About a week and a half ago, I ran the NYC Half Marathon for the second year in a row.  Check out my recap from last year’s NYC Half Marathon.

I decided to wait to do the recap since I figured all of you would be bombarded by races recaps the week following the race (just kidding…I’m just a procrastinator).  Either way, my race recap is here!

Let’s start from the day before, shall we?

Saturday, March 17, 2013 – The Day Before the Race (AKA St. Patty’s Day)

11AM – BLC and I made our way into the city from Brooklyn to pick up my bib at the Expo.  It was in a different place than last year which, to be honest, wasn’t a great choice IMHO.

This year, it was across the street from Penn Station.  On St. Patty’s Day.  So BLC and I basically weaved in and out of drunk people dressed in green before we could even get into the building.  It also got me hyped for an Irish Car Bomb…but I digress.

I should also mention that I work in NYC.  I could have easily picked my bib up on Thursday or Friday after work.  But I didn’t.  Because I am a procrastinator (see above).  So I really shouldn’t complain

The expo was nothing to write home about but I did pick up a green Sparkly Soul band to get into the St. Patty’s Day spirit.

The swag bag included hair conditioner (?) and some iced tea mix.  I’m pretty sure the only addition last year were a few PowerBar Gels which I would have appreciated but at the end of the race they gave everyone NYC Half drawstring bags.  So if they replaced the gels with the bag – I approve!

BLC and I left the expo, headed home, changed into green clothes and went out to celebrate the wonderful holiday that makes people think it is okay to get wasted during the day.

Yes.  I did go out the day before my half marathon.  The half marathon that I did not really train for very well.  & yes, I did drink quite a bit too much.  But it may be my new strategy.  Intrigued?  Let’s continue.

We got to our friend, Michelle’s apartment around 2PM, and had a beer and a shot while waiting for another friend.  After everyone had arrived, we went across the street to get pizza (to soak up all the booze, clearly).  I got a plain slice, ate half of BLC’s second slice and washed it down with a Guiness.  Because it was St. Patty’s Day.

After that we went to an Irish pub called Molly’s.  Word to the wise, don’t go to an Irish pub on St.Patty’s Day unless you don’t want to move and you want to pay $10 for a draught of Guiness.  We got a drink there because we were waiting for another friend but we immediately left after our first drink.  For those of you keeping tabs, I had an Irish Car Bomb.  Because it was St. Patty’s Day.

We literally walked to the bar next door and continued our celebration.  Shots were bought, beers were drank, conversation (albeit over very loud Irish music) was had and overall I had a pretty excellent time.  I cut myself off around 8:45PM (self-control, duh) and took a cab home.  Now that is where my night gets a little hazy.  What I can tell you for sure is:

1.  I woke up around 3AM, chugged a giant glass of water, checked my alarm and went back to bed.

2.  My alarm went off at 5:45AM, I got up, made coffee, changed into the clothes I laid threw out in the living room the night before, drank some water with Nuun, and double checked I wasn’t missing anything.

3.  I made it out the door around 6:30AM only to watch the train I was supposed to take leave the station a mere 1 minute before I got there (of note:  It was scheduled for 6:33AM and decided to come early for the first time in the history of the subway)

So at this point I basically think I am not going to make it and I am not going to be able to run the race that I love and paid a ton of money for.  I am not a happy camper.

Long story short, I get to the 72^nd Street Central Park stop at 7:45AM.  I was not aware of the closed corral rule at 7:00AM. So when I saw the line of runners slowly moving toward the start line, I ran over to the VERY END of the line (but not until after I used the line free porta-potty) and started walking with the rest of the group toward the start.

My being late may have been a blessing in disguise considering it was very cold out so I didn’t have to stand in the cold at all.  I heard that it took people a few miles to warm their bodies back up.  While I was definitely cold, I was warmed up after a half mile or so.  I am just glad the NYRR police allowed me to run.  Because it was probably my favorite race out of all the races that I have run EVER.

