me lucky charms

Well with another race on the horizon and of course having to partake in a pre-race ritual or 2…kinda gave me an idea for a fun post.  Everyone has their “lucky charms” for race day.  What are some of mine?

Yankee shoe charm:

I bought the Yankee charm, in addition to another (which stays on my regular trainers)  at the More/Fitness Half-Marathon expo from these peeps.  The Yankee charm goes on my racers for luck.  Specifically, on the right foot, as I had the ITB injury on my right leg, so I figure that leg can use a little more magic.

Watermelon candy-pink manicure:

So I like to get my nails done before races.  My color of choice used to be OPI’s Lincoln Park After Dark, a la Kara Goucher in NYCM 2008 (not quite black nails, but close enough) but I sort of tired of it this year.  So starting with the Mini 10K, I made my color of choice Watermelon by Essie-as it went with the pink accents in my green Adioses, and still looks good with the newer neon pink pair.  And there is something a little more upbeat about this color.  But as everyone knows, “when I do up my nails in watermelon candy color…you know I mean business! :)”

Music!
Though I leave the iPod behind on big race days, I do like to have some songs to listen to beforehand to get myself pumped up to race.  The songs pretty much vary by year.  (e.g., 2008’s songs were “Pocketful of Sunshine” by Natasha Bedingfield and “Viva la Vida” by Coldplay, 2009’s song was “I Gotta Feeling” by Black Eyed Peas.)  Here are some current favorites:

“Give Me Everything”-Pitbull ft. Ne-Yo, Afrojack, Nayer.  Come on, this *was* like the summertime anthem of 2011.  And hey when you race, don’t you wanna give it everything?

“Club Can’t Handle Me”-Flo Rida/David Guetta.  Because the race course can’t even handle me right now 😛

“Walking on Sunshine”-Katrina & the Waves.  An oldie but goodie, I dare you to not want to run fast after listening to this song.

Blue Moon:

Seriously.  Yes I’ve had at least one the night before my last few races…not sure if that helps or not but hey doesn’t hurt to have an excuse to indulge in a cold one, right?  (not sure I’m gonna get to tomorrow but don’t fear, i’m getting it in tonite.)

White Chocolate Wonderful peanut butter:

By Peanut Butter and Co.  Goes on my pre-race bagel before the big races.  Yes, I even pack it to bring with me when traveling to races 🙂

Starbucks Coffee:

A Pike Place Roast with a shot of vanilla syrup.  Kinda randomly stumbled upon this combo before the 2007 San Francisco Half, now this is a favorite “go-to” when traveling for races.

I’m sure there is more, but that’s what come to me off the top of my head.  So those are my lucky charms/lucky pre-race rituals-what’s yours?

And good luck to all racing this weekend!  Catch you on the flip side-hopefully with some good news to tell!

the momentum shifts?

So I’m sure the lack of posting this week signaled that it was a very hectic week in Flygirl-land.  Well on the work side, definitely was…had at least one meeting, if not more than one, seemingly every day this week.  (oh, and the same person who endorsed weekend work here also wondered if someone who had taken a sick day was gonna still call in for a scheduled meeting.  what you see is my eyes rolling.)

Of course, this meant I was one tired chick this week, and it showed in my workouts…Tuesday I just did some easy miles before meeting the Flyers at a bar on the UES after their speed workout.  Thursday I put on the DS-Trainers, hoping to inject some speedy pickups into my run, but the legs were not having it…everything just felt tired.  Thankfully I ran into Flyer PD near 102nd and he kept me company and we chatted for about a mile or so.  Always nice to have unexpected company 🙂  And Wednesday I had planned to hit up a yoga class after work, but was absolutely beat and decided to just call it a night.

