Ty-ing one on

Yesterday, per my request to "get me drugs!" Nick got me Tylenol Cold Severe Congestion Daytime and Nighttime. I am usually one to suffer through a cold, headache, flu, etc without taking over-the-counter drugs. I'm not against this type of medicine, it's just that I try and take it only when I really feel I need it. Well, with the marathon three weeks away, I'm not taking any chances and took 2 doses of Daytime and 1 dose of Nighttime yesterday. I woke up feeling a lot better, but am still going to take the medicine for the next day or 2 considering I still have symptoms. I feel a little "floaty" sitting at my desk, but I'll just chalk that up to a pleasant side effect of the drugs.
I did bring my stuff to go to the gym tonight- I figure 30 minutes on the bike isn't that taxing and it would be good to sweat out the toxins.

Frog in my Throat

Friday night I did a hill workout at the gym and made sure I had a really good stretch before Saturday's long run. We didn't end up watching "Death at a Funeral" that night, because by the time we ate dinner it was close to 9 and I didn't think I'd make it through the entire movie. Saturday we had sunny weather for the long run, but it was pretty cold- about 30 degrees. Normally there are 75-100 people that show up for the group runs, but yesterday there were only about 25. We had an option of a 12, 14.5 or 16 mile loop yesterday, and I ultimately decided on the 14.5, and I'm glad I did! I think my legs were still fatigued from last Saturday's 21 mile run, and they felt like they were 100 lbs each by the end of the run. The good news is that I didn't have any muscle tightness, and I finished in 2 hours and 25 minutes.
Last night I started to get a sore throat and wasn't able to sleep much last night, because it was keeping me up. Today I haven't even left the house, and have drank about 100 bottles of Poland Spring and eaten about 3 bowls of ice cubes. My throat still doesn't feel that great, but hopefully things will be better tomorrow.

Balls & Curves

Last night I met some co-workers after work to come up with a name for our Junior Achievement Bowling Team. We threw a couple of names around and eventually settled on: Britney Spares & the Federlanes. Pretty good, right? My original suggestion, Bowl Movement, was a little too lowbrow, but pretty funny, IMHO. After a drink I left to go meet Nick at Ian and Staci's house for Ian's 32nd birthday get-together, but I randomly ran into 2 of my summer kickball teammates and joined them for a quick beer. By the time I made to Ian and Staci's I was off to a good start. Anyway, Staci made a delicious Angel food cake, and I went 3/4 in my bracket games last night, so overall it was a good night. Tonight I'm hitting the gym for a hill workout, and then Nick and I will make dinner and watch our first Netflix dvd: Death at a Funeral.
Tomorrow is a FitCorp run- I believe it's 16 miles, but I'll have to check the schedule. I'm hoping it's warm enough to wear my new Race Ready shorts, but it doesn't look like it's going to break 40 degrees tomorrow... Have a good weekend!

I'm No. 1... er, I mean, I'm No. 24,833!

I received my bib pickup card in the mail yesterday and my number is 24,833. There are 2 waves on marathon day. The first wave (bib numbers 1-13,999) start at 10 AM and include those who had qualifying times for the marathon. The rest of us weekend warriors are in Wave 2, which starts at 10:30. The Wave 1 bibs are red and the Wave 2 bibs are blue, which is good because it will match the blue Nike swoosh on my sneakers.

Lots to Discuss

Ok, I have a lot of catching up to do... First and foremost, a big thank you to Wayne & Sandie and Brad & Jenny for their generous donations! Wayne couldn't make it to the fundraiser because he was getting a haircut, which is a wicked lame excuse but he came through in the end with a nice donation, so I'll forgive him. Brad & Jenny attended the fundraiser, and managed to rope up some friends to come as well, so I am posting their picture in honor of their commitment to Got 2 Trot.

Don't ask Brad how he earned those beads...

