Weekend fun!

This week I have slacked majorly. Besides my one badass workout at bootcamp, I have been lazy. So today, I decided to hit the gym.  I had wanted to get a ride in, but the rain wouldn't let up. I did a little on the elliptical, then killed myself lifting weights. Arms and core. I killed it on the TRX (I am loving that thing), and now my arms feel like jello. Tomorrow I have a 13 mile run planned, so I'm glad I avoided lunging, squats and any sort of leg strengthening today.

Its restaurant week in Northampton! 

That means that many of the restaurants offer a small menu of 3 courses for $21. Last night, my girlfriends and I tried Pizzeria Paradiso which was actually 2 people for $21! This left plenty of money in our pockets for their delicious Sangria!

I had a veggie chop chop salad, which besides veggies had walnuts, gorgonzola, and other deliciousness. For dinner I had a Margherita pizza (and a piece of my friend's shrimp scampi pizza), then finished it off with a chocolate mouse for dessert. After a couple pitchers of sangrias, food, and laughs, we finally left and loved our new find!

Tonight, Kevin and I are headed to Mama Iguanas!

Neither one of us has been before, but the mexican menu looked delish, and they will be opening one in Springfield soon, so we figured we should check it out.

We finally decided on our summer vacation......

we'll be heading to San Juan then taking a drive to get on...

A cruise to the southern caribbean!

The 7 night cruise hits St. Thomas, St. Kitts, Aruba, & Curacao. We're planning to stay one night in San Juan before, and possibly one night after. I am soooo excited and ready for a vacation! Plus it will be after RnR Providence, so my long runs will be able to stay on a short hiatus, until fall racing and marathon training begin. We had such a blast on our last Royal Caribbean cruise, we can't wait to go again.

Has anyone ever gone to these places? Recommendations or thoughts?

Off to map my route for tomorrow!

Time share Hell & Sox time!

Last night it took 4 1/2 hours, but I finally escaped timeshare hell.

Remember when I said I won that cruise at the bridal show? The only requirement was to go to a 90 min timeshare presentation. Easy, right? wrong. 

I was expecting something like this

minus the palm trees of course, I am in New England!
I wish I had taken a picture of what it really looked like!

I was expecting prompt service, professional salespeople, and the timeshare folks to try & wow us to buy with them. Not so much. It smelled, there were crappy cookies & popcorn, and the sales staff looked & acted unprofessional, yelling out at each other & egging each other on. They had told us to come for the 4pm session, so I figured we would sit with a big class, watch a video, hear a presenter, then meet with a salesperson & tell them we're not interested.

Well, we waited an hour to be seen, since apparently you are seen one on one with a bloodsucker salesman. I see this short, fat older salesman in a shirt & tie & say to Kevin, "I hope we don't get him." Who calls out our name? of course, we're stuck with him. At the beginning he asked us if we just wanted our gifts we could take them & leave or hear more, I foolishly said hear more. I was a little curious about what the program offered, and how much something like this costs. BIG MISTAKE.

The guy was ridiculous, telling us more stories about his life and vacations that I cared to know x 100. Kevin & him actually got in a fight at one point because the guy was drawing crap everywhere, circling numbers that didn't even include a price and we didn't care about & making a mess. He made us drive to go see a unit, that was nice enough, but nothing special. At one point Kevin said "listen can't we just get to the point of all this?" He was so longwinded, and lengthy in his stupid stories. Once he finally told us the price, we told him no. Then he slashed the prices in half. We said no. Then he said "Would you do it if it were free?" I told him of course. He said "Well let's sign you up then, we do it as a promotional piece, you write a blog or something online."What???

Kevin & I had already added up the numbers. They charge a yearly matinence fee of $750, then you have to pay $200 to "trade" your week at the crappy place in the Berkshires for a beautiful place in Jamaica. Then they charge you $70 a year for travel books they send. You have to pay taxes & fees, for airfare, food, drinks. Probably about $1800 a year for that week vacation, which is probably what we spend anyways on a really nice vacation. But we don't need the big 2 bedroom suite right now, and we were not looking for the commitment. Maybe at some point in the future, but not now. Plus, if someone is offering me something for free that 20 minutes ago required a mortgage and $15,000, now I'm very skeptical.