Needless to say, the batteries needed recharging this weekend.  Which started Friday nite at Tortilla Flats with some margaritas and girl talk 😉  Not to mention a, uh, amusing soundtrack of sorts in the background courtesy of the restaurant.  By the end of the night, I was inspired to dig up some of my old MTV Party To Go mix CDs and had memories brought back of of a certain someone in college who would blast “I Wish” by Skee-Lo constantly (and annoy the hell outta his suitemates.  I just found the whole thing amusing. 🙂 )

And even though I didn’t feel the drinks were that strong, I guess they did a little bit of a number on me, cuz I crashed not too long after I got home.  And I definitely needed a day to actually sleep in and not set the alarm…as my quickie on Saturday felt better than most of my others this week.  Quickie run…what were you thinking? 😉  3 miles and change on the bridle path, and I’m glad I never put the tights away because I needed them for this run!  (When did winter decide to come back?)  Topped that off with a yoga class to stretch everything out and prep for a long one…

So today, EG had arranged a long run with both 20 and 10-mile options down the west side to Brooklyn…the 10-mile option was perfect for me!!  Now of course the wild card, will the (sh)IT Band hold up?  Well as it turned out, it did. 

Was a nice crew running…some peeps I already knew in real life, others that I knew in the virtual running world and finally put a name to a face, and others that were brand new to me.  The weather was kinda crappy…capris and long sleeves were the order of the day as opposed to the shorts and tank tops of the previous weekend.  Oh and the weather people LIED!!  As it was rainy and windy during our run and didn’t wait for the evening.  Guess I should have wore the hat instead of the sunglasses?  Kept a nice relaxed pace of around 9:00, give or take a few seconds, and every few miles someone would ask if my knee was holding up ok-which I thought was nice.  And before I knew it, we were crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, running along the promenade, and down a steep hill to our final destination.  Nice run, and look forward to many more in the future…

So…close to 11 miles done.  And the (sh)IT Band seemed to hold up…legs did feel tired in the last few miles, but more endurance tired than hurting tired.  But just in case, the (sh)IT Band was still gonna have a date with some ice and the Quadballer later.  (Well after my hot shower…best hot shower ever.  Well, since this run.)

So maybe the momentum has shifted?  I can only hope it stays in this direction…gonna keep moving but still with a little caution.  This week looks like a little bit of a cutback…partially because of celebrating passover the next 2 nights with la familia, makes it a little tough to get workouts in unless I wake up early (doubtful!)  Plus the next 2 days look to be washouts anyway.  But on the other hand, may be a good thing to let the legs rest a little before Saturday’s 10K. (Though I never seem to run well on that course-rested or not!)

And on another topic-who would have thought that my bracket would still be in the running (ha ha) to finish in the money after Kansas was knocked out of it (and screwed up 90% of this country’s brackets, I’m sure.)  It sure has been the Tournament of Upsets…Saturday’s games are gonna be interesting!! 🙂

there will be days like this…

well…I guess the feeling of being fired up was short-lived? 🙂

ever have one of those days…weeks…where you feel like you can’t do anything right? yeah. thats my life this week. sort of. (not going into detail, but i’m sure you can guess. not boy-related for a change though. whew! 🙂 ) and i guess the attitude followed me to last night’s speed workout.

guess last week left me with a little too high of an expectation…while i was able to sub-7 the shorter intervals, i didn’t feel like i could keep up the momentum for the 1K intervals, and had to run those at my actual 5k pace (as opposed to fake 5k pace 😛 ) which, in itself was a great effort, but I still kept thinking “how the hell did I run a 4:13 1K last week?” don’t get me wrong, I thought it was a good workout, but I didn’t have the “I rocked it” feeling I had last week. But after reflection, thinking, and words of wisdom from others, I felt better about it…all surfaces are not created equal (this week’s workout was on a slower surface), it’s still early in ‘thon training, I am still ahead of where I was this time last year, or even this time last month! Guess it’s possibly the attitude from the other stuff going on that was bringing me down, perhaps…

the good thing is that getting in the mileage was been a breeze so far…like i’m actually ahead in my mileage for the week right now-very good sign. some random 5 and change in the park Tuesday nite…which apparently i couldn’t get through without being a troublemaker at least once 😉 after said run, I met up with the Flyers on the UES where they were having post-speedwork drinks…so I rehydrated with several Blue Moons and caught up with a few teammates that I hadn’t seen in awhile. And as for today…well I was debating whether to make tonight or tomorrow my rest day. But decided to run tonight, as I needed to shake off some of the stuff going on…which led to an easy 4 and change on the bridle path to recover from last night.