On Saturday I woke up at 5:30 and dragged myself to Fit Corp for 6:45, so I could take a bus down to Framingham, MA with our running group for the big 21 mile run. We had 5 school buses full of runners (or crazy people, depending on how you look at it) and were dropped off at the Harley Davidson on Rt 135. From here it was a straight shoot down Rt. 135 through Framingham, Natick, Wellsley, & Newton. Once we reached the Woodlawn T stop, we took a right on Comm Ave and it was another 10 miles or so to go from there. The weather was really perfect- about 45 degrees and sunny. The first 10 miles through the towns went by really quickly, especially since I was unfamiliar with the route and got to enjoy the scenery. The only part of Natick I had previously seen was the area where the malls are, and it's not a pretty sight. The town center is really cute though, and it's nice to see there's more to the town than huge shopping malls and angry drivers stuck in traffic. I was feeling pretty good until about mile 18 when my calves started to get really tight. I made sure to stop and stretch them out a lot, and was able to finish without being in a lot of pain. Water stops, stretching and 1 bathroom break at a Dunkin Donuts across from BC included, I finished in 3 hours 25 minutes. After the run, Nick and I headed down to CT for our friend Bryan's 30th birthday party, which was a lot of fun. That night we stayed at my parents' house and had an excellent Easter dinner. Nick had an early morning meeting the next day in Stamford, so he took the car down there Sunday night, while my brother and I took a Greyhound back to Boston.

As you can see, he was excellent company

Yesterday I took it easy with a 30 minute bike ride at the gym to get my legs loosened up and had a long stretch at the end. I have been using the foam rollers to help massage my leg muscles, and enjoy them so much that I bought one at City Sports last night. I never buy gym equipment, but the foam roller has really proven to be effective. After I got home and Nick came back from his run, we went to Anna's Taqueria, which is a little slice of heaven on earth. Tonight's workout will be on the lighter side again, although I'm not sure what I'll do at the gym.

So good, so good!

Manny's double in the 10th gave the Sox the lead and ultimately the win in the exciting opener!

Fundraiser Recap

Thank you so much to everyone who came to Thursday's fundraiser at McFadden's! Not to sound corny, but it was heartwarming to see so many people come out to support my fundraising efforts for Mass Eye and Ear. I hope everyone had a great time! The event raised $430.60 for Team Eye and Ear, bringing the grand total up to $3,660.60! Thank you again to everyone who came and drank for the cause!

Unfortunately I forgot my camera, but I did manage to take a picture of my mom and aunt who deserve their own special thank-you for driving up from Connecticut to collect the donations as people arrived.

Thanks Mom & Aunt Kim!

$3,000 and still going strong!

Just a quick donation update: Many thanks to Greg & Laurence! Their donations put the total raised to over $3,000! The new goal is $4000 and I'm feeling confident that Mass Eye and Ear will get at least that much.

Don't forget the fundraiser is tonight at McFadden's starting at 6:00 in the back room on the first floor. I hope to see you there!

March Madness!

I used to take the opening-round Friday off from work to watch 12 hours of basketball, but fortunately this year it falls on Good Friday and it's a holiday. In a perfect world, UConn would win; however, based on their inconsistent performance this year, I have them losing to Drake in the 2nd round. I went out on a limb with Baylor and had them winning the first 2 games and then falling to WVU in the 16's. (Which means that I have the Dukies losing to West Virginia in the 2nd round, which again, hopefully is the case.) My final four picks are: UNC, Georgetown, Memphis and UCLA, with UNC beating Memphis in the Finals. When John Calipari was at UMass, UConn and UMass were definitely rivals and there were a lot of hypothetical conversations as to whether or not Ray Allen was a better player than Marcus Camby. The 2 teams never played though, and by the time the "Battle for the Border" game came around, both men had left their schools for the NBA and it wasn't as interesting... Now that Calipari's had continued success at Memphis, I have a soft spot for him as he played a small role in creating excitement during the Allen years at UConn- if it was only to drum up competitive spirit. I'd like to see him win; however, I think UNC will win in the end. Who knows though? I'd love to see a couple of Bracket Busters this year!

