week in review: exploratory running… and eating

We got back from Chicago a week ago, but I have yet to settle back into my routine when it comes to running. I was all over the place this week, mostly because I had several opportunities to run with great people. In fact, I didn’t look at my training plan once in the last seven days, choosing instead to give myself up to running when and with whom I wanted to… and fueling it all with the summer foods I know I’m going to miss the most.

One of the highlights of my week: running with Steff, Sara, Ashley, Leslie, and Sofia. We met up to do a group run put on by Athleta on Wednesday, but it was a bit disorganized so we ended up heading off on our own for a few miles around Central Park. Seeing these ladies all in one place was a total midweek treat.

My favorite run this week: 3 easy miles around Central Park on Friday morning, alone and sans headphones. Yes, I love running with friends and I almost always use solo runs to catch up on my podcasts, but Friday I just needed it to be me and the park. And my breathing. And the sunrise. Perfect.

This weekend’s long run was sort of broken into two parts. I set out with a friend for 9 miles along the Hudson on Saturday, but her knees were hurting around 6.5, so we walked the rest.

I figure I’m about as ready as I’m going to be for the Bronx Half at this point. No use in stressing about my training now. I’ve got a whole lot of great runs under my belt, and I’m just going to give it the best I’ve got next week.

Plus, I wasn’t about to head out for another few miles right away because we had plans that involved (a) food and (b) beer.

Yes, Smorgasburg. I have been looking forward to this pretty much all summer. Daniel and I made the food tent rounds with a group of friends, some old and some new.

We started with a vegetarian papusa filled with beans, cheese, and jalapenos and topped with pickled onions and cabbage, salsa, more jalapenos, and sour cream. This was excellent. Mighty heavy, but excellent.

We followed that up with a pretty delicious falafel filled with tabbouleh and some sort of tomato jam or chutney. Also quite good.

But what I couldn’t stop thinking about was a giant ice cream sandwich. I sampled a bite of one of these when our friends got one a few weeks ago at the Brooklyn Flea, but this time I wanted at least half of one to myself.

I say half because these things are huge. Two gigantic oatmeal chocolate chunk cookies with fudge and about an inch and a half of vanilla ice cream. Insane.

Of course, a lunch like that required beers afterward. To aid in digestion, you know. We wound up first at a German beer hall in Williamsburg where I had a wheat beer bigger than my head. Then we went to d.b.a. in the East Village (the site of our first date!), where I had the Goose Island Summer. Both good, though not favorites.

This morning I did another 4 miles with another friend — part recovery run, part attempt to get my weekend mileage up. We gave ourselves the mission of exploring un-run paths in the park, which turned out to be a really fun task and something I’m going to do more often, rather than sticking to the same old loops.

Looking back now, my training was better this week than most, despite the fact that I wasn’t thinking about it and just running when I felt like it. Here’s how my runs measure up to what I’d planned:

Yeah, apparently I suck at getting in that strength training. Gotta do that. But even so, I’m pretty proud of my miles this week.

Post-run, my Sunday turned into one big sugar rush and involved a whole lot of this:

Oh yes. More on that tomorrow. Mwah ha ha.