Good Food

Well . . . it's been a busy few days since last we spoke. Despite having lots of time off of work, I didn't run again until today. The main reason for that was that my mom and grandmother were visiting NY for a while, which was really nice. It was really nice to do all of the things that I don't often do unless I'm touring someone around the city. This also often leads to doing some things that I've never done. They were only here for a few days, but in that short time, we went to a bunch of cool new (to me, that is) stores in the village like Fish's Eddy and ABC Carpet and Home. We saw a show at the Public Theater (my first time) and at at a bunch of cool restaurants like Indochine, Calle Ocho, and Barney Greengrass. We also when to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (also my first time) and to the Museum of Natural History and took a nice stroll up Madison Avenue. As was clear from my last post, I'm on a pretty big "I love NY" kick right now and this visit solidified that for me in a number of ways.

Today, my love for New York continued to grow. This morning, Sara and I took the bus up to the local greenmarket! We had been to the farmer's market at Union Square a number of times, but were very excited to live so close to another branch of the greenmarket. Every Saturday in Isham Park (up at 207th St) there is a nice farmer's market . . . NYC has great farmer's markets all over the city and it makes being a "locavore" very easy to do. We were able to buy local cheese, yogurt, granola, eggs, apples, cookies, bread, turkey sausage and more . . . and we could do all that on public transit. I really feel as though we are lessening our carbon footprint each day with our move back into Manhattan. I'm also really fortunate to be in a place that makes it so easy. It also doesn't hurt that Sara is so into it as well!

One of the farms at the farmer's market, Hawthorne Valley Farm, also runs a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program that Sara and I have joined. This means that starting in June and running through November all of our produce (fruits and vegetables) will be coming from a local source. It is so unbelievably exciting that we will not only be supporting a local farm directly, but also that we'll be eating the freshest, most in season produce available! All of our fruits and vegetables will cost a total of $650 for the whole year (June to November) which means that we will be spending under $110/month for vegetables and fruit. When you consider that we often spend between $150 and $300 a month for all of our groceries total (this doesn't even take into consideration the cost of eating out), and that a major portion of our groceries are produce, this means a big savings. Joining a CSA has other, more unexpected benefits as well. For one, we will be able to find new, exciting recipes for the range of produce that we will have each week. We will be forced to really cook a lot more and we'll stretch ourselves culinarily! In addition, we will be forced to each from restaurants less in an attempt to utilize all of our produce before it is wasted. We will, of course, be storing some of it for use in the winter, but we'll also be eating TONS of green stuff.

Oh, yeah . . . I also ran today. Today it was hard to motivate a run, but I managed to get a little over 3.5 miles in (30 minutes at an 8:33 min/mile pace) which isn't too bad. I ran north on the path this time, which was nice and I got all the way up to Dyckman street before the path ended and I had to come back south . . . but it was a nice run either way. I'm hoping that once the weather turns warmer and once I'm in better shape, I'll be able to be a little more motivated to get up and go earlier in the day. I didn't run until about 5:30 today. BUT, it is nice that the days are so much longer now than they were . . . it's nice to run during the daylight hours.

Tomorrow is day 150 of the year of the marathon . . . that means only 216 days until the marathon!

I love New York!

I love New York. I really do. Yesterday (Monday) and today really emphasized to me the things I love most about living in the greatest city in the world. Part of my current, newly rekindled affection for this wonderful place is the fact that Sara and I recently moved back into Manhattan. Living near the subway makes such a big difference in how we experience the city and I'm incredibly happy with our new neighborhood. I think I've said this about a millions times, but I'm going to keep saying it b/c it's true!

Yesterday morning, I met up with Asher to have Breakfast at the Westway Diner. This is the diner where Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David first met to discuss the possibility of starting a sitcom. The diner in Seinfeld (which is up near Columbia) is based on the Westway. The Westway is at the corner of 9th Avenue and 44th street, which is where Asher and I used to live and which is how we first discovered it. We had a nice breakfast. It was really great to be able to take the A train to midtown in under twenty minutes. It makes such a big difference. I got to midtown a bit early and took a little stroll around our old stomping grounds. That neighborhood is changing so rapidly, it's unbelievable. There are tons of new bars and restaurants that have opened in the two and a half years since we left that neighborhood and there is an American Apparel (ugh) opening up next door to the Westway . . . a little too trendy for me . . .

