Close race

While most in the NYC running community will be focused on Grete's Great Gallop this weekend...I have another race that has captured my attention...the race in the AL East: here the numbers have it...

Team	W/L	GB
Yanks	94/65	-
Red Sox	93/66	1

With this weekend's series of the Yanks at Fenway closing out regulation. All the Yanks have to do is win 2 against Boston...or if they can only squeak out 1 win, hope that Cleveland loses as well...but man, I really wish it did not have to come down to this...for the Yanks to even have to be worrying about a playoff berth this late in the season. I guess I've been spoiled the last 9 years...with a harsh dose of reality in last year's ALCS. (yeah, that has me worried too...that history of choking against the Red Sox.) Well I'll be paying close attention to this playoff race this weekend. Fingers crossed...

Well, at least at Red Sky last nite we did get to watch the Yanks beat Baltimore. One of the few things I do remember clearly last nite. Oh boy...when you give open bar to a company who knows how to use/abuse it...yeah. I was pounding apple martini after apple martini. And as usual, EB was acting like quite the instigator to try and get me to smooch AL's friend. Which I did...meh. Nice guy, don't get me wrong, but I don't think much dating potential. (not my type for several reasons) I dunno, I guess part of me also thinks that I am just getting too old for this...for meeting guys randomly at bars and kinda miss being in a serious relationship with a guy. It's just been way too long.

And I was just feeling great this morning...overslept (but still made it to work on time) and downed my iced caramel macchiatto like it was water or something. And my company celebrated Oktoberfest this afternoon-complete with home-brewed beer and customized beer mugs for everyone. As our CEO said "We work hard and play hard." So yeah, nothing better to cure a hangover than more alcohol :) I think my birthday drinkage is officially over...and that I will abstain from drinking this weekend. I need a break!!

now playing: "love profusion" ~ madonna

To nano or not to nano?

Well Apple has done it. They've come out with a pretty cool flash MP3 player, the iPod nano. (I don't count the shuffle...I really wasn't too crazy about the concept of that one.) Anyway, I love my Rio Cali-512 MB of memory plus an FM tuner but sometimes it's a pain when trying to make playlists...all the songs I want have to be in the internal memory instead of the memory card. And 4 GB worth of songs sounds pretty cool. Even though I swore I wouldn't join the "white headphones brigade," I'm sure I'll pick one up eventually...maybe before marathon training next year. And I'm sure there will be better/cheaper models by that time. If only Apple would come out with an iPod that has flash memory and the FM tuner it would be perfect...

Anyway, looking back, margaritas at Cilantro's on Tuesday was a great time. I only had 2, but they were quite big, so that was enough for me :) And man, so many September b-days...one of the guys who was there shares his b-day with me, another one has his on Friday. I have my theory as for why that is...why so many late September birthdays... ;-)

Last nite, went to see the doc to check out the foot...although I felt it was getting better, there is still one stubborn spot that isn't going away and he still wants me to limit running to twice a week :( Wouldn't be so bad but I am just SICK AND TIRED of cross-training. Especially when it doesn't always fit in with my schedule...I mean, I can sneak in a run whenever, but when I am at the mercy of a spinning class schedule or the gym's operating hours...blah. The good news is that I can increase mileage a little bit...to 5 miles per run and that I can do 4 miles of the LTR next weekend. I'm hoping my "comeback race" of sorts will be the Marathon Kickoff 5-miler on 10/30-even if I don't "race" it, just to kinda get back into the swing of things...sick of being on the sidelines. This Sunday is Grete's Great Gallop half-marathon and instead of running, I'll just be cheering and taking pictures and wishing I was running. It's tough to take one for the team, but I guess it's my responsibility with being co-captain...I'm encouraging these girls to run the points races, I feel I should make it a point to be there...whether running or not. Well, I guess I can also look at it as an excuse to break out the running skirt again :)

Yay...drinks at Red Sky tonite with the work crew. Looking forward to those apple martinis :) I'm sure I will be quite hungover tomorrow morning-and that will perfectly coincide with us celebrating Oktoberfest at the office. Yep, you heard that right. In honour of our new parent company being German, our CEO decided we'd have beer and pretzels tomorrow :-p Gotta love our company culture sometimes.

now playing: "cool" ~ gwen stefani

Twenty-nine years in the making...part two

OK....here is where I give my running background. Might as well, considering this blog is supposed to be about running...

