Monthly Archives: May 2010

The World According to Irving

Good morning all. How are you? I’ve been a frazzled mess recently. It primarily has to do with stuff going on at work. I may have been in the office yesterday at 7:45 a.m. It was hectic to say the least.

Anyway – I’ll do a quick recap of the past two days. Breakfast on Monday was oatmeal with mixed frozen fruit.

Lunch was salad – unpictured and then I didn’t really snack in the afternoon because that’s when things go C-RAZY. I probably would have work to all hours of the night, if it hadn’t been one of my best friend’s birthday on Monday! I met up with Katie after work for a quick dinner. We were going to try Blossom Bistro on the UES, but we simply didn’t have enough time, so we hit up Ariba Ariba! instead. And I had a much-needed margarita, along with this a yummy and HUGE chicken burrito.

It was very filling. After our quick dinner, Katie and I headed to the 92 Street Y to see John Irving speak. Mr. Irving is one of our favorite authors. We saw him speak back in October and simply could NOT pass up the opportunity to see him again. He is so amazing and so charismatic. Hey there John!

Mr. Irving spoke from 8:00 – 9:30 and even shared some draft material from a potential future book, as well as some interesting and entertaining stories. He is soo great! They were pretty explicit about no photos or video, so I put my camera away for the night.

Are you an Irving fan? What books of his have you read? What is your favorite?

I haven’t read them all, but I’ve read: A Prayer for Owen Meany, The Cider House Rules, The Water Method Man, The World According to Garp and A Widow for One Year. I have his newest book (an autographed copy!), so that is on my list of books to read. I’m pretty sure Cider House is my favorite. 🙂

After the reading, I called it a night so that I could get up super early on Tuesday. My breakfast was a bowl of Puffins with Almond Milk.

This was my first time trying Puffins and I really liked them. So much so, that they might have been my dinner last night as well. Hehehe.

No other food photos from yesterday. I was busy, busy all day. I had a Peanut Butter and Jelly (Apricot – yum!) sandwich for lunch and my usual snacks.

After work I FORCED myself to run at the gym. There were big rain clouds threatening, so I played it safe and ran 5 miles at the gym in 41:25. I can not believe that my marathon is NEXT WEEKEND!! Holy cow.

I am trying to get myself in a good frame of mine – build my confidence and visualize myself running my marathon strong and in the time I want. I need to figure out my race-day outfit and all that as well. I’m getting so excited and nervous!! And of course, I am praying for perfect weather!

Have a great Hump Day all! Hubby comes home from being out of town – so I’m super excited about that! YAY!

Wedding Fun & Marathon Nerves

Good morning all – welcome to another work week. Blah! This past weekend flew by so fast. Did yours?

On Friday after work I headed upstate on the train. I had dinner with two of my best friends that night, including some pasta to help fuel my run the next morning.

Saturday’s run was a good one – maybe because it was so much shorter than my last weekend run (21+ miles). My friend Lauren also met up with me for about four of the miles, so that made it go by quickly as well. Here are my stats from that run:

Mile 1 – 8:19
Mile 2 – 9:10
Mile 3 – 9:23
Mile 4 – 9:04
Mile 5 – 8:38
Mile 6 – 8:16
Mile 7 – 8:42
Mile 8 – 8:27
Mile 9 – 8:31
Mile 10 – 8:20
Mile 11 – 8:33
Mile 12 – 8:19
.22 – 1:47

Total mileage – 12.22 miles in 1:45:34. Average pace – 8:38 minute miles

I felt great after this run! After my run I hung around my parent’s house for a bit and then got ready for my friend Jenny’s wedding in Queensbury, N.Y.

They had a gorgeous day for their wedding and the ceremony happened to be outside, so that was perfect. Here’s Hubby and I at our table taking the requisite table photo.

And that’s my friend Lauren giving us bunny ears. Thanks girl!

And here’s a group shot of some of the girls with the bridey.

The cocktail hour was amazing – there were sooo many stations. But I completely forgot to take any photos because I was so intent on hitting up every station…and I did.

Our dinner was delicious – the menu was chicken and Chateaubriand, with a twice-baked potato and grilled broccoli and carrots.

And then my favorite part – dessert!

I loved the wedding cake with the chocolate cream-pudding in the middle. And the icecream in the mini cup was fabulous as well. I cleared my plate.

All in all, it was a really great wedding and weekend. I wanted to be super motivated and run on Sunday, but it was just too hot and muggy and I was too tired. So last week, it looks like I only got in 3 of my 5 days of running. Apparently, I am taking the taper time to the next level and am just being straight lazy! Hopefully I can get in my five days this week. I am losing training motivation!

Any advice from marathon veterans out there – how to stay motivated during the taper time? I don’t want to ruin all my training by not tapering properly.

And in other marathon-related nerves – I had an extremely bizarre dream last night. I was running the marathon with my high school cross-country team, but it was more like an obstacle course. We had to squeeze through hidden doors and strange routes and then our coach stopped us for a full 5 minutes to have a chat. I was flipping out and yelling “we are running a marathon – there’s no time for talking!”

It was not a fun dream. I think I can say that I am officially nervous for the Poconos Run for Red Marathon on May 16th. Eeeks it’s so close!

Have a great Monday all!