all the way we would end up at Mount Higby in Middletown.  So while hiking we came up with a plan to have someone drop us off at the trailhead at Lamentation Mountain and we would hike to Route 66 in Middlefield.  That would be a cool hike so that one will be happening soon.  The hike overall was a good one.  The one thing I have noticed alot on these hikes is that the forrest looks like it got carpet bombed.  There are dead trees all over the place which literally look like someone called in high explosive artillery and proceeded to say fire for effect because it looks like everything was blown to shit.  Who knows, but I guess the wind could do that.  Well it was a good hike and I can't wait to get back out on the trail but I am getting ready for several jiu-jitsu tournaments in the near future.  Until then be safe and stay loose. 

4/29/2011 Res 6 to Heublin Tower (4/21/2011)

Ok so this hike that I am writing about now took place on 4/21/2011.  Sorry it took me so long to write about it but I have been training alot for jiu-jitsu tournaments so I have been away from the computer.  It was a great day to go hiking, myself and Mr. V meet up at Res #6 in West Hartford and proceeded to hike up to Heublin Tower, and then we were like screw it lets keep going so that's what we did.  The first part of the trail, well it wasn't even a trail it was more like a dirt road with some pavement for park police and other qualitfied vehicles.  So we walked on that for pretty much the length of the entire res which was atleast 1 mile where we picked up the trailhead on the left.  This was the CT blue trail as always and we followed up to top of the mountain where Heublin Tower is located.  The trail in the beginning was pretty shitty, very wet and muddy but that's how things are around here until the summer when things dry out, so until we gained some elevation it would have to muddy.  Here is a short history of Heublin Tower. ( The following I took from www.friendsofheublintower.org. 
Gilbert F. Heublein was a celebrated German-born hotelier and restaurateur in Hartford, Connecticut as well as an innovator in the American gourmet food and liquor industry. Heublein built the Tower in 1914 as a summer retreat for his family and for the entertainment of weekend guests.
Builder T. P. Fox and Son was contracted by Heublein to carry out Hartford architects Hilliard Smith and Roy D. Bassette’s Tower plans, the specifications of which called for a tower that would never blow over, having been designed to resist wind pressures of 100 mph. It is a six-storied structure, with a 165- foot solid square shaft of steel beam and concrete construction that rises from a massive, asymmetrical fieldstone base. The property on which it rests totals approximately 350 contiguous acres along the mountain ridge, with the Tower being at the midpoint of the plot.
Many famous people have been guests at the tower, where the Republican Party asked General Dwight Eisenhower to run for president. This same party was also attended by Prescott Bush, father of George H. W. Bush. Ronald Regan also visited the tower in the 1950s while he was president of the Screen Actors Guild.
From 1948 to 1950, WTHT, an FM station operated by The Hartford Times, used the tower as its antenna site.

Here are some pictures from the hike, and yea it was incredibly windy at the top, I would have to say gusts where up to 25mph, myself and MR.V had to yell at each other to be heard over the wind.  The farther we got from the crest of the mountain and ridgeline the wind actually made it sound like there was a major highway directly near us, but it was only the wind being windy, anyway here are some pictures. 

Trail to Heublin Tower obviously

Mr. V pointing west, looking dignified

Top of the tower

neat little spot to have a picnic

me looking at something and then thinking about that thing i am looking at

Heublin Tower

So it was a pretty neat hike.  We stayed up at the tower for alittle bit and took pictures and stuff, then we decided to keep going north on the Blue trail.  If we were to follow it all the way to it's beginning we would end up in Granby but unfortunately we couldn't do that on this day.  We kept on hiking and then hoped onto the blue/red trail and cut across the forrest to pick up the Blue trail back to the trailhead and where we parked.  Overall it was a great day of hiking, it was beautiful out as you can see and I can't wait to just get dropped off at the beginning of the trail up in Granby and just hike all the way south on it.  One day this will happen but until then I will just keep on hiking parts.  