• High school-lazy bum, dreaded the weekly run in gym class and the annual mile run.
• College til mid-2003-my idea of running was the treadmill at the gym.
• June 2003-did the Corporate Challenge with my company and decided I actually liked running outside. did some more of it in the summer.
• September 2003-moved to the Upper West Side-apartment within stumbling distance of Central Park
• November 2003-saw the marathon hoopla in and around the park and decided I was gonna run it someday
• January 2004-joined the NYRR in an attempt to get my 9 races in for guaranteed entry for '05. Scared off a little by the brutal NYC winter.
• April 2004-did my first NYRR race, the Niketown Run For the Parks 4-miler, in 35:56. Was thrilled to break a 9-minute pace.
• May 2004-broke an 8-minute pace in the 2.5 mile Downtown Dash. Joined the New York Flyers at the end of May.
• June 2004-In my first race as a Flyer, the NY Mini 10K-not only broke 50 minutes, but blew that away in 48:59. One week later, ran an even faster 5-miler (still my PR) and got my first team medal-sweet!!
• August 2004-ran my first half-marathon, the Manhattan Half, in 1:52:55. and all i wanted to do in the heat, hills and humidity was break 2 hours!!
• September-December 2004-great season, training runs were a breeze, won 2 team medals and 2 age-group awards (the AG awards in smaller NJ races), set PR's at 5K (twice!), 4 miles and 10K.
• January 2005-smashed my half-marathon PR in Vegas
• February 2005-getting slower...in races and training...something isn't right. does recovery from a hard half take that long? you're out of shape, train harder, girl!!
• March 2005-so much for Brooklyn being an easy half. That didn't feel good.
• April 2005-bombed both races that month...will spring ever come??
• May 2005-ok, did well in Queens. I think with spring on the way, a comeback may be in order...
• June 2005-why did I like summer so much again?? especially when it went from winter to summer overnight? and yay...looks like I got PF (plantar fasciitis) in my left foot. But I can't take time off, I have a marathon to train for...
• July 2005-ok, this isn't getting better. and I never thought I'd see the day when I'd run a 9-minute mile in a 5K.
• August 2005-OK, I'm biting the bullet and taking time off.

Which brings me to now...sidelined for a month trying to get over PF and a bit of overtraining-which pretty much explained the slump I was in during February-April (though I really thought it was something else-hating winter, recovery from Vegas, even boy troubles!) So I started to run again the beginning of this month-but looks like realistically, the NYC marathon is out and I will be making my marathon debut as a sub-masters in '06.
And for reference, the PR list...current as of 9/20/09:

Distance	Time	Race/Date
1M	6:33	Fifth Avenue Mile-8/14/04
2.5M	19:25	Downtown Dash-5/18/04
3M	22:50	AHA Wall Street Run-5/22/07
5K	22:25	Party With Purpose 5K-7/1/09
3.5M	27:40	Corporate Challenge-6/21/06
4M	29:43	Holiday 4-Miler-12/13/08
8K	37:35	NYRR 8000-3/14/09
5M	36:49	NYRR Club Team Championships-8/8/09
10K	47:06 46:29	Joe Kleinerman 10K-12/7/08 10k split of PDR 2009
7M	55:50	Frostbite 7-miler-1/22/05
15K	1:17:39 1:09:45	Colon Cancer 15K-3/12/06 15k split of PDR 2009
10M	1:17:30 1:14:55	Broad Street Run-5/4/08 10 mile split of PDR 2009
Half-marathon (13.1M)	1:37:36	Philadelphia Distance Run-9/20/09
18M	2:38:25	NYC Marathon 18-mile Tuneup-10/8/06
Marathon (26.2M)	3:44:14	New York City Marathon-11/2/08

