Category Archives: eat

Half Marathon Sandwich plus Mustique

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It has been quite a crazy (in a good way) last couple of weeks.

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View from the patio of our room in Mustique

Three days after coming home from UAE and India, we left for our “official” meaning pre-planned vacation with friends to Mustique, a private island of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. It was absolutely incredible there. We stayed at The Cotton House and the service was absolutely incredible. It is hands down the best hotel we’ve ever stayed in but also the best service we likely have ever experienced on any of our vacations. The island is small, very much walkable if you’re interested in up/downhills and through cliffs by the ocean but also easy to get around on a mule. We spent our days eating, swimming, snorkeling, reading, walking, drinking, more eating, and some light running. It was a blast!

We were welcomed home on Friday night with the big rain storm, delays in our flight, and pizza and pasta carb loading at 11PM for Saturday morning’s Brooklyn Half Marathon. With less than 4 hours of sleep, Josh drove me down to the Path train station a little before 5AM for my trek into Brooklyn. Thank goodness for my running friends who helped me pick up my bib earlier in the week. After achieving the PR in Long Branch a couple weeks ago, the goal of this race was to have fun. I knew with the half marathon sandwich I had planned that one was going to be a race and the other just a long run. Even though I was worried about whether or not I could actually run a half marathon after all this traveling, eating, time change, and lack of running, I was excited for Brooklyn. It was a course I had never run before and I have heard a lot of positive feedback about it.

I am a big fan of NYRR’s organization and race logistics but I was a little disappointed with the security, bag check, and corrals layout on Saturday. Bag check was on the opposite end of security with the corrals for Wave 1 runners in between. I don’t usually warm up before a race but I did quite a bit of that going between security, bag check, and corrals. Fortunately, I was able to make it into Wave 1 and caught up with some teammates before the start. As soon as I crossed the start line, I just ran and went with what felt right. In the back of my mind, I wondered if I would be able to run another sub-2 hour half but I knew I didn’t want to push it too hard. The race went exactly the opposite of that.

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Celebrating after the half!

My competitive nature always gets the best of me. I ran a pretty evenly split race but it was definitely not easy. My first 5K split was 27:23 and it was pretty consistent from there. I averaged overall 8:57 min/mile and even when I was stopping more for water and Gatorade towards the last couple of miles, my mile splits didn’t change much. Many points during the race, I thought to myself that if I pushed harder, I may be able to PR again but by mile 10 or so when it was quiet on Ocean Parkway, I decided that it was much more important to make sure I finished the race hydrated. My official finish time was 1:57:13, which is about a minute off of my PR. I beyond thrilled how the race ended up though. With very little sleep and the lack of a schedule and routine over the last couple of weeks, I am happy that I could even come so close to my Long Branch Half time. It is a good feeling knowing that despite the lack of running (I guess the recovery helped) and cross training, I still maintained most of my endurance and speed. It had concerned me that since I ran such a positive split race a couple weeks ago that the PR may have been a fluke but Saturday proved that hopefully sub-2 hour half marathons will be the new norm.

The one thing that seemed to really help me on Saturday was fueling. I could barely stomach more than half a bowl of oatmeal at 4:30AM (I guess eating dinner 5 hours ago could do that to you) but I was really hungry by the time I was en route to Brooklyn. While waiting for the subway, I ate some Jelly Belly Sport Beans and then again right before the start. With the warm up between security, bag check, and the corrals, it really helped work out some of the kinks that I usually face with eating during a race. Aside from water and Gatorade on the course, I didn’t end up needing any more sport beans the rest of the race which not only helped with the excess air issue but helped with the overall flow of the race.

In many ways, I am disappointed that traveling is coming to a short halt and it’s back to reality this week but I am excited to take a rest from scheduled training (until marathon training starts in June) and focus on running for fun, some speed work, and a lot of cross training — spin, barre, swimming, and maybe even some yoga.

How was your weekend? Any big upcoming race plans?