Lucky 13 on tap for my weekend long run…and jury is still out on which weekend day to do it on…hmmm maybe I’ll run opposite one of the races like I did last week…if I can wake up early enough 🙂

In non-running news…OMG, what a sad day for the entertainment industry. I remember back in…I think 1984? It was either my birthday or Hanukkah, and my present was a Sony Walkman with a tape of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”. And I remember everyone wanting a turn to listen to that tape…my dad, my brother, one of my friends…over and over again 🙂 Was just the “in-demand” thing, I guess. Just so unreal hearing about the events of today…

46 miles lie between…

…me and taper time!! Don’t get me wrong, the work won’t be completely done, but at least it can ease up a little bit…

today was a recovery 4.8 miles on the bridle path…or that was what was planned, as I averaged closer to 9-minute pace than 9:30s. Yeah, don’t understand it either, I thought my legs would have been dead after yesterday. And especially after the fact that in the 7-day period betwen last Sunday and yesterday, I ran 58 miles. How the heck did that happen? Or actually…when did that happen? (Guess I need to thank the wonders of scheduling that made last week’s long run on Sunday and this week’s on Saturday.) So yeah, gotta be super-careful this week, want to make it through this heaviest mileage week, including my last 20-miler, unscathed…

Decided to play around with a new playlist website…below is the playlist that I listened to during the half-marathon yesterday. All the songs may not be your type but hey, they worked for me 🙂

i blame my co-worker for this one

yeah, this one has been on repeated play today. between said co-worker using it as part of his presentation to the company the other day about the financial update, and him emailing me the file of said song was just catnip for me because, well, the kind of week i’ve been having…

Where is the moment when needed the most
You kick up the leaves and the magic is lost
They tell me your blue sky’s faded to grey
They tell me your passion’s gone away
And I don’t need no carrying on

You stand in the line just to hit a new low
You’re faking a smile with the coffee to go
You tell me your life’s been way off line
You’re falling to pieces everytime
And I don’t need no carrying on

Cause you had a bad day
You’re taking one down
You sing a sad song just to turn it around
You say you don’t know
You tell me don’t lie
You work at a smile and you go for a ride
You had a bad day
The camera don’t lie
You’re coming back down and you really don’t mind
You had a bad day
You had a bad day

Well you need a blue sky holiday
The point is they laugh at what you say
And I don’t need no carrying on

You had a bad day
You’re taking one down
You sing a sad song just to turn it around
You say you don’t know
You tell me don’t lie
You work at a smile and you go for a ride
You had a bad day
The camera don’t lie
You’re coming back down and you really don’t mind
You had a bad day

Sometimes the system goes on the blink
and the whole thing it turns out wrong
You might not make it back
and you know that you could be well oh that strong
And I’m not wrong

So where is the passion when you need it the most
Oh you and I
You kick up the leaves and the magic is lost

Cause you had a bad day
You’re taking one down
You sing a sad song just to turn it around
You say you don’t know
You tell me don’t lie
You work at a smile and you go for a ride
You had a bad day
You see what you like
And how does it feel one more time?
You had a bad day
You had a bad day
You had a bad day
You had a bad day
You had a bad day

now playing: “bad day” ~ daniel powter

and so it begins

Well today marked the official kickoff of training for the NYC Marathon. 1 day down, 124 days to go!!

Unlike last year, where I used the Basic Marathoner schedule from the NYC Marathon website and got burned out (in addition to the injury) following it, I took one of our assistant coaches up on his offer to help me with mapping out a game plan-which would take a lot of variables into consideration (e.g., current mileage, injury history, running history, goals.) We came up with a schedule which has me starting at a 28 mpw base and building up to 40 mpw. And unlike last year, where I think I felt a little overwhelmed by looking at the schedule (even though I already had the 25 mpw base going in)…this time I looked at it and said “I can definitely do this.”