Twenty-nine years in the making...part one

Yep, the day is here. Happy 29th to me. My last year as an open runner, haha. Was a fun day at work-MC got me a brownie and cupcake from Eleni's, then of course M and GK and Co. had "high tea" in my honour at 3 pm. :)

But the funniest part of the day....oh boy. Now, I knew MS was up to something. For reference sake, he is my co-worker who lives in Florida, and we're just really good friends (he's married)-he's like the male version of me or something like that. So anyway around 4pm, I got a call from the receptionist saying that I had gotten flowers. I then had a feeling that was the "surprise" that MS had for me-like a cute "happy birthday" bouquet. So...I see a vase of a dozen (red) roses, and read the card, sure enough I was right. And then I see the balloon that came with it-a heart-shaped one that said "I Love You!" LOL!! Looks like a mix-up on the part of 1-800-flowers. MS didn't believe me at first. But then everyone else started ripping in on him and it, and he even wound up calling the flower people and chewing them out. So they said they'd send the correct flowers-white roses with a Happy Birthday balloon and an apology tomorrow. So double the flowers for me...hey, I ain't complaining at all. :) Too funny. I know this is the kind of thing that it's tough to write about to really capture the moment...you kinda have to be there to appreciate it.

Tomorrow...celebratory margaritas with the Flyers. yay....can't wait.

now playing: "you won't forget about me"~dannii minogue

Are You A Vanilia?

Taken from one of those little Absolut postcards that you see in bars:

"Absolut: Are You a Vanilia?"
Cool and engaging, your magnetic personality draws others to you. Your style is clean and crisp-no Hawaiian shirts in your closet. You prefer cozy lounges to flashy discos, and never worry about being the most interesting person in the room (even if you usually are.)

I like that. I'm a vanilla person (mmmm...Absolut Vanilia and Vanilla Coke,) and I thought that fit. Anyway, my deep thoughts for the day aside, time for some recrapping...

Well Saturday I was quite lazy and didn't even wake up til after noon. Man this week must have been draining. Sometimes I wish I can "bank" weekend sleep as I don't seem to get nearly enough of it during the week. Didn't get out to watch the 5th Ave Mile but got to see the coverage of the professional men's race on TV-with the exciting finish of Mottram pulling ahead of Webb at the very end-winning in 3:49. All I can say is dayum-that's unreal.

Anyway, I did get to do my 4-mile combo rez/roads run-and for the first time in awhile, the run felt GOOD. Maybe it was the fact that the heat decided to go away for a day. Or the fact that I'm really liking these Asics 2100's-that I *finally* have the right shoes for me. Or that my injury may finally be turning a corner. I just hope that keeps up!! Did some shopping in the afternoon-and god bless the DKNY Soho Jeans-probably the only jeans I can still wear a size 2 in. And that was just the ticket I needed for my night out...

Quite the barhopping for me Saturday nite!! First off, stopped by a b-day party that one of the 6 am running gals was having for her hubby-was at a bar a coupla blocks from me so I stopped by for a hour to say hi to everyone. Chatted with a guy there for a little bit-he graduated college in 2003, I graduated in 1998-man did I feel old. After that, I met up with MF and one of her friends and we went to a cool tapas bar in the east village-where the sangria was flowing, and it was good :) Hung out there for a bit, then headed over to Sweet & Vicious-man, it was packed there. I hadn't been there in quite awhile and I never remembered it being that packed. Anyway, while there, I was chatting up a cute blond Swedish guy...and scored some digits before we left :) Yeah, I guess I can call the evening a success :)

Didn't get to sleep til around 3, yet managed to make it to spin class at 10:15 this morning. After that, my next stop was Sheep's Meadow in Central Park for a belated baby shower for one of my teammates. Was great to see her and her baby boys, good times. After that, to NJ for a b-day dinner with the family at one of my fave restaurants, Park & Orchard. Yum!!