& now that this post is getting to be a little ridiculous, I will have to continue the rest tomorrow.  Sorry, buddies.

P.S. How do you like the race recap with literally zero running talk?  Perhaps I am making history?

Talk soon!

For the past few weeks I have been prepping food for the week on Sunday.  While I have always wanted to do this, I just never got around to it (Procrastination Queen right here).

But recently I’ve definitely been inspired by Lindsay’s Sunday Food Prep posts – and I love having food ready for the week!  I would much rather get it all done on Sunday and have more time to relax after getting out of work Mon-Fri.  Prepping food on Sunday has also helped me eat breakfast in the morning.  I used to be a religious oatmeal breakfast eater but since starting my full-time job, I have been slacking.  I feel like I am always rushing to get out the door that I either forget to eat breakfast or just don’t have the time.  Since I have started making either breakfast bars, hardboiled eggs and quinoa bakes on Sundays – all I need to do is pull it out of the fridge and I am good to go!

Here are some of the things I prepped for this week:

(clockwise from top left:  Spinach burger mix, spinach burgers on the grill, baked sweet potatoes, hardboiled eggs, list of recipes, sweet and spicy cucumbers, Thai Curry soup, grocery list – not all ingredients for every recipe are included in grocery list)  Not pictured:  Healthy Quinoa Egg Bake, Quinoa Energy bars, cut up celery and made large batch of quinoa.

We had the Thai Curry soup tonight for dinner.  It is one of my favorite recipes.  So easy and super flavorful.  I actually substituted hashbrowns for the potatoes this time around and I found it really bulked up the soup.  Try it out if you have a Trader Joe’s in your area and you like curry!

Quick Weekend Update:

This weekend went way too fast…but don’t they all.

Friday I went to happy hour with a few girl friends after work.  Wonderful conversation as always.  Brittany is engaged (I am a bridesmaid!) so we chatted wedding stuff which is always fun!

I met up with BLC and Brittany’s fiance at a bar down the street when every one dispersed.  Overall, a very nice night.

On Saturday BLC and I laid around for a while.  We watched about 40 episodes of Dexter and took a nap.  & it was glorious.

When we finally got up and started moving, we decided to go into the city for dinner and dessert.  We got pizza in SoHo which was good, but nothing to write home about.  The dessert was definitely the highlight.

Chobani Soho!  I have been wanting to try this place out for-ev-er!  & it did not disappoint!  BLC got the Peanut Butter and Jelly which was sweet and salty – plus I am a sucker for Chobani and PB.  I got the Fig and Walnut which was delicious.  I love figs!!  I definitely want to go back and try some of the savory flavors.  & the best part?  We got to take home the adorable little glass bowls.  Love them!

After our great experience at Chobani SoHo – we headed up to Trader Joe’s Wine Shop for a few bottles of wine and the Trader Joe’s next door for dog food and a few other items.  Even though the line was long (as usual) it went pretty fast and we were headed home in about 45 minutes.

We got home around 8PM, drank some wine, watched some more Dexter (addicted – we are almost done the 7th season and I am soooo sad) and passed out.  Nice little relaxing Saturday.

So that’s my weekend!  Hope you all had great weekends…too bad it is Monday tomorrow.  Wah.

Hellooooo!  Happy Friday!  I can’t explain how happy I am that it is Friday.  Definitely my favorite day of the week…at 5:30PM.

Anyway, it seems likes the perfect day to let you know 5 of my favorite things of the week!

1.  Pretty Pastel nail polish!  This is Mint Sorbet by Sally Hansen.  Very Easter-chic.

2.  Chobani Flip.  The idea behind these is so smart!  Everything all in one place.  & the flavor for this one is spot on.  Unfortunately, I have not been able to find them since – so if anyone in NYC knows where I can pick a couple of these bad boys up – let me know!

3.  My new Ninja Blender!  So excited to play with this!  I actually just made a dessert for BLC the other day that he has been dying for since last summer.  So easy to use and so easy to clean.  Perfection.