But I do have to allow some flexibility in there…as I am already messing with the week 1 schedule 🙂 (sometimes life gets in the way…) This is what was planned:

M-optional XT (most likely a spinning class)
T-speedwork (approx. 4 miles)
W-3 miles
Th-6 miles
F-off
Sat-5 miles
Sun-10 miles

Well I anticipated that a run on Wednesday most likely won’t be happening…as it’s the first day back at work after a long weekend, I anticipate another night at the office til 8pm. So I decided I will make Wednesday an off day, will probably cross-train on Friday before work, and today did 3.3 miles-2 loops of the 1.66 mile bridle path. Was hot as hell-mid 80s-but hasn’t felt as bad as it has before…maybe I actually am acclimating. Or maybe the shade on the bridle path helped 🙂 But man, oh man…can I tell you how good it feels to be going into this training with no foot pain?? I’m actually feeling very excited about this marathon training, unlike last year, where my heart was just not into it, between my foot injury and just plain burnout.

So, I was listening to this song during my run today…it’s the song that is played during the opening credits of The Devil Wears Prada (this song sadly does not make it onto the soundtrack though.) Great song, I found myself getting into the chorus lyrics…though the song isn’t exactly talking about a marathon runner…I felt the chorus of the song was kinda talking to me 🙂

Her face is a map of the world
Is a map of the world
You can see she’s a beautiful girl
She’s a beautiful girl
And everything around her is a silver pool of light
The people who surround her feel the benefit of it
It makes you calm
She holds you captivated in her palm

Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)
This is what I wanna be
Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)
Why the hell it means so much to me
Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)
This is what I wanna be
Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)
Why the hell it means so much to me

I feel like walking the world
Like walking the world
You can hear she’s a beautiful girl
She’s a beautiful girl
She fills up every corner like she’s born in black and white
Makes you feel warmer when you’re trying to remember
What you heard
She likes to leave you hanging on a wire

Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)
This is what I wanna be
Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)
Why the hell it means so much to me
Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)
This is what I wanna be
Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)
Why the hell it means so much to me

And she’s taller than most
And she’s looking at me
I can see her eyes looking from a page in a magazine
Oh she makes me feel like I could be a tower
A big strong tower
She got the power to be
The power to give
The power to see

Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)
This is what I wanna be
Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)
Why the hell it means so much to me
Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)
This is what I wanna be
Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)
Why the hell it means so much to me

now playing: “suddenly i see” ~ kt tunstall

the skirt is back

in celebration of today’s loverly spring weather, i took my New Balance running skirt pictured here out of winter hibernation for tonite’s group run. i think i had only worn it running once-as i had first gotten it just as i was sidelined, and then it got too cold to wear it. but it got good mileage when i was playing Flyer cheerleader 🙂 anyway, it’s just as fun to run in as it is to wear not running.

as a little gift to myself, i decided to get one of the SkirtSports skirts-since I didn’t have the luxury of trying them on, I decided to get one of each style-the GymGirl and the MarathonGirl-and just return the style I don’t like (I got the all-black one-figured that would coordinate best!) they’re due to ship Saturday, hopefully I will get next week (and of course will post a review)

today was a fun, easy 6 mile loop with the Flyers. then after the run, we ran into a bunch of other Flyers finishing doing speedwork, others finishing their own runs and chatted for a bit…that’s one great thing about the nicer temps, no rush to get inside!!

so, the weekend long run plan will be 13…since Saturday looks to be rainy, an idea I had was possibly to do a loop before the Scotland Run on Sunday and then bandit that…or run in the other direction to cheer the others on… But this is all providing I wake up in time, especially after having to lose an hour sleep due to “springing forward…” I also have the option of the afternoon since Sunday looks to have nice weather as well…decisions, decisions.

