Monday...

We had a great long weekend. Thursday it was very rainy and windy here in NYC, so the 5-mile run (to raise money for a local high school track team) was cancelled. Well, actually, I don't know if it was cancelled. I do know that we (me and my friends Mike & Lauren) decided not to brave the elements. Derek and I met up with Mike & Lauren for our "traditional" dinner at ESPN Zone.....no cooking, no cleaning, good dessert, and funny, despite how "untraditional" it is. We had a great time. We then all caught the worst movie ever - Tenacious D (with Jack Black). The funniest part of the movie event - Derek's "awe" at how nice the Time Square movie theatre was and how much it had changed since the days when he was a teenager. "Oh, wow, they have an escalator. And a pay phone" For some reason (being overfed), Lauren and I thought this was the funniest statement ever and couldn't stop laughing for a while. One might have even thought we were laughing at the movie, but they would have been wrong. I just finished reading "What Is The What" - by Dave Eggers about the refugees ("the Lost Boys") from Sudan. It reminded me of how one of the Lost Boys said he felt the first time he went to a more industrialized city and how some felt upon their arrival to the U.S.

On Friday, Derek and I went shopping for one specific item - running shoes for me. I had been wearing mine for way too long, and he was quite tired of me complaining about my achey shins and calves. I went to the Nike store knowing that I wear Nike for my narrow feet, and knowing they'd have the most selection for me. We promised ourselves patience wtih the crowd. This didn't prove to be a problem since I was the only one actually trying on shoes - and everyone else was just blind purchasing. After trying on 9 pairs, I found my match. As soon as I slipped them on - ahh, heaven. Cushioning and support once again!

To honor my new purchase, I agreed to run a 15k with Lauren on Sunday. She is training for an ironman triathlon, and is a great marathoner runner. So for her, this would be a fast training race. For me, this would be about 1.5 more miles than I have run anytime recently. If you exclude two 7.5 mile runs that I did in the past couple months, this is about 3-4 miles more than I have done since college. I am the queen of short-er, intense runs and track workouts instead of "long" runs that are so in vogue:) Anyway, so I agreed to this 9.3 mile (15k). It turned out to be an awesome, beautiful day outside, and Mike joined us since I was doing it, too. The course was pretty, but not fun. 2 out of every 3 miles was uphill, and there was a mix of gradual hills and steep hills and it was pretty much ... painful. Luckily, Lauren agreed so that helped my ego. I felt accomplished when it was done and felt like I had a pass to be as totally lazy as possible the remainder of the afternoon. Which I was. Derek cooked a delicious dinner for us....we looked at pictures of children in need of homes in Colorado (my sister sent me a link, and each story pulled us in, and we were on the verge of adopting 3 kids ranging in age from 6 to 14) and we watched Home Makeover (about a large Tongan family with 8 kids who live in Utah, which seemed to verify for us that we needed to start adopting and/or having kids so that we, too, could have a family with 8 kids).

We don't have much planned now until December 16th....We are having a few of our closest friends over for a small holiday party that night. We are trying to start a new tradition since we have to change our annual Super Bowl party (I will typically be at the Super Bowl now, and not able to host....Although this sounds great, our Super Bowl party has always been one of my favorite things so I am slightly sad over the change...).