4.  If you have ever been to NYC, you know that it can be a little pricey.  BLC and I are okay with the occasional $15 cocktail but it just isn’t sustainable.  So we were super stoked when we found a bar around the corner from us that offers an $8 Jamison/beer combo all day, every day.  Amazing.  Jamison is my jam.

5.  If you know me at all (or just ask BLC about it), you know that I love Nuun.  I drink it at work, at home, during the day, at night, during runs, after runs…you get the idea.  I like a subtle taste to my water and it encourages me to drink more of it.  & this is my new favorite flavor.  It is clean and refreshing and overall amazing.  Try it.

& there you have it folks.  My favorites of the week.  Hope you enjoyed.  Happy Friday!!

My apologies for posting so late! Today was my first day back at work & I’m still getting over my flu-like cold. Can’t wait to be completely better!! Silly cold keeps lingering…but let’s move on

My WIAW is gonna be a recap of my New Years Eve eats! Since I was still pretty sick, my day of food was kinda random – but still full of some good stuff!!

BLC made me some Trader Joe’s pumpkin muffins – delish!

I enjoyed 2 muffins with some ((real)) butter!

The muffins & a lemon Chobani made up my breakfast. I gotta say…lemon is not my favorite flavor of Chobani. It’s just okay IMHO.

Around lunch time my sick self convinced BLC to take me to McDonalds for a sundae.

With extra hot fudge. The cure for any illness

A little bit later I was craving chips and salsa – so that’s what I had! (I may or may not have had triple this amount but ate most of it before I remembered to take a picture…oops)

At this point of the day, I was still in my pajamas so BLC & I decided to keep it low-key for NYE. We rented Ted & Savages (both were pretty good) on demand and reheated leftovers my mom had made for me while we were in Philadelphia.

I had two giant bowls of matzo ball soup – AKA Jewish Penicillin. My mom literally makes this every time I get sick. Soooo good. If you don’t know, it is basically chicken noodle soup minus the chicken and plus matzo balls (a type of fluffy dumpling). My mom makes the best matzo ball soup. Trust.

While BLC & I laid around and watched movies,

We drank wine &

Ate cheese with crackers. I always buy this cheese for parties. It is a little different but super tasty! Plus, goat cheese is my jam.

& then I passed out before the clock struck midnight. I am a party animal!

What did you eat on NYE?!

Hello everyone! I hope your Holiday was splendid! Can’t believe it is already over and I have to go back to work tomorrow – luckily it will only be a 2 day week

I have been in Philadelphia since Saturday spending time with my family – as well as eating lots of delicious food & drinking festive drinks!

I hope you enjoy my What I Ate Wednesday – Christmas Edition!

Breakfast
Clockwise from left: cheesy eggs with bacon (I did not partake in the bacon), bagels with lox & cream cheese & overnight French toast.

Snacks
Clockwise from top left: pomegranate seeds, chocolate fit chews, holiday cookies, Lindor chocolates & chocolate chip cookies.

Beverages
Clockwise from the top left: cookies and cream hot chocolate, champagne, beer, homemade eggnog, Cherry-osa, the spiciest Bloody Mary ever & lots of coffee.

Dinners
Clockwise from left: Feast of the Seven Fishes (scallops, calamari, flounder, pasta with clam sauce, crab cakes, cocktail shrimp, Caesar salad with anchovies), large salads & deconstructed lasagna (recipe to come).

Just for fun
Clockwise from top: my Yankee Swap gift – $20 worth of ramen noodles!, my adorable Santa niece, Kira & my adorable Santa pup, Freckles.

What was the best thing you ate during the holidays?!

Happy Holidays, all!  Hope you are enjoying time with your families – I know I am!  I absolutely love the holiday season so when I saw this survey over at Peanut Butter Fingers and Carrots ‘N’ Cake, I knew I had to participate

Hope you enjoy some of my holiday favorites!

