Cheap Eats and Necessary Drinks

Well this happened:And no, that’s not a fruity cocktail- it’s actually Goose Island 312. Bar lighting is so silly sometimes.

It and the refill that followed calmed me down from yesterday’s “blahs”. Imagine that.

*As did your comments about how we all have those “crap” days. Thank you.

After our little location mixup on Tuesday (Tuesday! I should have known!), I suggested Houndstooth in Wrigleyville as a place to meet up. It’s a smaller area. There’s only one Wrigley Field. So uh… we shouldn’t have a problem. 

Stephanie and I had ourselves a nice little chatty chat over beers and $1 tacos.

With $1 tacos, you don’t expect much…. and these were nothing overly grand to write home about. But hey… they were decently light, the chicken was good, they came with free guac, and were $1 each. The price alone makes me enjoy them greatly.

This was the first time Stephanie and I have ever met and again, like every other time I’ve met girls from the blogs, the conversation flowed naturally and we swapped stories until I had to be lame and duck out because of a never-ending to-do list waiting for me at home.She also confirmed that I need to act on my desire to get myself to Boston. ASAP.

Le sigh…

The other thing that helped me out, as I knew it would, was my run with my guy friend over lunch. Usually we keep it at a pace where we can talk (although between jagged breath) for the entire 2.5 miles. But as I was ranting about one thing or another, I noticed how out of breath I was- chalking it up to me not running much with him as of late and my pace getting slower.

However, he texted me afterwards and commented on how much faster we ran this time than last.

Whew. It wasn’t just me then…

Like I said earlier, I’m in a much better mood today. My weekend starts tomorrow and everything is starting to fall in place a little more as we go along.

Have a good one, kids! I’ve got about 8 hours standing between me and a mad dash home where I have 15 minutes to get myself looking respectable before a night out in the presence of a male acquaintance.

Let’s all laugh about how me looking respectable is just not in the cards.

He’ll have to deal with it.

Twice

Guess I spoke too soon on cancelling yesterday’s lunchtime run.

D: We running today?

Me (after getting up to check outside… hesitating… checking again… checking online…): Yeah, let’s just do this.

Clearly, after being out late on a school night and just tired in general, I was anything less than motivated. And the fact that we had gone on Monday just made it that much easier to want to cancel (“we’ve already ran once this week! That’s better than what we were doing a few weeks ago over lunch!”).

Once we met up, we were still pretty slow to get excited about anything.

Me: I’m really tired. Mind if we keep it relaxed today?

D: Sure, my hip hurts a little anyway and I went to the game last night. You set the pace. I don’t care at all.

(Source)

Our usual trail path was pretty flooded. It took all of 15 seconds to turn around and alter our route into new territory.

Turns out I like the new path better. It’s wider. Smoother. Less tree limbs to dodge. And just makes me happier. Yes, yesterday it was mentioned that I’m warming up to trail running. But I’ll still prefer my roads. Or something similar.

That slower-paced run we agreed to? Easily the fastest run we’ve done yet. It started out the same, but we stopped talking less than half-way through as to save our breath. Even with the humidity, I felt so much more comfortable with my stride on the smoother surfaces.

Had I not feared becoming a gross mess and not been so constricted with a time limit, I would have suggested another 10 minutes onto the 25 that we did.

Thankfully, I didn’t. Because by the time I was back at my desk with my lunch, it was pouring again.  Close call! But we got our lunch time run in this week! Twice!

I’m really glad about that. Because the boxes of stuff I’ve been moving/unpacking as my “weights” routine are slowly dwindling. And I’m yet to really figure out how my new workout schedule will go.

The new roomie has been warned about my fondness of Jillian Michaels workout dvds. I’m not sure if she realizes that I’m serious. However, she will be walking in on me doing them very soon and will realize it’s not a joke. 

The look on her face leads to me believe she’s envisioning Jane Fonda and leg warmers. Maybe a thighmaster or something.

But that won’t happen tonight. I’ve got another “situation” to see the dentist about.

Seriously guys… if you’re gonna get more than one cavity (oops), keep them to one side. Otherwise they’ll make you come in twice. And give you judging looks for getting a cavity at all- twice. And numb your face twice. Which makes you feel silly and more awkward than normal… twice.

At least this means I get ice cream… twice! Take THAT, Mr. Dentist!

I’ll just be a little more cautious about chewing on my cheek this time. Only have to learn that lesson ONCE.

Running Lies

It’s no secret to anyone that I’ve got a little crazy up in me.

I’m goofy. I have weird obsessions. I’m a product of my mother (just kidding mom, I love you).

Anyway, a lot of my friends find the whole obsession with running a weird one. Understandable. The enjoyment and feeling of accomplishment I get out of a solid 4 or 5-mile run comes from a strange place.

But some of my friends actually do get it. Some of them even like to run with me. Like Annie- who’s also joining in on the Run For the Zoo 10k with me this weekend. Or Mon- she won’t run with me, but she’s always excited to text me when momentous running occasions occur (she did 6 miles for the first time ever last night- woot woot).

So when a guy friend from college, who randomly works a few buildings down from me, asked if I want to start running a little during lunch a few times a week, I was totally down.

I’ve always wanted to do lunch hour workouts. There’s a nice park by our buildings. But there are a million trails that shoot off in a million directions (exaggerate much?). And I, being poor with the whole “sense of direction” thing, have been terrified of getting lost on them.

And even with crowds of people around, I’m never a fan of running across multiple vehicles with heavily tinted windows in the parking lot in the middle of the day. What ARE you doing in there?

I have my suspicions, but none of them are legal.

But anyway, our first run was last Friday. When I texted him to confirm this was indeed going down, he warned me of how hungover he was from the night before (happy hour strikes again!).

He also had knee surgery last year. And said he’s been slow getting back into running- something he really only did during team sports.

Oh great, I thought. He’s hungover and has barely ran at all. This is going to be interesting.

That little booger.

He totally understated his abilities. Granted that I’m still getting acclimated to outdoor running again, but damn he was speedy for recovering from knee surgery.

I feel fooled by his trickery.

But we’ll never let him know that. And shall continue to pace alongside of him. As best as we can.

Seriously… what a butthead.

That’s what I get for being a running snob.

Yesterday, even though it was warmer, went much better than last Friday. My tolerance of the great outdoors is much better. As was my night of sleep the night before.

I’m yet to recalibrate my Nike+ (seriously, I suck), but we estimate it to be a little over 2.5 miles after everything is said and done. Not bad because it still gives me plenty of time to “fix” myself and eat a quick bite before retreating back to my prison cell desk.

Combine this with my 25 minutes on the elliptical and 12 on the stairmill from an early morning wakeup call, and it’s a pretty solid and random workout of sorts.

The only thing I need to work on now?

The random burst of exercise suddenly thrown into the middle of my day has me gnawing my arm off by 3 pm.

The pizza getting delivered for late afternoon meetings in the office was a godsend.

Bacon is a seriously underrated pizza topping, by the way.

We started with the plan to run 2 or 3 days a week. So far only once a week has been managed.

But that’s better than nothin’.