(btw-the song i’m currently listening to is awesome…i heard it in spin class the other day and had to download it…it’s definitely going on my mix for the queens half. 9 1/2 minutes, but worth it!)

now playing: “estoy aquí (extended club mix)” ~ shakira

a couple of top ten lists

first off-i just want to say my previous post about my 2005 running year in review…that one is only about actual running performance. i do know there were non-performance things that turned out well…but i’ll get to those later.

anyway, everyone has a top 10 list or two in some shape or form, so why not me too?

here’s one, which i won’t go into too much detail about…my top 10 songs of 2005:

10. “These Words” ~ Natasha Bedingfield
9. “Put Em High” ~ Stonebridge
8. “Rich Girl” ~ Gwen Stefani
7. “Pump It” ~ Black Eyed Peas
6. “Since U Been Gone” ~ Kelly Clarkson
5. “Love On My Mind” ~ Freemasons
4. “La Tortura” ~ Shakira
3. “Cool” ~ Gwen Stefani
2. “Gold Digger” ~ Kanye West
1. “Hung Up” ~ Madonna

this one I will make a little more detailed…my top 10 discoveries of 2005.

10. post-long run brunches-especially Arte Cafe-the home of the unlimited Bellinis. (in case anyone was wondering, my PR is 7 Bellinis, tied with one of my teammates.)
9. Hershey’s mint chocolate-so deliciously good yet so deliciously evil at the same time.
8. Madonna’s CD Confessions on a Dancefloor-first CD I have bought in a long time. worth every penny.
7. iTunes-i might have been a little slow to catch on to this one, but it’s great to sample a lot of songs, and even has a much better selection than i once thought (can find some extended dance remixes on there)
6. iPod nano-have only used mine for 5 days, but really enjoying it-kicks the crap out of my previous mp3 player!
5. Gawker-first saw it mentioned on blogs, and when i had to see a certain story involving one of my relatives…now is something i must read religiously, every day. too funny.
4. my camera phone-2 years ago i didn’t think i needed one, now i don’t know what i’d do without it.
3. Asics GT-2100s-everyone has a kind of running shoe that was “meant for them”-took lord knows how long (and a couple previous misdiagnonses) but found my perfect pair. (now only hoping that the upgrades will be just as good, once my 3 pairs of 2100s wear out…)

and the next 2 sorta tie for first…

1. Flyers’ social chair-got off to a very rocky start at first, and dealt with some committee changes, but the stronger team prevailed in the end…learned that man, I am a trooper and won’t quit. who knew? Got to meet a lot more Flyers this year at the events. Was very cool to see how successful an event I created-or helped to create-turned out. Even helped me with planning things outside of the Flyers!! now who’s gonna be insane enough to follow in my footsteps next year… 🙂
1. Blogs. need I say more? 🙂

and that’s the year in review, folks!

confessions on a dancefloor

i stand by what i said here-this CD is amazing. I was never really feeling the “American Life” or “Music” love, but this is definitely Madonna’s best CD since “Ray of Light.” And the continuous in-the-mix format…definitely a great touch.

yep, some of these tracks will definitely be going on my mp3 player…great running music 🙂

(yes, i already have favorite tracks…”hung up”, “get together”, “sorry”, “i love new york”, “let it will be” and “how high”…wow thats like half the cd)

now playing: cd-“confessions on a dancefloor” ~ madonna
current track: “get together”

you "get" me. you really "get" me.

Well to start off, thank you to everyone who either read or commented on a certain post where I completely poured my heart out. Obviously…this was stuff that had been weighing on my mind for a very long time. It’s tough to talk about this…especially with non-runners…and I know that yes, things could be a lot worse…I’m alive and healthy…I shouldn’t complain…but…

**************************
Rewind…5 years ago.

Me and one of my coworker friends (who I’ll call DK)…we’re having lunch or dinner or drinks or something. And some conversation about the crossroads that each of us were going through in our respective love lives. He was going through a messy divorce. I was really struggling with the idea of calling it quits with a long-term boyfriend…one that everyone loved and expected me to marry…though I didn’t. Anyway, both DK and I stood to lose quite a bit with our decisions…though me significantly less-so I felt bad complaining about it. But DK told me not to feel bad…and mentioned a line from “Ally McBeal” that sorta related to the situation at hand:

“Ally, what makes your problems so much bigger than everybody else’s?”
“They’re my problems.”
**************************

Therefore…getting back to the present…I knew if I couldn’t “talk” about it, I could write about it and this was obviously the perfect forum for it.
Ya know, I tried keeping a blog/journal last year…had a LiveJournal for a little over a month…but kept it pretty much private and lost the motivation to keep it up. So I decided to try again now…and took a big “leap of faith” in making this public and haven’t regretted it for a minute.