After breakfast, Asher and I walked around a bit before he had to go to orientation for his new job. I was reminded in an oddly fond way of how much I hate Times Square and all of the tourists that clog it up. Anyone who has lived in a major metropolitan area that is also a major tourist destination can relate to the sense of walking smugly through mobs of tourists with their eyes everywhere but the road in front of them, rolling suitcases in tow. I love rolling my eyes at them and sighing audibly. I'm a jerk . . . I know, but I love being smug about living in NY.

I left Asher at the Paramount Picture building for his orientation and then I took the train down to Chelsea Market b/c I wanted to go to Bowery Kitchen Supply store. (For those of you with a good sense of Manhattan geography, you'll point out that the Bowery isn't in Chelsea, but the store, which originally opened on the Bowery, has since moved to Chelsea, keeping the name). In any case, we are looking for some sort of work table, either butcher block or stainless steel for extra space in our kitchen (extra space in the kitchen?? in Manhattan?? that's right! I love this apartment!). I LOVE restaurant supply stores. They have industrial quality kitchen wares for dirt cheap and I feel like a true chef . . . (God . . . could I BE more pretentious?). In any case, I love Chelsea Market b/c they have great wholesale food markets, etc.

Satisfied with my visit to 14th street, I took the train up to Columbus Circle to kill some time before having lunch with Sara. I stopped in the running store to pick up a arm-wallet. I realized that if I'm going to be running alone for hours at a time, sometimes before it's light out, I should really carry my cell phone and my ID . . . so I bought a little pouch that straps to my upper arm, just for safety's sake.

I walked up Broadway to meet Sara at work for lunch and we went to this great little hummus place on Broadway called Nanoosh. There's nothing better than a Greek salad and homemade hummus and pita for lunch!

Sara and I took the train back up home and relaxed for a bit, before heading back downtown for an evening in the city . . .

Last night, for the second Monday in a row, Sara and I went to the Metropolitan Opera! Last week we saw Ernani which is an early Verdi opera. I didn't love it. The music was fine, but many of the performances were just flat and the story was terrible. Our seats were great though, thanks to Debbie Roth-Howe!! Last night was a completely different experience. Our seats couldn't have been worse (well . . . I suppose we could have been one row further back . . . we were in the second to last row in the top balcony. I've sat closer at Yankee's games), but the opera (Peter Grimes by Benjamin Britten) was incredible!! The story, the music, the performances, the set, the direction, the design, all of it was superb. I loved it!

Today I woke up feeling great. The sky is VERY blue today and it's beautiful out. I knew that I would go running today and I was really looking forward to my first run on the great path along the Henry Hudson River that I can access about a block from our apartment. I had underestimated how beautiful this path would be. I was stunned. It was great running south on the path with the River to my right and the Manhattan skyline in front of me. At points, the path is only about 10 feet from the water and it is beautiful. On the way back, I was even more impressed with the view. The George Washington Bridge occupies your field of vision and it is set against the beautiful New Jersey Palisades. I even noticed something that I hadn't seen before. For instance, I didn't know that there was this cute little red lighthouse right underneath the GWB. It was great.



I ran for 36 minutes today, which was about 4 miles. It might have been a little more than that (I think it was) but it was hard to be very precise on Map My Run.com. I'm happy underestimating my distances b/c that will only better prepare me for the marathon. At this point I generally assume that I'm running 9 min/miles unless I have more precise data to say otherwise. I felt pretty good today and it didn't hurt that it was beautiful out. I can't wait for more, longer runs along the water.

In what other city in the US can you do all of this in 36 hours?

I love this city!

Easter Sunday

Hi everyone! Happy Easter. I started off today with another nice run. I ran about 3.2 miles and did it 26:30. Which is under 8:30/mile which is pretty good. I'm happy with that. That puts my total mileage for this week at 6.2 (or 10k). On the calendar at the bottom of the blog, my weeks from from Monday to Sunday, which means that for the purposes of tracking my mileage, each week ends Sunday. So since this is my first week back, I wanted to squeeze in another run today.