Finally we got away from him, to wait longer to get our prizes. We got our cruise with airfare, a $40 american express card, a weekend at the cape, and hotel for a 5 night stay in jamaica, aruba, hawaii or puerto rico. I missed a friend's birthday party, we stopped by On the Border to say Hi & pick up an order to go, and came home exhausted.

That was the major adventure, but the better news is my Red Sox tickets!!!

Typically, they do a virtual waiting room the day tickets go on sale, and you are randomly selected from the room, so it could take 5 minutes or 14 hours (typically I wait about 8-14 hours). This year, they changed it so you are actually waiting in line, and get in to buy tickets in the order you were waiting in. AWESOME!

I was in the waiting room maybe 15 minutes, and left with some awesome tickets!

All friday, saturday or sunday games. 4  good ones in the grandstand, 2 good ones in the right field box, and 2 sets of 2 for awesome seats in the Lodge boxes. Probably better than any seat I've ever had at Fenway (besides the Budweiser roof deck). So excited for baseball season to be here!

In workout news, I got dressed for the gym saturday morning, just to get there and have there be absolutely no parking spaces, unless I wanted to park by Walgreens and walk over. I said screw it, and ended up with a short ride on the trainer. Shelley and I decided to do a treadmill long run again this week. The snow/ice is still no the greatest and we are nervous about hurting ourselves so close to race time. I'm off in a few to plug 12 miles away on the treadmill, wish me luck!

2 feet of fun? I think not....

Yesterday was an awesome run day. My speedwork day, I did 10x 400m @ 6.5mph. fast for me. I even amped up the recovery pace from 3.8mph to 4.0 & 5.0.  I made it through the whole thing, and felt awesome afterwards. 

Now about that snow....

shoveling at 6:30am

We ended the day at 23 inches. Kevin & I woke up early to shovel the driveway since hospitals don't close and I had to be at work. The snow plow still hadn't come down the street & I drive a little honda civic that handles like crap in the snow. It was literally up to my knees, I took a break to get my camera and asked Kevin to take a picture, he told me to get back to work ::sigh:: When 7:45 hit, with no snow plow in sight, I called out of work, there was no way I could get out of my driveway to work. Just as I was settling in on the couch for a cozy snow day, my boss calls to tell me someone in an SUV is on their way to pick me & another girl up. seriously?? I'm pretty sure my patients wouldn't have died without their physical therapy today, but in I went to treat them & help cover for the 3 other therapists that no one bothered to try picking up, grrrrr.

My frosty scarf after shoveling

Kevin is out shoveling the bottom of the driveway now that the plow trucks filled up. Every school around was closed today, and many are still closed tomorrow. Lucky me, of course, will be on my way to work in the morning. Hopefully the gym, I guess I'll call to make sure they're open in the morning.

No gym tonight, pizza delivery for dinner after we called 4 places to find one that would deliver. Tasty. Bedtime soon for an early wakeup!

Good things are happening!

I've been getting my workouts in. excellent. I've even been eating well. even better. My official weigh in isn't until tomorrow, but I think it will be good news! Monday I managed a cross & strength train, tuesday my speedwork, and today a ride on the trainer after work. I've tracked all my food every day this week, I've watched my portions and eaten whole foods. Candy, chips, and other sweets have had no control over me!

What's changed?

A couple things. First, I'm sure the excitement of a new year, new start have gotten myself and every other american going strong. Only I am determined to not let this momentum get lost after 2 weeks, or even a month or 8. 

Second, my relationship has been drama free. ::HUGE sigh of relief:: There has been no fighting, no late night tears, no throwing tantrums or calling names. A big reason why? Kevin has moved in! We ultimately decided to wait until the spring/summer of 2012 for our wedding to give us more time to plan and wait for his brother to be home from the Navy (before the family drama last weekend). The compromise, was that even though we wanted to wait to live together until after marriage, our relationship needed to progress. So he has moved in. Not all his stuff, we're moving a little at a time, keeping it low key, and enjoying being able to spend more time together. 

Lastly, I know my february races are coming up! New Orleans is a little more than 5 weeks away, and I've been busy planning my running costume for the Disney Princess Half! (just wait until you see the t-shirt I designed!) I also had to order my running skirt a size smaller since they were out of my regular size. And although I was assured the princess skirts were roomier, and I know my current size is a little big, I want my ass and thighs to shrink a little more before I debut the skirt at the happiest place on earth!

Tired me needs to head to bed, get rid of the rest of this cold, and wake up for a tempo run tomorrow!