And to address a coupla other comments on that post…

jbl-actually, I was looking to run sub-1:45 in Queens next year…but I’m hearing rumors that once again, they are gonna ax the halfs. doh!

uptown girl-i agree with what you said about runners being down-to-earth. actually…a guy that i had a jdate with a coupla years back who was a runner said “runners are the nicest people you will meet.” though there wasnt a second date, he was right about that 🙂

Anyway…I’m looking for the workday to be over, there is a CD at either Virgin MegaStore or J&R Music World with my name on it 🙂

water, water everywhere…

…yet not a drop to drink.

Post NYC-marathon season in NYC means one thing is inevitable…the Central Park water fountains being shut off for the winter, one by one. (Actually a couple were shut off as early as last week, and I cursed that in the 70-degree temps.) So far the fountain by Engineer’s Gate and by the tennis courts on the west side are still working, but we’ll see for how long.

Anyway, a sluggish 5 miles this morning. Don’t know if it was the sudden dip in temperatures…or the fact that I will always be slower running in the early morning than after work, but I seemed to be missing the spring in my step that I thought I was getting back…

Well there is one good thing about this time of year, that I have learned to look forward to the last few years…the special holiday beverages at Starbucks in their cute red holiday-style cups. Gingerbread Lattes and Peppermint Mochas…yum!!

And one other thing I am looking forward to-Madonna’s new CD, Confessions on a Dancefloor, being released on Tuesday. WKTU previewed the entire CD last nite and it is killer. Can’t wait to snatch this one up. (Some may recognize the quote on the top of my blog from the first single from that album, “Hung Up.”)

Time goes by so slowly (x6)

Every little thing that you say or do
I’m hung up
I’m hung up on you
Waiting for your call
Baby night and day
I’m fed up
I’m tired of waiting on you

Time goes by so slowly for those who wait
No time to hesitate
Those who run seem to have all the fun
I’m caught up
I don’t know what to do

Time goes by so slowly
Time goes by so slowly
Time goes by so slowly
I don’t know what to do

Every little thing that you say or do
I’m hung up
I’m hung up on you
Waiting for your call
Baby night and day
I’m fed up
I’m tired of waiting on you

Every little thing that you say or do
I’m hung up
I’m hung up on you
Waiting for your call
Baby night and day
I’m fed up
I’m tired of waiting on you

Ring ring ring goes the telephone
The lights are on but there’s no one home
Tick tick tock it’s a quarter to two
And I’m done
I’m hanging up on you

I can’t keep on waiting for you
I know that you’re still hesitating
Don’t cry for me
’cause I’ll find my way
You’ll wake up one day
But it will be too late

Every little thing that you say or do
I’m hung up
I’m hung up on you
Waiting for your call
Baby night and day
I’m fed up
I’m tired of waiting on you

Every little thing that you say or do
I’m hung up
I’m hung up on you
Waiting for your call
Baby night and day
I’m fed up
I’m tired of waiting on you.

Meow

I learned something new this Yom Kippur:
Not being able to eat for 24 hours=easy.
Not being able to take Midol during said 24 hour period=not easy.