4/16/17/2011 Rattlesnake Mountain

This story takes place over 2 days.  First it starts off on a saturday with myself and Mr. L and Mr. V going for a hike.  We chose to go route 6 in Bristol and start the CT blue trail (Metacomet) and go south.  What was funny about this was that myself and Mr. B finished a snowshoe hike here during the winter at like 1am and called his wife to come and get us because we were both too beat to hike all the way back to our car.  None of that would happen on this day I tell you.  We did a quick hike because both Mr. V and Mr. L had things to do that afternoon so we decieded to make it a quick out and back.  It was worth.  We found a cave which I will put pictures up of that we crawled inside and checked out for awhile.  I said it was like being inside the womb of mother earth, I got a laugh out of both my hiking partners for that comedic relief.  I tried to climb out of the top of the cave because there was an opening at the top but it was too wet and I didn't have enough skill as a climber to pull it off, but one day I tell you it will happen.  So we stuck around there for awhile and then continued our hike.  As we kept going we came upon a group of people climbing.  Who would have thunk it but one of the instructors there was our friend we used to teach Crossfit too, Mr. S.  He owns his own climbing guide company and is a very good climber.  We sat there bullshited for a minute then got on our way.   Again we came upon some more people climbing and being the respectful hikers that we are went around them and not under their ropes.  I can say this, there is a lot of good climbing to be had along this trail and later on sunday we discovered more.  So we kept on going and came upon a campsite with a wooden pen made for what we have no idea, but believe me many ideas were passed around.  We kept heading along the trail beacuse we were tring to reach the Nike site.  Atleast according to a trail head marker that's where we supposed to be heading.  Eventually we deceided that we had to turn back around because both Mr. L and Mr. V had engagements that they had to be at a certain time and if we didn't turn around they wouldn't make them.  It turns out that we made the right decision because later that day it rained and rained and rained.  It was a good little exploratory hike along a part of the CT blue trail that was blazed very well.   Here are the pictures from both days.  The story after the pictures is about sunday, and trust me you want to keep reading it's AWESOME.

entrance to the womb of motherearth

just thought that rock sitting there was neat

inside the womb

still inside the womb

pretty big inside, i was going to try and use that log to climb out but it was wet and pretty sad

looking out of the top of the womb

the legend of william warren's den

people climbing, those outcroppings where probably 200 feet maybe less

quarry #1

towers of some sort, those are very high

looking down into the quarry, that rock was very very loose

people climbing on sunday

Mr. V, Mr. M, Mr. B, Mrs. P

the girl up top had a hard time getting over that lip, but i think she made it, the rock is very good for climbing

more people climbing

on opposite mountain looking i believe north, that outcropping of rock is where everyone was climbing and we could see them from our vantage point

it was very windy up there and on all the mountains we came upon

looking up out of quarry #2

that rock was very unstable, as we got closer to that outcropping we gave it a wide berth because it looked like a strong wind would knock it off

from the floor of the quarry #2, that dark streak is water coming out of the rock, which added to its unstablness

looking ahead to the skree field that we used to climb out of the quarry, at some points it was actually pretty dangerous

climbing up the skree, walking up this sounded like it was hollow underneath, just tring not to break an ankle, this field of skree was probably close to 100 yards long, it only got more unstable the higher we went, if you look to the top of the pic you will notice it rises up straight from the angle of the skree field, we used that to climb out of the quarry

this is where things got interesting, we climbed up as high as we could go and then moved horizantally across the face of wall of rock, once we got to that out cropping that is gray in the middle of the pic, we climbed up ridge of it and out of the quarry.  the rock was very unstable on the ridge, if you would have fallen off you can see the steep drop off the ridge, that wasn't the worst part, that was you would have fallen about 25 to 30 feet followed by alot of loose rock, not good

So here is the story from day 2 (sunday) of my adventure at rattlesnake mountain.  So again we started at route 6.  Mr. V wanted to start there again and just keep going till we reached this Nike site, which I would later find out was just a metal fence, which we hiked past but didn't realize we were right next to this mythical Nike site.  So this time out it was myself, Mr. V, Mrs. P, Mr. M, and of course Mr. B.  We headed out at about 1pm and just started hiking.  We again come upon that cave which I have dubbed the womb of mother earth.  This time I climbed up the front of it while everyone else just walked around the side of it and met me on top where I was ribbed by everyone for not taking the easy way up at which point I stated that because I did it my way I was now better than all of you.  Now this place is called William Warren's den.  I didn't pay any attention to that on day 1 but now I am going to give you a link to the story of this if I can find it, hold on I am googling it now. 