Favorite Holiday Cookies

I love all cookies (chocolate chip being my favorite) but during the holidays I really enjoy decorated cookies.  I love how creative people get when making decorated holiday cookies!  My brother’s girlfriend made these the other day -

Aren’t they adorable?!  I especially love the snowman on the right’s face.  I almost don’t even want to eat them…almost.

Favorite Holiday Song

This one is a no brainer.  I cannot help but sing and dance when I hear Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You”.  I just love it.  I may or may not be bordering on obsessed.

Favorite Holiday Movie

I love all holiday movies (Elf, Love Actually, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, How the Grinch Stole Christmas) but I’ve realized that my absolute favorite Christmas movie is Home Alone and Home Alone 2.  I have watched both of them 3 times already & I wouldn’t be surprised if I watch it again soon.  Such a classic.

Yep.  If you wanna follow me on Twitter, I’m sure you will hear about another viewing of Home Alone before the day is over

Favorite Holiday Tradition

I have a lot of favorite holiday traditions!  I love Christmas Eve with my whole family.  I love Christmas day with my immediate family.

I love the holiday house that my dad makes every year for my cat.

I love Freckles’ obligatory Christmas Tree shot.  Is she not the cutest little Santa in the whole world?

& I love drinking spiked hot chocolate and watching Christmas movies with BLC.  Love, love, love.

Favorite Holiday Breakfast

Normally, I am all about eggs and hash browns but for some reason I love a sweet breakfast on Christmas morning!  My favorite is probably overnight french toast.

Favorite Holiday Meal

My aunt hosts Christmas Eve dinner every year and we have the Feast of the Seven Fishes.  Since I only eat fish – this buffet style meal is amazing for me!  I can eat just about everything!  Plus, my family makes amazing desserts and appetizers that we can snack on before and after.  I am super excited about it!  I’m already hungry

Favorite Person to Shop For

Definitely BLC & Freckles.

Freckles because she loves anything you give to her…

& BLC because I like to think I know him pretty well and he likes whatever I give him, too

Favorite Way to Open Presents

One at a time, one person at a time, in a nice little rotation.  Me, BLC, my brother, my other brother, my mom, my dad, Freckles, me, BLC…you get the idea.   Also, coffee with Bailey’s Irish Cream is necessary.

Favorite Tree Topper

The only one we’ve ever had at my parent’s house is the angel you can see above.  So that would have to be my favorite!  One day BLC & I will have a tree topper.  Today is not that day

Merry Christmas Eve, all!
What are you doing for Christmas Eve?!

It is the first official snow fall of the season (& of BLC’s life!)!!

And guess what else?!

It is Freckles first snow experience EVER! & she loved it! Just like her momma I swear I took her out when I got home from work & she was literally frolicking around. I swear.

I don’t know about you but personally, whenever I think about snow – I then immediately think about hot chocolate. So you know what we are drinking right about meow. Oh yea, & we spiked it

PEPPERMINT COOKIE HOT CHOCOLATE (makes 2 servings)

1 cup milk
1 cup water
2 packets of instant hot chocolate of your choosing
2 TBs Trader Joe’s Cookie Butter
2 shots of Peppermint Vodka

With some snow covered cars in the background!

First, add milk and water to saucepan and begin to heat on medium.

After a couple of minutes, add hot chocolate mix and cookie butter. Stir continuously & keep an eye on it because it WILL boil over if you are not careful.

Once the cookie butter has melted and hot chocolate is heated to your liking, pour into two mugs.

Now for the special ingredient – add one shot to each mug!

If only I had marshmallows! Enjoy!

On another fun note – Healthy Life Happy Wife is now on Facebook! A nice little extension of the blog Please stop by & maybe like my page? Thanks!!

And last but certainly not least!

My girl Megan is hosting an AMAZING fundraiser for Staten Island! Please consider heading over to Run Like a Grl and donating! Pretty please

So…to sum it up – DONATE! Facebook! Spike Hot Chocolate!

Hey, remember me?

Apparently it takes a Frankenstorm for me to actually write a blog post!