Team Eye and Ear

The Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary has posted Team Eye & Ear's bios on their web site! It's interesting to read everyone's story and motivation for running the marathon.
Read about our awesome team members here: http://www.meei.harvard.edu/what/marathon.php

Team Eye & Ear 2008- What a good-looking bunch!

Sugarloaf Weekend

Like I mentioned in my last post, skiing was a lot of fun this weekend. On Thursday night we didn't end up getting to Sugarloaf until about 2 am. I rode up with Brad and Jenny, since Nick wasn't supposed to fly in from Zurich until Friday evening. Nick ended up flying home early and was able to drive up in time to join us for skiing on Friday, so that was a nice surprise! Friday night we went to dinner at the Rack (which is thankfully unaffiliated with the former Boston establishment) and decided to call it an evening after dinner.

Surprisingly Jenny & Brad decided not to take advantage of the $3 PBR in a can at the Rack

On Saturday we had another great day of skiing, and a near death experience! Well, not really, but I was in a crash for the first time in my 20 years of skiing experience. I was coming down a trail and stopped where the rest of my group was waiting for me. There were a bunch of other people there too, as it's not uncommon for skiers to congregate at the top of a new trail before going down. Anyway, as I was coming into my "hockey stop" a snowboarder was passing through on a side trail. The "rules" of skiing are that the traffic above you has the right of way and it's up to those coming across the trails to yield to the skiers coming down the trails. Well, a snowboarder wasn't paying any attention to the traffic above him, and just as I came into my stop, he collided snowboard first into my skis at a pretty fast pace. The impact released my boots from my bindings (which was a blessing) and I flew into the air and landed face first on his stomach (he was already laying on the ground after the collision.) The crowd watching us was silent and when I realized I was OK it was kind of funny to look up and see about 10-15 shocked faces staring at us. Nick said, "Are you OK, hon?!" and the guy who plowed me over said, "Yeah, I'm fine." (haha) Nick said, "I'm not talking to you!" to which an older dude who was watching also added, "Yeah, he's not f-ing talking to you!" It's nice to know that my husband and a random elderly guy had my back. I'm so lucky that I wasn't injured- especially since the marathon is so close! I decided that after this weekend I think the ski season is over until Marathon Monday. I just don't want to take any more chances...

Saturday night we went to dinner at Gepetto's, which is right in the base lodge area and then we headed to the Widowmaker Lounge to see 80's cover band, Fast Times, which was totally rad.

Sunday's skiing and ride home was topped off with a dinner at Kowloon, which was unsurprisingly packed. If you live in the Boston area, I recommend eating here just for the ambiance- and the fact you can order flaming appetizers.

No meal is complete at Kowloon without mai-tai's

Today & tomorrow are rest days!

phoning it in

Greetings from somewhere on the Maine Tpk. Well, we had 3 incredibly full days of skiing at Sugarloaf. The conditions were pretty good, and I'd say 95% of the trails are open. We skiied about 7 hours each day, which is a lot of skiing. I am taking the next 2 days as rest days since I have the big 21 mile run on Saturday and I want to give my legs and knees sufficient rest. I think we may cap off the trip with dinner at Kowloon on Route 1. The biggest Chinese restaurant I have ever been to.

Can't Believe She Got the Golden Ticket...

First of all, I'd like to thank Seth and Jen for their generous donations!

Since I'm leaving tonight for a long weekend (skiing at Sugarloaf), I got up early this morning and ran 3 miles at 7.0 mph at the gym. Hopefully I'll be able to get 3 days of skiing in this time and won't be thwarted by high winds and closed lifts.

I can't believe David Hernandez got the boot on "Idol" last night. Kristy Lee Cook must have a team of people voting for her non-stop, kind of like how Veruca Salt had those workers opening Wonka Bars for her. Thank god for DVR- I was able to fast-forward through her bastardized version of "8 Days a Week" last night.

UConn is down by 10 with 16 left in the 2nd half.... Hopefully I didn't move Jim Calhoun in vain.

