Let's talk about running

Well, I honestly have come off of a very very lazy week. Extremely lazy. I honestly don't think I went out and did anything at all this week after work.

Last Sunday Blondie and I headed to Pony Bar for lunch and some beers. I ended up getting some chili and Blondie got sausages and pretzels. They also had a sour strawberry beer that had been finished off in a bourbon barrel, and I fell head over heels in love with it. I normally hate sour beers, but this one, something about it - it was delicious. We didn't stay very long at Pony Bar, but did have a good time while we were there.

Work went fast up until Friday - and then I had my very first "this day is dragging" day since I started at my new job. The other days all flew by, busy each day, but then Friday happened and it was like hitting a brick wall at full force. Time felt like it went backwards. I ended up taking off early and met up with Blondie at our poison bar for salads and beer, before heading over to our local to round out our night. Due to my crappy Friday day, I got into the whiskey on Friday night. And I mean really got into the whiskey. And spent Saturday until about 2 pm sicker than a dog. A.W.E.S.O.M.E.

I don't have a lot of news this week so I'm going to talk about running. I've been and on-and-off runner for years now - I'd say it's been about 16 years that I've considered myself a runner. Some days/weeks/months I'm totally into it, and work my ass off for running, and some days/weeks/months I hate everything about running. I've been trying to fall back in love with running lately - there is a 10K in June in Central Park, and I really want to run it. But my body seems to have reached an impasse. My running feels awful and horrible lately, and it's like pulling teeth to get a run in. My breathing is erratic (no matter how slow or fast I go), and the thought of doing 2.5 miles makes me want to cry (so how am I supposed to do 6.2 miles in June?) I'm out of ideas for what to do - I've tried cross training, stretching, yoga, dropping my miles from 3.1 to 2.5, dropping my speed from 5.5 mph to anywhere between 4.8 and 4.9 mph (SLOW) and it's just not helping. I'm honestly thinking about just not running anymore - but that makes me sad. So that's my rant. I'm panic'ed because I don't want to hate running right now, but it just doesn't seem to be in the cards. If you have any ideas, please let me know.

Having said all that, workouts for the week:
Monday: Insanity Cardio Recovery
Tuesday: 28 mins on Precor; 5 min cooldown; 5 mins on treadmill at 5.5 mph; 6 min cooldown
Wednesday: 2.5 mile run in 30:15; 5 min cooldown
Thursday: 2.5 mile run in 30:50; 5 min cooldown; weights
Friday: Insanity Core Cardio and Balance; 3 sets of 16 reps - tricep dips and chest flys
Saturday: P90X Yoga
Sunday: 10 miles on bike in 41:36 - 2 mins level 7, 4 mins level 12; 5 min cooldown; around 8 mins on treadmill - some running, some walking.

What I'm looking forward to: We have tickets to see "Lucky Guy" on Broadway next Saturday (Tom Hanks, we got box seats); we got tickets to see Lady Antebellum for free (yay for Blondie's job!) in 1.5 weeks; the arrival of all the siblings and celebrating Blondie turning 40 in 2 weeks; and Slick and PFunk arriving in July for a few days! SO MUCH FUN STUFF COMING UP!

Kerri

Honeymoon Period

Last Sunday turned out to be an awesome day. I trucked up to my pedi place and got my silver polish replaced with bright red polish which I love. Also, there is something about a pedicure that makes my day - it's an hour of someone working on my feet, while I sit in a massage chair reading trashy gossip magazines and chugging Red Bull. It really doesn't get any better. After my pedi, I met Blondie at Pony Bar - we were the first ones there, but were eventually joined by our bar friends. Blondie and I split lamb sliders and fish donuts for lunch which were awesome. We were only there a couple of hours but it was a really nice day.

The week was kind of low-key - always, always busy at work, but I kept it easy at night. I feel like the honeymoon period I've been living in with work was blown this week - nothing in particular happened, but it just started to feel like "a job" finally. It had to happen, and I still love working there and love everyone I work with, but the magical feeling of "ooooh, I'm new! what might happen today?" has passed. Bummah.

That was kind of a downer paragraph, so I will tell you my good news - and that is apparently if I want something with my mind enough, it happens. I've made the woman I felt I would be good friends with, my friend. We've consistently been going to lunch over the past 2 weeks, and then finding a conf room afterwards and crashing to eat our food (open space office situation). Woo hoo!

On Wednesday, I met up with 3 women from my old SF office. They were in town for work and had called to see if I wanted to go to dinner. We hit up a Victorian themed restaurant in Times Square and had a blast. I hadn't seen them truly in about a year - even though I had gone to SF all the time, I was always on a different floor in the bldg than them. We chatted office gossip (I realize I don't work there and shouldn't care about gossip, but it's still my favorite thing to talk about), and I filled them in on my new position.

