*For the bye week, we got out of here a day early, and I went up to Boston for the first time since the season began. I swung by BC on Thursday and was able to catch one of the football practices. It was cool to be back and talk to all the coaches and see all the guys again. It was just a brief visit because I was helping my girlfriend, Danielle, pack up before she left for South Carolina. She's in the Army National Guard, and she recently received her orders to head down to Fort Jackson for training. So we got her all ready to go and then hung out in Boston on Friday night. It felt good to be back and everything pretty much felt the same because all my buddies are still around and on the team.
In between, I visited the Saucony headquarters Friday morning in Lexington, Mass. where I'm the spokesperson for its "Find Your Strong" campaign. I was introduced to all the faculty, shared my story with them and just looked at their new products coming out.
Then on Sunday I did something I had never done before – I went to the horse track. My girlfriend, my college roommate, his girlfriend and I all went to Suffolk Downs in East Boston. It was definitely cool because I had never been to a horse race before. But the real highlight was the food truck convention that had pulled in. Every major food truck from Boston was there, and the lines were at least a hundred people long. They had grilled cheese, they had ribs, and they had my favorite ice cream sandwich where you picked whatever two cookies you wanted and whichever type of ice cream you want to put in the middle.
After the festivities, we went down to Brown University to see my brother, Brad, play on Sunday. He's a sophomore linebacker there, and we've always been really close ever since we were little. He has kind of matured at the same rate as I've matured. He's friends with all my buddies and was basically at Boston College for the whole five years I was there. It was good to kind of see him come into his own and do his thing down at Brown. He loves school, and he's real excited to be there. We have a great relationship.**
That rounded out my bye week and then it was back to the facility on Monday to prepare for Miami.