Playing Catch Up

I don't mean to be rude...

First I'd like to thank the Cianciulli family for their generous donation! I've decided to raise my goal from $3,000 to $4,000 since my total is already $2,670! Please remember that the fundraiser is next Thursday, March 21 at McFadden's from 6-10 pm. You can purchase tickets at the bar- I hope to see you there!
Well, the past 2 days (Monday & Tuesday) I haven't made it to the gym... I have had things to do after work that I've been putting off, but that's no excuse for not going in the morning. Tonight after work I'm getting a haircut and then heading to the gym!

Anyway, last night I officially became a member of the 21st century and downloaded songs from iTunes. I wanted to make a CD for when we go skiing this weekend (to avoid being subjected to any more Coldplay,) and most of the songs I wanted weren't available on the ghetto site that I sometimes use- although songs are only about 10 cents, there's not a lot of selection for anything recorded prior to 1985 or so. I was able to get all my songs and my David Bowie and George Harrison fix- not to mention Eric Carmen!

When I sat down to watch American Idol later last night, I was so happy to see it was a Beatles theme. Chikezie tore it up with "She's a Woman." He's really growing on me. I also really enjoyed Carly Smithson's "Come Together." "We Can Work it Out" and "In My Life" are 2 of my favorite Beatles' songs; however, those performances last night were pretty bad. Not as bad as Kristy Lee Cook's country version of "8 Days a Week." Simon put it best when he said she sounded like "Dolly Parton on helium."

"I'm not superstitious, just a little stitious."

After UConn's hideous loss to Providence last Thursday, and with the tourneys coming up, I decided to take preventative measure and move my Jim Calhoun bobble head from his usual place on my office shelf to a more prominent position next to my computer. Well, UConn won last night by 45... Jim will stay here until further notice.

Jim caught in a rare moment where he's smiling

Try it, you'll like it

Every time I go to Shaw's I see this sign. It really gets me because it's obviously such a blatant lie. Did you really try the avocados today? I've never even seen this guy working there. Also, the guy was clearly embarrassed to admit the fact that each day he samples the produce because he left off off his signature. I was going to get a photo of the sign with the smiling deli manager reassuring us that we'll love his meat, but that would have been tough to explain to the woman behind the counter.

I'll run in the rain till I'm breathless; When I'm breathless I'll run till I drop, hey*

So this morning I was able to do a FitCorp run finally! Skiing and vacation have kept me away from the weekend group runs for 3 weeks, and while I had a great time doing those things, I feel like I'm back on track after this morning's 18 mile run. Fortunately the rain held off for the first 5 miles or so, and right about when we got to the Res at BC, it started to rain. That's where the temperature always drops too. The rain continued pretty steadily until we got back to the Comm Ave side of BC (vs. the Beacon St side which begins the Newton portion of the run.) I felt really good running for the most part, and I wonder if it's because I took 3 packets of GU. My book recommends taking some every 5 miles, but this was the first time I followed that advice. Today I had 3 very good flavors (Triberry, Strawberry Banana and Chocolate Mint), which makes me think that overall GU isn't so bad, isn't just the Orange flavor that's terrible. I highly recommend Chocolate Mint- it tastes like a melted Peppermint Patty. Anyway, I unfortunately don't have an exact time because I forgot my watch this morning, but based on when I got back to the gym, I was a little under 3 hours. I had some rice and noodles for lunch, watched 2 episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm on demand and now I'm ready to take a nap. Tomorrow is a rest day!
* Led Zepplin, "Fool in the Rain"

Fon "don't mind if I" due

So... Wednesday night I ran 3 miles at 7.0 mph on the treadmill. Last night the book offered me a rest day and I took advantage of it to spend some time with Nick before he jetted off again. This time to Zurich! I hope he brings me back a nice present! I wish he could take some fondue home with him... The Swiss really have the right idea. Take a bunch of cheese, melt it and gorge yourself by dipping bread and meat in it. There's not much not to like about fondue.
Let's talk about American Idol for a second. I agree that Luke had to go, but Danny?! The guy can sing. I think he's much better than Chikezie. Also, I was happy to see Kady Malloy get the boot, but I don't understand how Kristy Lee Cook is still there. Oh, the drama!
Tonight I did a hill workout and tomorrow I'm scheduled for another long run, but it's supposed to be pouring, so we'll see if we're still on.