Anyway, on a rare Thursday nite at home I actually got to watch some reality TV in real time (though I know I’ve complained that it’s jumped the shark, it’s like a trainwreck-can’t turn away sometimes.) Pretty good episode of Survivor last nite. Though Stephenie’s ego is beginning to reach Rupert-size proportions. If she doesn’t win this season, I’m sure they’ll think of some way to give her $1 million somehow. And with a lack of much else on afterwards, actually sat through the episode of the Apprentice. Just like Season 2-I can’t believe the cattiness and cliquiness of the ladies’ team. Is it really that hard for women to work together? Perhaps. I went through it this year on the Flyers’ social committee. Was originally with 2 other girls-that didn’t work out-partially because either of them didn’t know what they were getting into…but partially because they did not communicate at all. The committee went through a “corporate restructuring” of sorts and the 2 girls got swapped for 2 guys with whom I got along a lot better. (I’m not even gonna get into sorority life right now.) However, as fun as it’s been being social chair, I still am sorta looking forward to the year being up…planning social events in NYC is not an easy task. 🙂

Another marathon/race weekend approaches…good luck to all marathoners…I believe up this weekend is BayState and Baltimore, as well as others…and on the local front, the Staten Island Half-Marathon. For everyone’s sake, I hope the mile marker guy isn’t drunk when positioning them this year. Good luck to all those running it. And rain rain please go away.

Speaking of marathons, they finally posted the bib #’s for NYC…and dayum, looks like I got a good number-an “F” number in the 3000’s. Kind of a shame I’m not using it, but hopefully I get as good a number next year…

Alcoholic escape tonite after work in the east village. yay…so need it.

(and Madonna’s new song kicks a$$. well at least the version that WKTU plays.)

now playing: “hung up” ~ madonna

blame it on the rain…

Hi, my name is nyflygirl and I am a wuss. I had my alarm all set this morning to go out and do the last 4 miles of the LTR…heard the heavy pounding rain and thought, ugh, I just couldn’t do it. I’m pretty sure I made the right decision for me, but I just feel bad letting the team down (even though I think they had enough people…) Rainy days just make me feel so lazy and unmotivated as well. And the forecast is calling for rain all week. yay.

On the topic of running, I think I really made it official the other day that the NYC marathon is out for me this year…haven’t canceled my entry, but signed up to volunteer at the PowerGel station at mile 18 that the Flyers will be manning/womanning. I know there are some that thought I should just “get out there” and “just run it,” but realistically…I knew I would be asking for trouble ramping up mileage after being out for a month. I know all time goals would have gone out the window-when healthy, my goal was sub-4…which I thought was actually pretty realistic. Running a slower time would be one thing, death-marching would be another, and the latter is not how I’d want to remember my first marathon. I haven’t canceled my entry, as I have 9 races to give me entry for ’06. Plus I’m just curious to see what bib number I would have gotten.

In other news…in keeping with the latest heightened security alert for the subways…I got a call from my boss yesterday morning saying I could work from home if I needed to, that she was concerned about any of us commuting…I did unfortunately have stuff I needed to go into the office for. In the past 4 years, I never thought twice about taking the subways, but I dunno, yesterday I was more than a little nervous so I settled for a longer-than-usual bus commute. I do agree with Bloomberg’s decision to make this info public…as these days, ignorance is not always bliss.

And on the workfront…issues between us and one of our vendors. In keeping with the whole “market research is an extremely small world”-a distant cousin of mine works at one of the mailing houses that we use. We’ve actually given him a second chance-as he screwed up royally on one of my jobs last year. Anyway, things are getting very messy as we’re catching him in quite a few lies. He’s saying our jobs mailed on one day when the postmarks from undeliverables are 1-2 weeks later…and other things, but that’s really the big one, as it’s screwing our clients over as well. One would think that someone would make sure to do a good job on something if he knew it was for family, right? Who knows, all I can say is that I am disappointed. I never claim to be perfect, but…this is ridiculous, methinks.

Oh, and my newest discovery is that the iTunes music store is very cool. (yeah I know…how behind am I in that department?) Only thing really stopping me from downloading from there more is that it’s a pain to convert downloaded music from there to mp3…anyone else know of any programs that do that…short of just burning to CD and ripping mp3s from there?

On the baseball front, you can stick a fork in the Red Sox (sorry Boston fans), and unless my pinstripers turn it around, they may suffer the same fate 😦 Big Unit…why did you not show up for the game last nite??

Final note- good luck to anyone running marathons this weekend!! Chicago, Hartford, Steamtown or whatever else…

now playing: “karma (karmastition remix)” ~ alicia keys