I had heard of Will Warren’s Den several times in a few different contexts over my years in Connecticut. Once Hoang and I agreed to complete the Metacomet Trail end-to-end, I knew I’d finally get to check it out. I guess you could say I was a little underwhelmed – the story is far cooler than the cave itself. (Though the occasion to play on the word “warren” is pretty cool too.)
As for the story, I’ll just let the Connecticut Walk Book tell it in a short essay titled, “Where Did Will Warren Wander?”

The cave known as Will Warren’s Den is one of Farmington’s historic landmarks. A bronze plaque dedicating the site to the town is affixed to one of the rocks above the narrow opening to the cave. In the 17th century, Warren, according to legend, tried to burn down the village of Farmington after he was flogged for not going to church. Driven out of town and pursued into the mountains, he was hidden in this cave by Native American maidens.
In the 1870’s, a skeleton was discovered in Will Warren’s Den and it was believe to be Will himself. The office of the State Archaeologist conducted a forensic examination of the skeleton, however, and it did not appear to match any of the known aspects of Will Warren’s life. Is Will Warren myth or real? We may never know.

The cave is underneath a massive jumble of boulders, just on top of Rattlesnake Mountain. The traprock ridge has crumbled over the millenia, resulting in giant square and rectangle blocks all over the summit area. It’s really a very enjoyable area – and pretty easily accessible by most anyone. We approached from several miles south (Route 372 in Plainville) but one could also park at the end of Poplar Hill Road (at 50 Cent’s house) and hike the simple 1.7 miles to and from the spot.
We contemplated entering the cave for a while – but the opening was just so small and it didn’t seem worthwhile after several crouch-downs and peer-ins. After finding the following on the Internet, I guess we made the right decision!

The large room comprising the cave has two hard-to-find entrances. The upper entrance is not visible from the trail and requires climbing up the steep boulders to the top. This small entrance drops down 15 ft. to the main room on a sloping grade. Several old manilla ropes mark the passing of long ago explorers.

A pitch-black 15-foot drop? I’m not sure Hoang would have forgiven me for that one.

…………………………………………………….