Boo yah!

Since it was raining last night, I went to the gym instead of running outside with FitCorp for their hill training. My book had me down for a 30 minute jog, and I decided to turn that into a 30 minute hill workout. The gym was packed when I got there, but there was a lone empty treadmill right in front of a TV tuned to ESPN. I don't run with headphones, so I like to position myself in front of a TV that has something interesting on. Watching ESPN on mute is a lot more interesting than watching Jim Cramer run around like a jackass on mute. I couldn't believe my good luck last night, until I tried to program the treadmill and then potentially knew why it was vacant. Some of the buttons on the key pad didn't work... I was able to select "trail" for the workout scenario (which is a sloping hill), weight had me fine with 118, time- the "0" was broken, so I went with 31 minutes. Not a problem. Max speed- normally I do 7.0, but again, I went with 7.1. Max incline was a bit trickier because you can't select inclines that aren't divisible by 0.5. So, I either had to go with 2.5 or 3.5, since 3.0 wasn't happening. I went with the higher incline and it wasn't that bad really. With the trail setting, you get about a 7 minute stretch at a reduced speed running at a 3.5 incline. The broken keypad did me a favor in the long run because I got a better workout and I realized that I could be pushing myself more on the shorter hill runs.

Another Donation Today!

Another Donation Update

Thank you to my friend Tom for his generous donation! Here is a great photo of us that was taken about 2.5 years ago with some random lady and a mustache.

Mo Money No Problems

Donation update! A HUGE thank you to the Marziali family for their generous donation! Their donation brought the fundraising total to over $2,000!

So, like most blogs, I keep track of usage statistics and can follow who has visited my blog and how they arrived here. Sometimes users' Google searches lead them here and my Stat tracker lets me see their search strings. Some of my favorites are:

1. I'm sitting around, minding my biz
2. chafed underarm
3. why do sialors ear red caps?
4. chilean chicken sandwich

Last night I took advantage of my book's suggestion and took a rest day. Tonight if the weather holds, I'll do the outdoor hill training with FitCorp and if not, I'll hit the gym.

Less than month until Opening Day!!

Skiing Recap

Despite the weather, we had a great weekend. The snow started late Friday night and continued until Sunday morning, which resulted in about 16 inches of fresh powder! I am a New England skier through and through and love groomed packed powder. Fresh powder is difficult for me to ski in and I lose a lot of confidence as my skis sort of stop and go and get lost in the powder. So on Saturday while Nick was kicking butt and taking names in the fresh powder, I was like the Pokey Little Puppy. Unfortunately Saturday's storm produced some high winds, and while the snow yesterday was absolutely **perfect** 90% of the lifts were closed and we ended up getting a voucher for the day (again.) It seems like that's a theme at Sunday River this season! We drove to Portland, ME and had lunch at a cute brewery called Gritty McDuff's. I had the Original Pub Style ale and Nick had the Best Brown, both of which were excellent. For lunch I had the mushroom bomb, which is essentially a steak bomb without the meat. It was OK, but I realized that it was missing something... the meat. The sauteed mushrooms made the bread too soggy. We also stopped at the Kittery, ME outlets and found some good deals at J. Crew. On Friday I ran 7 miles at 7 mph to continue my stamina phase training. Yesterday was a rest day and according to my book, today is one too. I brought my stuff to go for a run though, so maybe I'll do some cross-training.

Also, I spotted this vanity plate at a gas station near Poland, ME and thought it was too funny not to share with you. I can't think of a caption to do this photo justice, so I'll take reader suggestions.

Lunch Time!

Lunch break in North Peak lodge at Sunday River.