Run, Eat, Stress, Cook Weekend and Lettuce-less Salad TND

This summer seems to be moving at an unnaturally fast clip. June and July both whizzed by and August feels like the Bullet Train Express...especially this past weekend.

After a rather monotonous Saturday in Microfilm and a few weekend household tasks, I headed over to Elizabeth's for a pre-race pasta dinner before the Leesburg 20K (12.4 mi) on Sunday. We feasted on multi-color pasta with sausage-laced tomato sauce and ricotta cheese and Mud Pie ice cream (guess what the Rhino contributed), yapped about a lot of stuff, and then Elizabeth promptly fell asleep on the sofa while we watched Malcolm in the Middle (classic). After her snooze during the first episode, she claimed that she could stay awake for a second. I thought otherwise. It was already 12:30 and given that the race started at 7:30 AND we needed to skedaddle by 6 to make it out to Leesburg in time, so I called it a night and slept until Grady the cat decided to do hurdles over my side at 4:30AM.

At 5AM, I woke up ready for RACE TIME!!! With Elizabeth's boyfriend Greg in tow.. or actually in the driver's seat, we headed out to non-Suburbia VA. Once we arrived on site, we grabbed our race packets (I got a free extra YMCA Summer Camp 2006 shirt ( : ), used the porta-potties (better early than late), geared up, and got going!! Both the 10K and 20K runners started together, which created a bit of a glut up until 3.1 miles in when the 10K got to their turn around. I breathed in the empty air as the pack thinned out and worked on zenning out again. With 3.1 down, I still had 9.3 left to run. You do the math.

Though the race path along the W O & D trail proved rather monotonous, I gained momentum after the 6.2 mile turn around as I worked my way past water stations and mile markers. With two miles left, my legs started complaining (it was my first 20Ker after all), but I told them to shut up and completed the race in a respectable 2:01.24. Yay!

We stayed around for the random prize drawings, but left empty handed and hungry despite a few small post-race noshes. So, we went to Amphora and massacred our three appetizers (the mezze sampler, fried zucchini, AND home fries ALL THE WAY) AND three entrees and my added fruit cup. Yeah, you read that right, three appetizers plus three separate entrees for three people. I love good eaters.

After washing up, napping, and making a quick batch of snickerdoodles, I found myself back at Elizabeth's for MORE FOOD....Specifically, her goodbye to Grady (her foster cat) fishy food dinner. Guests brought plenty of goldfish, crab, and tuna, Elizabeth made tuna cheesy pasta topped with more goldfish crackers, Greg made catfish enchiladas, and I brought Phish Food ice cream (of course). Lovely Sunday, great company, lots of tasty calories ( :

Unfortunately, Monday meant stress! I prepped the peanut chicken salad prior to lunch (once again overestimating pineapple portions), ate a quick lunch, faced a super-stressful interview, and with Mama Rhino in tow, I completed a practice run to UMD (ACK!! Grad School!!). I came home tired, headachy, and still filled a prescription AND prepped Food Network's squash and orzo salad for TND (should have waited on the goat cheese though.. the dish became more goat cheesy orzo than orzo salad). SOOO glad to have some of Elizabeth's leftover tuna cheesy pasta for dinner... with some more added cheese *wink*. Cheese heals.


Luckily, TND once again went off without a hitch. Everyone ate well, drinks abounded, and TND newcomer Mary easily mingled with the crew. Let's hope she's a keeper (she's moving to Crystal City this weekend!). She still needs to meet Wes, Ben, and the rest of the crew and Celeste approval is still pending, but I feel a TND expansion at work ( :

In other happy news, my new jogging shoes came last night!! They're beautiful and very Rock N' Roll ready (got them on major sale too). I want to name them Jaws and Sharkie, but is that too cheesy?


Next week: I'm in LA visiting my favorite sister Rhino and my favorite high school friend. Yay vacation!! ( :