After dinner, I headed back to my neighborhood and met up with my bar friend and trivia friend for "Advanced Trivia" at a new bar in my hood. I came in after round 2 was done, but knew some of the answers for the last set of tryst rounds and round 3. We ended up in 5th place, which wasn't bad, and it was enjoyable end to the day. My bar friend and I walked back to our apartments afterwards, just enjoying the evening.

Friday I met Blondie for dinner after work - we went for cajun. I had some penne etouffee and Blondie had blackened salmon. It was nice having a "date night" for once as opposed to going to our local bar or ordering food in (our 2 Friday night standards). Afterwards, I felt like baking so we stopped and got some brownie mix and I cooked those up on Friday night.

Yesterday I went to the gym, and then finished working out in the apartment. We ended up ordering food in for lunch and then collapsing in front of the TV until about 6 pm. We roused our lazy asses at that point and ended up in our local, catching up with one of the bartenders who just got back from 2 months travelling Asia. Our bar friends were also there, and of course, the fabulous internet jukebox was on, so it was an awesome night.

Today I've done the gym / workout in house thing (my legs have felt like lead lately, and a bunch of stretching has been in order). We have no other plans, other than getting our groceries delivered. Will it be a Pony Bar day? An order-in day? A nice lunch with just Blondie day? Ahhh, lazy spring Sundays.

Workouts:
Monday: Insanity Cardio Recovery
Tuesday: 30 mins hill intervals - 2 mins at 5.3-5.5 mph on 3% grade hill, 2 mins at 4.1 mph flat, 5 min cooldown
Wednesday: 2.5 mile run in 31:xx ish mins, 5 min cooldown; weights
Thursday: rest day
Friday: 2.5 mile run in 30:37, 5 min cooldown; weights
Saturday: 30 mins hill intervals - 2 mins at 5.3-5.5 mph on 3% grade hill, 2 mins at 4.1 mph flat, 7 min cooldown; P90X Stretching; P90X Ab Ripper X
Sunday: 2.5 miles in 30:16, 5 min cooldown; weights; P90X Stretching

Downsizing

Last Sunday, Blondie and I hit up Pony Bar for lunch - we split an oyster and bacon sandwich, and a pulled pork sandwich; and I had a couple of beers to round out my lunch. There has been a trend lately (actually, I know nothing about beer other than the fact that I love to drink it, so this "trend" might've been around for a long time) of brewers finishing their beers in bourbon barrels - and holy shit, it.is.good. Anytime I see "stout" combined with "bourbon barrel", I kind of lose my mind. So yes, last Sunday, I had several of those.

And then Blondie and I wandered up to 9th Ave to do something we've been talking about for years. We bought a new bed. When we lived in TX, we had a ginormous house filled with stuff we didn't need. And I had a bit of a hoarder mentality. Since leaving TX, we've lived in considerably smaller and smaller places (see the 500 sq ft shoebox we live in now) and have had to let go of more and more things. And I realized that I kind of like it. I like not being tied to things so much. I'd rather have my memories, my husband, my cat and a life that I truly like. I had pushed back on buying a new bed because we already had one, but Blondie finally talked me around. We downsized from a king to a queen - giving us a TON more room in our bedroom, and we forked over the cash for a tempur-pedic mattress. We also ditched our headboard and footboard. I've slept like the dead since the thing got delivered (Tuesday). I don't feel Blondie toss and turn (he's a restless sleeper) and I feel like I'm making up on the massive sleep debt I constantly live under from my sleep issues. It's been awesome.

The week was good - fast again - but good. I kept it very low key this week as I've wanted to live in the bed since we got it delivered. Work again was a "blink and it's over" type scenario. And I got some really good news this week - a few weeks after I started at my new company, I had done technical support for a sales call (when they shipped me out to the NJ/PA border). The SVP that I had gone with stopped by my desk on Thursday to tell me that the place we had done the sales call for wanted to buy - they had called earlier that week and were ready to start negotiations. The SVP told me that a lot of it was because of my help - it really wasn't, but I thought it was really cool that the SVP took time out of his day to come over and thank me.

Friday we pushed a release out - and the day was spent dealing with that. One of our 3rd party tools that we need to deploy code had crapped out earlier in the week and they promised it was fixed, but it wasn't. So all day I sat at desks other than my own, working on manual steps to get things pushed out. I literally think I was physically at my desk for about 12 minutes on Friday.

I met Blondie on Friday night at our local bar for dinner and some drinks; we caught up with one of our friends and played some music on the jukebox. It was a nice low-key night. We came home afterwards and popped Anchorman in "Scotch, scotch, scotch, down my throat!" Yesterday we hit the gym, and then went grocery shopping. Afterwards, we headed out and got little tacos for lunch and just enjoyed wandering through our neighborhood. We put in Skyfall last night (Daniel Craig, squee!) and then fell asleep watching Scott Pilgrim (in our fabulous new bed). And today has been a trip to the gym. I'm going to go get a bright red pedicure, and then we're heading back to Pony Bar for lunch.