 

Lots of eating and shopping (and gaming)… and planning for runs

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Happy Tuesday after Memorial Day Weekend!

I feel like a fatty and it doesn’t help that I will be spending a week on the beach in Turks and Caicos starting Saturday. Last week, I got in two runs (but planned for four, if that counts) and went to two barre classes.

I really do think barre was the exercise highlight of my week last week. My good friend from growing up met me in Hoboken after work to attend a Top Shelf class at Local Barre. Top Shelf is a more advanced class and even though my friend had never attended a barre class, I figured she would be fine given her athleticism. And she was more than fine, she did great! We rewarded ourselves with sushi afterwards and it was just so nice to hang out casually. We talked for hours at dinner and it made me wish that I had more of a consortium of friends in town. Our friends are mostly all scattered locally but it makes for casually hanging out a little harder between work and weekend schedules.

We spent most of Memorial Day weekend shopping and eating, which I cannot complain about but goes back to my earlier complaint about feeling like a fatty. On Friday afternoon, I tried to sneak out to the mall right after work figuring I would hopefully avoid some of the weekend traffic but boy was I wrong. A trip that was supposed to take 20 minutes ended up taking almost 90 minutes; it didn’t help that it was also raining out. There were many occasions where I thought about turning around but decided that I was committed to shopping… haha, addiction problem? Garden State Plaza was busy but I found a quick parking spot and was on a mission. I went to the mall for a couple of specific stops – Madewell, J. Crew, L’Occitane, Lululemon, and Papyrus. I did well; picked up a bunch of clothes (which I will have to take pictures of later, but I am wearing one of my new shirts from J. Crew in the picture below — p.s. I got the shirt for $22!) for our trip and work, a pair of running shorts, lotion, and a card. There were sales at most stores and I left feeling satisfied, which just means no more shopping for a couple of months!

Our shopping adventures didn’t end there. With the sales going on, we went to West Elm and Crate & Barrel for furniture browsing on Saturday. Before leaving on any shopping endeavor with Josh, I need to make sure he is well fed, otherwise the trip will be a bust. We both fattened up with our normal brunch skillets at Turning Point and were on our way. We didn’t end up buying anything big (just a berry colander, more on that later) on this trip but found a media console, desk, and bedroom furniture that we really liked at Crate & Barrel. To take advantage of the 15% off discount for the weekend, we spent some time on Sunday morning reviewing our choices and measuring everything out at home before purchasing. It will likely be a couple of weeks before our new items come in, but I am excited to swap out our almost decade-old Ikea furniture. These new items will also force me to go through some of my clothes for donation and Josh to clean out his desk area, which I am thrilled about but will need to find time to do.

We had a great time at my cousin’s medical school graduation party on Saturday night as well. I ate so much from sushi to Italian to Chinese food and like four different desserts! Josh thought Operation would be a funny present and I think it was a great idea (hopefully my cousin enjoys it!). We ended up playing a couple rounds with made-up rules since there was eight of us and I am proud to say I was the winner! However, clearly you will not want me to advising you on anything medical.

After our furniture purchases on Sunday, we spent the day in NYC visiting friends, playing even more games – 7 Wonders and Cards Against Humanity, and eating more food – pizza, Korean fried chicken, and wine. Finally Memorial Day would not be complete if I didn’t try to make something to kick off the “official” start of summer. For dinner on Monday, I made a beef patty with mushroom; spinach, pepper, zucchini, and quinoa salad; corn-on-the-cob; and guacamole. Yummy! I was also so excited to use my berry colander that I had to take multiple pictures!

In preparation for another full week of eating next week, I am paying for my food-filled weekend today. I already signed up for four future races today — Achilles 5-miler in Central Park at the end of June, NYC Marathon Long Training Runs #1 and #2, and the Electric 5K run in Brooklyn in September. I am tired just thinking about all this running! However, on a more immediate front, I am signed up for a barre class this evening and will try to get a run in afterwards as well.

How was your Memorial Day weekend?