My Last Day in NYC

Saturday was my last day in NYC, and it was full of lovely things. Although it was raining heavily when I woke up, I really wanted to go for a last run in Central Park and to prove to myself that I could do 6 miles as half-marathon training was about to be underway. I pulled on my running clothes and splashed my way around the loop for 6 miles. Near the midway point of my run, a woman passed me going the other direction and said, "Good job! Keep going!" This was the first time a runner in the park had spoken words of greeting or encouragement to me, and it was really nice. Call me corny, but it felt symbolic to be urged to "keep going!"

Later, I met up with a good friend of mine who moved to Manhattan about a year ago. We had brunch at Fig and Olive in the Meatpacking District. We lingered over our meal, sharing a piece of marzipan cake for dessert. Then we went for a walk along the High Line. As my friend Ash pointed out, it gives you that sweetheart view: you can see far more than you can on the ground but you can see it much closer than you can from way up above. And with my obsession with green spaces tucked into urban ones, I highly approve of turning a dilapidated rail line into a park. I definitely recommend going, even though it is highly probable that it will be overrun with tourists when you go.

At the end of the High Line, I said goodbye to Ash and headed to Brooklyn to do some exploring there. My tour guide was the awesome woman known to some as Rad in Brooklyn. We have been blog and internet friends for a few years and we were able to meet up when I was in NY in July. I wanted to spend a bit of time in Brooklyn, as I hadn't ventured beyond the borders of Manhattan during my time in the city this summer. She took me on a walk through Prospect Park and then we had some delightful and locally-made ice cream at Ample Hills Creamery. I tried the Peanut Butter Chocolate Flake and the Toffee Bar Crunch before settling on the Salted Crack Caramel, which was excellent, but not as good as some of the other salty caramel renditions I've had.

I had planned to meet up with my Airbnb hostess for a drink when I got back from Brooklyn, but we had a miscommunication, so I ended up grabbing some quick dinner and then heading back and packing up my suitcase to fly home the next day. I'm glad that I got to spend time in New York and that I got to experience it as both a tourist and, to some extent, more like a local. I hope that I get back there soon.

Yogic Intersections

When I was in New York last month, a friend, who I hadn't seen for almost five years, happened to notice a status update on my FB page and realized that I was in Manhattan. It turned out that she moved here a few years back. (Since she doesn't post all that frequently on FB this had escaped my notice. I actually thought that she was in Panama.) Because it was getting toward the end of my trip, we decided to postpone meeting up until I was back this time. Last week she suggested that we get together one evening for a yoga class at the studio that she regularly goes to and then have a a bite to eat and a drink after and catch up. We finally did this yesterday evening.

We attended an open vinyasa class at the University location of Yoga Vida. There were some things that I really liked about the class: the instructor was able to impart meaningful wisdom without being as intense or as ethereal as some yoga instructors I've encountered, the class was only an hour long so it was good for someone like me who has been out of the studio for a couple of years, and the price could not be beat - an unlimited week of classes for $10 with a free first-time mat and towel rental. Aside from the instructor, there was an assistant walking around and giving modifications and correcting poses. I got an amazing opening for me in my upper body in a twist thanks to her guidance and assistance. There were a couple of things that I didn't care for, though. The main thing was music with words playing at regular volume during corpse pose. I find it hard enough to let go of my thoughts in savasana without music playing. It was also a pretty crowded class, and I felt a little worried about bumping into people near me once or twice in certain poses.

After our class, we got some Greek food and chatted about Madrid and our lives since Madrid. It was great catching up with her and to see how different our lives are now from what they were just a few years ago. It was also really nice to have the extra push to make sure I got back on a yoga mat this week. I suspect that having a regular yoga date would keep me more accountable until attending classes a studio becomes more habitual. Do you have a yoga buddy or a friend that you meet to do cross-training with at the gym?

Boston Highlights

This weekend I took a train up to Boston to see some friends and do some more exploring in one of my favorite US cities. My former roommate/best friend from graduate school and his husband met me at the train station and we headed out to dinner at The Beehive. We had been thinking that we might stay for the live music that was beginning at 10pm. However, we ended up being seated outside, which was lovely because the weather was perfect and the setting was very pretty. After a round or two of drinks and dinner, we decided that it might be nice (as well as budget-friendly) to go back to their place and have another glass of wine on their balcony instead of staying for the music. We had a wonderful time catching up.

On Sunday morning I met up with my dear friend and running buddy, Suzie, who has recently relocated to Boston. I felt like I hadn't seen her in forever. She had moved before I returned from my research trip to Madrid, and, while I attended her wedding just a few weeks ago, we weren't able to spent much time one-on-one then. We had brunch at Mr. Crepe in Davis Square, and it was so nice to just spend a couple of hours chatting about everything - from our sadly low mileage summers to our new jobs and homes.

After a brief doggy interlude with Bailey's best friend, Abbey, back at my friends' house, we went to peruse the remainders at the Harvard Bookstore, have some frozen yogurt, and pick up some supplies at Whole Foods. We then met up with another friend and were later joined by Suzie, her husband, and some of his coworkers on the Commons for a production of Coriolanus. We had been worried that it might storm, but the weather turned out to be perfect for sitting in a park and eating carrots, hummus, cheese, and grapes. The performance was excellent with particularly strong showings from the actors who portrayed Volumnia and the Tribunes of the Plebs.

We headed our separate ways after the play, as most of our group needed to get up early in the morning. My best friend and I decided to have a couple of glasses of wine and chat for awhile out on his balcony when we got back to his apartment, and it ended up being one of those four hour conversations that you still want to keep having even when your eyelids are starting to droop. I was and am very glad that I made the decision to go to Boston for a couple of days. We just don't get to see each other enough.