This week my plans include meeting up with an old coworker from the SF office for dinner on Wednesday. And that's it. "Lame. Everything's lame".

Workouts!
Monday: Insanity Cardio Recovery
Tuesday: 8 miles on bike in ?? (can't remember) - 2 mins level 7; 2 mins level 12; 5 min cooldown
Wednesday: 2.5 miles in 31:47; 5 min cooldown; weights
Thursday: 30 Day Shred - Level 1
Friday: 2.5 miles run in 31:22; 5 min cooldown
Saturday: 10 miles on bike in 41:30 ish - 2 mins level 7; 4 mins level 12; 5 min cooldown; weights
Sunday: 2.5 miles run in 30:28; 5 min cooldown; abs

--K

The Stinkiest Pillow In The World

I just sat here and watched the cat curl up in Blondie's armpit, with his head laying smashed against the armpit. The same armpit that just went with Blondie and ran over 4 miles. And is still laying here in a ball of sweaty messiness. I'm gagging a little.

So the weeks are flying by right now. It's amazing how fast things are going. I went into work on Monday and things were a mess. One of the pieces we pushed out Friday night broke one of our environments, so all day Monday was spent helping debug, and getting users back up and running. I swear to you, I looked down on Monday at my laptop and the time said "5:23 pm" and I said "oh shit!" My boss asked what was wrong, and I couldn't even answer him - I just couldn't believe I had been at work for 8+ hours already. I kept thinking "no way in hell is that clock right". But it was.

Tuesday I walked across the island after work and met my BFF from my old job for drinks and dinner. We spent about 3 hours just getting caught up, and chugging down scotch. He filled me in on the old office gossip, I filled him in on my new job. It was really nice getting to see him again, and we agreed we need to meet up a lot more often. After dinner, we walked 2 miles back to my side of the island so he could catch his bus home, and I could walk off dinner.

Wednesday my friend from work invited me to lunch - making it the first time I've gone with someone from the office for lunch (other than my boss). I got super excited because this is the woman I wanted to make my friend from the moment I met her. We had a blast, stayed out for about an hour. And I felt super ready to go back to the office afterwards.

On Thursday, I went with my friend again for lunch but this time around 3 pm. I know I say this every week, and I sound like a broken record, but with this job, the days go so freaking fast I don't know what to do. I literally looked down and it was 3 pm, and my friend was there telling me she hadn't gotten lunch yet so we took off again. Thursday after lunch was pretty funny - I was working with a team to get a fix deployed, and they pinged me on IM and asked me to come to their side of the office. As I was walking over there, I realized they had some music cranked. As I rounded the corner, all of them turned in unison and did a line from the song to me, and I about peed my pants laughing. I have no idea how they timed that. It was priceless.

Thursday night, 3 of my office friends and I headed to dinner on the east side of the island. We went for yakitori and beer, and had a blast. I really did make friends fast at my new job, and I LOVE it. Dinner went so fast, just a lot of laughter. And afterwards I walked back across the island home. The weather has been super nice so walking is making me happy right now.

Friday I got done with work at 5 pm, which kicked assed. I was home by 5:30 and just crashed out. We made a big dinner on Friday night and then I went to bed early. Just tired from the week. Saturday I went to the gym early and then we went grocery shopping, and I literally did nothing the rest of the day (I get really cold when I do hard cardio, so Saturday afternoon was spent trying to warm back up - it's weird). And today we've been to the gym, and are planning to hit Pony Bar for some lunch goodness in a few hours.

What I'm looking forward to this week: 75 degrees on Tuesday, and I've been put in charge of a massive project at work - I'm excited to jump in and get cracking on it.

Workouts:
Monday: 30 mins on bike - 2 mins level 7, 2 mins level 12; 5 min cooldown
Tuesday: 28 mins on Precor - 4 mins level 6, 4 mins level 11; 5 min cooldown; weights
Wednesday: rest day
Thursday: 3.1 mile run in 36:22; 5 min cooldown; weights
Friday: tried to do hill intervals - got 1 in and died; so walked the rest - 30 mins on treadmill, 2 min walk 4.1 mph, 2 min run 5.3 mph on 3% grade hill; 26 mins at 4.1 mph - 2 mins at 3-6% grade hill, 2 mins flat; 5 min cooldown; weights
Saturday: 46 mins on treadmill - 30 mins total of 2 min 4.1 mph walk on 0% grade, 2 min 5.3-5.5 run on 3% grade; 16 mins of 2 min 4.1 mph walk on 0% grade, 2 min 6.2-6.3 run on 0% grade; 5 min cooldown; tons of weights; abs
Sunday: 10 mins on treadmill - 4 mins 4.1 mph walk, 6 mins of 5.0-5.5 mph run; 28 mins on precor - 4 mins level 6, 4 mins level 11; 5 min cooldown; abs; stretching

--K