Ok so there is the story, read it and then keep reading my story because it's much better because I wrote my story.  Anyway. So again we stayed around here for alittle bit and played around and then we started hiking.  I am going to say again alot until I get to the part in the story where the adventure of sunday begins, bare with me.  So again we come upon the same rock as we did on day 1 and again people where climbing.  We stayed around there for awhile and cheered on a girl who was tring to climb one of the rock faces, but was having a good deal of trouble making it over a lip of rock right at the top, it was inspiring.  We kept on going coming to the place where myself , Mr. L and Mr. V turned around the day before.  So now the day 2 story begins.  We hiked on from here and came upon alot of mountain tops where we had great views to the north and west and south.  Man it was super windy up there, I had to hold my boonie cover to my head because I didn't want it to blow away, duh.  The trail continued on and followed the ridgelines of rattlesnake mountain for pretty much the whole trail.  There were some nice ups and downs to deal with but it was actually a pretty easy hike.  At one point Mr. V asks how far have we gone because I haven't seen this mysterious Nike site yet.  Mr B refers to his gps and says we have gone well past the Nike site.  So we stopped for minute a couple of us made water in the woods and we deceided to keep going because we had hiked to route 72 in Plainville so we came a pretty good distance about 4.5 miles.  We keep on going and start hiking parallel to route 72 and we come upon quarry #2.  We thought this was just the other side of quarry #1 but we would find out that we were very wrong.  So we hike to edge of the quarry and decide this would be a good place to make a short cut and catch the blue trail (metacomet) up on the far end of the quarry where thought we had hiked to about 2 hours before, but again we would find out we were very wrong.  So we find a spot that would only injure and not kill us if we went down it and I of course being the man, or moron that I am blaze the trail down.  It wasn't too bad because it wasn't that steep but the soil was very loose and the rock was horrible.  So we all make it down into the quarry and realize that at any moment alot of rock from very high could come down on our heads and we would lose that game.  So we hike through some pretty thick brush and briars and come out to the open part of the quarry.  It was actually kind of like an optical illusion when we in there for what reason I have no idea but it made you kind of dizzy to look up and out of the quarry.  The rock conditions where terrible.  There was so much broken rock on the ground that we had to give the edge of the top of the quarry a wide berth because if anything did fall we wanted to have atleast 10 seconds to get the hell out of the way.  So we walked around down there for awhile, decided that alot of people did a lot of illegal discharging of firearms there and looked for away to climb out.  We walked to the far end of the quarry and saw this massive skree field and almost at once we were like lets climb out here it will be fun.  So we walked up the skree field making sure to let each other know if some rock was falling in our direction because if one of got hit, it would be game over, call in the bird.  We got to the top of the skree field and saw a spot where we could climb the face of the quarry and get out to the top.  Mr. M tried to climb it but it too dangerous because there was nothing for him to plant his feet on and everything he grabbed just came out of the side of the quarry, idea #1 short down.  Idea #2 was much better, we would walk parallel to the face of the quarry and use this other outcropping of rock to climb out of.  This was a little better but as I said under the picture if you fell off you would take alot of rock with you and over the lip of the outcropping and fall probably about 25 feet to some nasty rock below so you had to be careful. Again me being the monster that I am blazed the trail.  At one point going up this I made more progress going backward then forward because as soon as you put your weight on some rock it just dislodged and fell.  You really needed to test out your holds before you put your faith in it.  Once I got up and out, Mr. M followed.  He got out pretty easy but then came Mrs. P who did a great job keeping her focus and not letting the fact that certain injury or possibly death was option b and option c play with her mind.  Next came Mr. B who climbed up pretty easily and then Mr. V who again came up and out pretty easy.  The only thing was by the time the last 2 came up and out there was nothing to hold onto becasue everything had been torn out of the side of quarry so it was a little more difficult of a climb at that point.  Once we all got out we enjoyed some adult beverage and then continued on our way.  Once we got to the top we realized that ya this isn't where we thought we were supposed to end so this shortcut wasn't really a short cut and Mr. B told us we should hike westish, that is technical speak, westish.  We hike along until we come to a road, that has some concrete barriers blocking cars from coming into the quarry.  This part of the story is AWESOME.  When we get to the barries we see a blue car that has two people inside it.  The car is rocking forward and back as if the people inside are making babies, which they were.  At the same exact moment we come upon this whorehouse aka car a New Britain Police car drives past.  At this point myself and MR. V both agree that there are sins being committed inside that car when the dude inside puts his pants on and turns the car on as if he going to escape his fate, which made a turn down the road and came back aka NBPD.  This is funny shit, the Officer asks Mr. V if we are with this sketchball and he says no way, we don't even know this guy.  I hear through my peripheral hearing the Officer ask the dude where he picked this woman of the night from, didn't hear his response but I can imagine this god fearing man replied , I picked her up at church NOT!!!! HAHAHAHAHA loser, they make internet porn for a reason, so I hear.  So at this point we have seen enough of this guy ruining his life and decide to go on.  The Officer asks us what we are doing and we say hiking.  He actually wanted us to stay and talk but we had to get going.  Mr. B said something funny to the effect that the Officer's dog looked better than that woman or man of the flesh that was in mister weirdo's car, I laughed because it was funny hahah.  So we follow this road for a while and Mr. B tells me make a left and start heading west towards the CT blue trail.  We do some bushwacking and finally I see that the tree line is going to end because we are coming to the ridgeline that we hiked in on.  We get back on the blue trail and now it is just a mad dash back to the car becaue by this point we were all beat.  We had been hiking for over 4 hours and we wanted to make it to Eli Cannon's and get some food and some adult beverages which we did.  Overall it was a great hike with some wild stuff to see and do.  A little side note, I didn't find bambi out there in the woods but I am still hunting and when I find bambi, this animal will get a golden arrow to the heart. (that was for you qm).  Also another side note, Mr. L suggested that I take on a challenge.  What is this challenge you ask.  Well it is doing all 50 hikes of CT in 50 days.  I said lets do, but after I do my jiu-jitsu tournaments which I in training for right now, so there might be some good stuff on that on the site in the near future, BUT IF YOU DON'T READ YOU WON'T KNOW.  Here is the link to the gps readout of the hike, enjoy and till next time, stay loose. 

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/79902483