This morning one of our friends picked us up and we went to Quincy for a tour of the Adams' homes and the church where John, Abigail, and John Quincy are all entombed. Unfortunately, one of the park rangers liked to editorialize and came off as a bit of a misogynist. However, that was not enough to prevent me from marveling at the amazing library or to ruin the experience of seeing the spaces in which they lived. I was reminded of how much I admire the career of John Quincy Adams and how eloquent the correspondence between Jefferson and Adams was. In the afternoon we headed back into Boston and I was dropped off at South Station to catch my train back to New York.

Do you like to travel by train? Have you ever attended a performance of Shakespeare in the park?

A Long Run in Boston

On Saturday one of my good friends and I went for a long run in Boston. He is training for a May marathon and it was a step-back week for him so he wanted to do 12 miles. I had decided that I would do 8 miles. Rather than do an out and back where we would only run a few miles together, we did an 8 mile loop through Somerville, Cambridge, toward downtown, along the Charles, and back again. While I showered and relaxed with a cup of coffee, he tacked on another 4 miles or so at the end.

We kept the pace nice and slow. I had awoken twice during the night before with charley horses (probably from wearing flats that have no arch support for the 2-mile walk to my conference site and back the day before). My left calf was still feeling pretty tender in the morning, but I really wanted to run in Boston. So much so that we made a quick trip to a nearby Target earlier that morning when I realized that I had failed to pack a sports bra for the trip.

In spite of our slow pace, the time flew by. We chatted about work and husbands and running and upcoming trips to Europe, and I paused occasionally to take a picture with my phone. This particular friend and I used to live in the same city and had run a lot together during the summer that I was training for my first marathon, but we hadn't had a chance to hit the pavement together for a couple of years. I honestly couldn't think of a better way to spend a Saturday morning than running with a dear friend.

Running with my Best Friend

This past week I've been able to enjoy a run and a cross-training work out with one of my best friends, Suzie. Even though we don't naturally run the same pace (by that I mean that neither the paces at which we are most mechanically efficient nor the paces that we are actually in shape for right now exactly match up), we make a pretty damn good team. Typically she pushes me to go a little bit faster and I push her to go a little bit farther. Even more importantly, running with one of my best friends is awesome because I can tell her anything and everything while we are out on the road. We do talk a lot about running, but we also talk about life - partners, work, problems, joys, and the miles usually fly by while we do. No matter how much we talk to each other we never run out of things to say unless we are out of breath or too exhausted to talk and then we fall into a comfortable silence.

After finishing the Madison Half-Marathon together last May

Although we hit it off right away when we first met, I'm sure that running made us even closer friends than we might have otherwise become. S. and I ran together quite a bit last fall and spring, but we spent most of this past summer in different locations and our schedules and my injury didn't allow us to run much together in the fall. I realized just how much I had missed that when we met up for a little 3 miler last Tuesday morning. It was just getting light and it was cold but clear as the light came up. We chatted about my trip to Chicago and the start to our semesters, and we spotted two deer on the local paved trail we were running along. It was time well spent with one of my favorite people doing one of my favorite things.

We were planning to run together again yesterday, but I was feeling under the weather, so we postponed our next work out date to tomorrow. I'm hoping that this semester our schedules continue to line up a bit better than they did in the fall and that we're able to run together at least once a week if not twice and do cross training together once a week. While I value my solo runs and work outs and those with a bigger group of local runners, I get so much out of my runs with my best friend.

Have you ever run with a close friend? Do you have any friendships that you feel were cemented by doing something together - running, playing squash, lifting weights, going to early morning mysore practices together?

Brief Hiatus

I'm off to the airport in a couple of hours for a conference trip. I love going to conferences and really getting to feel the pendulum swing in the scholarly direction. I also am getting to that point in my career when conferences are starting to provide an excellent opportunity to meet up with old friends and colleagues and catch up on their lives. Since the conference is in Fort Worth, and I went to university just a few hours up the road, a number of my college friends live in the area, so I'm also going to be able to have dinner with my college roommate of 3 years, my best girlfriend from college, and another good friend on Saturday night.

My best friend and college roomie and me (and part of my left boob) at my best college girlfriend's wedding in 2008

So exciting but busy times are ahead of me for the next couple of days. I have a stack of papers to grade and a lecture or two to write somehow while I'm traveling as well, so I'll be taking a few days off from blogging. I'll be back next week with tales from my travels and hopefully some news about where my training will be going over the next couple of months.

In the meantime, I would love to know if you have any Halloween plans! Are you getting dressed up? Do you have kids who will be trick-or-treating?

Foto Friday: Friends and Inspiration Edition

My friend K has often inspired me.  K and I became close friends through yoga classes and also a writing group.  We first met at an academic gathering, and because we lived in the same neighborhood we would occasionally run into each other at coffee shops or out at bars.  We might have simply remained casual acquaintances, but a Facebook status update about yoga caused us to connect on a more meaningful level.  One day she posted an update about feeling serene after a yoga class, and I commented on it.  It turned out that we went to classes at the same yoga studio.  For several months we were mysore buddies, getting up to hit our mats at the yoga studio at 5:45 am a couple days a week.  When the term got stressful and early mornings became more difficult, we squeezed in afternoon and weekend classes.  K can magically float into poses that I'm not sure will ever be in my reach.  Though I try not to ever compare myself to other yogis (or runners), I do try to gain inspiration and insight from them.  I'm thankful for those mornings of sweat and serenity that we shared before we both moved.  I'm also grateful for the many conversations that we had walking to and from class and the friendship that developed as a result of sun salutations and sleepy confidences.