Man, I *so* do not want to go back to work tomorrow. But MS was asking me the other day if I'm gonna be in the office Monday...so I'm guessing some surprise for me...we shall see :)

now playing: "dance hall days"~wang chung

Spice Girls

Lunch at Spice Market is always a treat. Today JL took me out for an early b-day lunch, and MC, our new production manager joined us too-nice to have the new and improved Custom crew together. Food was good as usual, service quicker than normal, and enjoyed the mojito I always get there-this time pineapple was the fruit in season. I think the cherry mojito was my favorite though. I just love them drinks that begin with "M." Mojitos, martinis, margaritas...

Work is getting a little calmer as well, thank god. These last few weeks when we were in between production managers...my god, I thought I was gonna lose it. Not surprising-it was the same thing after a previous production manager left early last year, but I think now with the Kat gone, most of the work fell on our shoulders this time around. Anyway...I was beginning to feel more like a machine than a human being, with feelings, etc.... I know I gotta do what I gotta do to get the job done. But at what cost?

Anyway, tomorrow's a running day and I get to do 4, and do part rez/part roads...yay. I might try and get over to 5th Ave and watch the professional races of the Fifth Avenue Mile . It's actually a fun race-I did it last year in 6:33. I paid the price afterwards as I was sore and knew that sprints aren't my strength!! All of a sudden, 10K's and half-marathons didn't seem so bad...

now playing: "who do you think you are"~spice girls
(i thought that one seemed appropriate, given this post title!)

it just seemed appropriate...

I've been inspired to keep one of these from all I've seen/read on the web and now seems like as good time as any...so here goes.

So who am I? A typical NYC chica. Or not. I work a little. Or a lot. I run a little. Or a lot. I socialize a little. Or a lot. I date a little. Or a lot. (actually that last one ain't true these days, LOL!!)

Well here I am. 4 days from entering my last year as an open runner. (aka 20-something runner-the Flyers refer to 30s at "sub-masters.") 28 has sure been a roller coaster year, and one that I'm actually glad to leave behind. It's been a very rocky last few months, work-wise, running-wise, life-wise, all leading to me having to eventually make a decision that I wish I didn't have to make (to marathon or not to marathon?) Here's to not making the same mistakes in my 29th year.

One thing I'm sure you will notice...I love song lyrics. I'm obsessed. I'll just post em when I'm feeling them. This song I think I'm feeling right now. Great song.

I know I make mistakes
I will have to live and learn
Sometimes you play with fire
And sometimes you get burned

I have my dream to live
Following that star
It doesn't matter how long it takes
It doesn't matter how far

No time for make believing
And it's too late to turn back now, yeah-yeah-yeah

I've been dreaming about it
I can't live without it
I've got to find my own way
I'm not changing my mind now
Or looking behind now
This is my independence day
My independence day

I know it'll take some time
But I won't give up the fight
Sometimes you win, sometime you lose
But that's alright, oh yeah

I've got to spread my wings
And learn how to fly
Cos this feeling drives me on
It's something I cannot deny

No time to make excuses
Cos it's too late to turn back now, yeah-yeah-yeah

I've been dreaming about it
I can't live without it
I've got to find my own way
I'm not changing my mind now
Or looking behind now
This is my independence day
My independence day

No matter what comes my way
I'm gonna live for today, yeah-yeah
This is my, this is my independence day
(Gonna live for today)

I've been dreaming about it
I can't live without it
I've got to find my own way
I'm not changing my mind now
Or looking behind now
This is my independence

I've been dreaming about it
I can't live without it
I've got to find my own way
I'm not changing my mind now
Or looking behind now
This is my independence day
My independence day (independence day)
Day, my independence day (independence day)

Wishing on that same bright star
I shouldn't wish my life away, wish my life away (independence day)
They say it's a small small world
They say it's a small small small small world (independence day)
(Independence day)

~"Independence Day"-Melanie C (from the "Bend It Like Beckham" soundtrack)