I'll most likely take tomorrow (Monday) off running b/c I'm having breakfast with Asher in the city (Asher got an awesome new job at MTV.com and tomorrow is his first day, so I told him I'd have breakfast with him at our favorite diner, the Westway. When Asher and I used to live together in Hell's Kitchen, we'd go to the Westway when we were hungover on Sunday mornings . . . it was awesome) and then I'm meet Sara for lunch in the city and then we're going to see Peter Grimes at the Metropolitan Opera. Sara's been dying to this this production of one of Britten's darker operas . . . Sara loves Britten. So that will be fun.

Anyway, back to running. This week, I'm on Spring Break which means that I'll get to do some good perhaps longish runs along the river in our new neighborhood. I haven't been running in the new hood yet, but I'm looking forward to long runs on the path by the Hudson . . . it'll be great. The only problem is that the path is completely flat for most of Manhattan . . . that will make the runs a bit easier, but it means that I can't only run down there b/c I'll also need to vary my training a bit with more hills. I might have to run in Riverdale a bit too.

I love Spring Break.

Calendar

Whoops! Forgot to mention that I ran today! I did a short 3 miler . . . I ran a decent pace considering I haven't run in ages and that I was sick last week. I got in under 9 min/mile. Not great, certainly not my best running, but decent enough for me.

Also, I've created an online running calendar so you can see my scheduled runs and track my progress. The calendar is located at the bottom of my blog. Scroll down to see it. The actual runs I've done are in green and my scheduled runs are in red.

Thanks for your support!!

I've been away for a while . . . But I'm back.

Hi everyone! I'm sorry that I've been so negligent in posting to my blog . . . but now I'm back! I had a very busy and very stressful start to the new year. As you may remember, I was really stressed about going back to work after the winter break, and then January was incredibly busy and February wasn't much better. January and February are the admissions season at NYC independent schools so that meant lots of work for me. Then in February and March, Sara and I were in the process of packing up and moving to our new place. That whole process of moving was incredibly stressful and just took tons of time . . . In any case, that is all to excuse my lack of posting anything since January 5th. But I'm back now . . . and I'm on Spring Break and I'm relaxing which means getting some more runs in!

I have established for myself a calendar for training and if I can figure it out, I might put it up here on the blog. I am going to start the formal "Training" on July 1st. That first week the calendar has me running 22 miles. Now I can't just start off training by running 22 miles. First I have to get up to a "base" of 20 miles/week. that is 2 three mile runs, 2 four mile runs, and 1 six mile run. I want to have that base established for at least one full month prior to beginning to increase my mileage. It is important that I don't increase my weekly mileage too rapidly or I risk hurting myself. I want to make sure that I train carefully and thoughtfully so that I don't injure myself. Today is March 22nd, which means that I have a little over two months to get up to my base of 20 miles/week by June 1st. I am going to find it much easier to find time to run now that it is much lighter out and it is turning to spring. The only little hiccup is the fact that I'm coaching tennis once again this year which means that I lose afternoons as good running time. I don't get home after tennis practice until 6:30 or so. This means that I'm going to have to serious consider waking up 30 or 45 minutes earlier each morning to get a good run in then . . . Sara won't be too happy about that.

In any case, I found a good training schedule on the NYRR website that I'm going to use . . . hopefully I won't kill myself.

The other thing that I've been really negligent in doing is running races. Ideally this year's marathon will be the first of many . . . but that means that I have to run nine races each year to guarantee my entry. By this time last year I had already run four races, but I'm really behind now. I shouldn't be too much trouble to get my nine in b/c the marathon will count for one, but NYRR has added one more requirement to guaranteeing eligibility for the marathon for 2009: volunteering at one race in the year . . . so that means I have to sign up for that too! I'll make it work, but I need to get on it!

Well, anyway. I'm back. Sorry I've been gone so long, but I will be much more diligent about posting from now on!