Just an FYI, this is not a real picture…yet.  BLC and I are working from home today – mainly because NYC decided to shut down all of their public transportation.  It would be super difficult to get to work without my beloved subway.  So now we are watching a Sons of Anarachy marathon, eating ice cream and I’m FINALLY recapping my Reach the Beach experience.

In one word, the experience was

AMAZING.

But I’m sure you all want to know all of the ridiculous details.  All 32 plus hours of it.

If you didn’t know already, in the month leading up to RTB: NJ I was working insane hours.  Like 15 hour days, 6 days a week.  Money was good but I literally had no life at all…and that included my training (or lack thereof).  But lucky for me, I got a new job and the Thursday before RTB was my last day of craziness.

Since I still had to work until 9:30p, my amazing husband, BLC picked up the van that I rented from Long Island on Thursday at rush hour.  Did I mention that he is amazing?

When I got home, I still had to run down the BQE to Megan’s place to pick up some Cheribundi boxes for the relay.

Cheribundi was one of our sponsors and they totally hooked us up with a serious amount of tart cherry juice for our team.  I wasn’t sure how much until I got to Megan’s…

Yea.  Each of those boxes contained 12 bottles.  Just imagine me in Brooklyn loading all of that juice into my little Versa.  Comical.

BUT I’m pretty sure everyone on our team was obsessed with Cheribundi by the end of the relay.  & felt much better because of it!  Thanks, Cheribundi!

Anyway, after my trek to pick up massive amounts of juice – I still had to go home and pack.

Packing for a relay is much different than packing for anything else.  I basically stuffed three running outfits into three separate ziploc bags.  Definitely a smart move because looking for clothes to run in is the last thing I would have wanted to do during my breaks.

So when we were finally done packing, BLC and I headed to bed because we had to wake up at 5:00a so that we could be on the road by 6:00a.

& that alarm came way too quick.  One of our other teammates, Isaac (who was wayyyy too excited for having driven 10 hours overnight with a half hour of sleep! but awesome and super speedy so it was okay!) met us at our place and we headed through Manhattan to pick up another teammate in Hoboken.

Dave (a friend from college) overslept a tad but we ended up heading out of Hoboken and up to Vernon, NJ around 7:00a.  It should have taken about an hour and a half to get to Vernon but we made a wrong turn that cost us about 30 minutes due to traffic that we got stuck in.  BLC was a trooper driving that giant van through the city and up to the starting line, though.  We ended up making it to the start around 8:45a.  Being late was definitely not the first impression I wanted to make on the rest of the team but what can ya do!

When we got there, we parked and headed to the mandatory Orientation.

We briefly got to meet the rest of the team but it was very quick since we had to sign our waivers, check in our mandatory vests/lights/headlamps (none of which I brought but I did make BLC buy me a 10$ reflective vest that i never even opened…so prepared) and then we sat down for our orientation.

Fun Facts.

After our orientation, we went to get our team picture taken very quickly because it was about time for our first runner to start!  Stephanie made us some awesome shirts to wear and Colleen bought some Jersey Shore-esque sunglasses for our picture.

and so it began…

I’m such a jerk but this has already been too long of a post and I haven’t even gotten to the good stuff

To be continued…

YTD: 273/600 miles for 2012

While I was running my 7 miler (actually about 7.5 but who’s counting?) today, I decided there were a few people (places or things) that I would like to thank (or not thank) during my run.  And since I had seven miles to think of who I wanted to thank, this post was born.

I have a few people I would like to thank…

To the man on the bridge…thank you for pushing me to run faster than I would have up that hill on the Williamsburg Bridge.  I really just wanted to beat you but you were too fast.

To New York City…thank you for being so f-ing beautiful.  I apologize for the language but we’re all adults here, right? Just had to make my feelings about the city perfectly clear.

To Cyrus & Comfort…thank you for making this song much more entertaining while I run because I kept picturing dancing with Cyrus (sorry, Comfort).

Please – if you never watch any other video that I post, please watch this one!  It is amazing!  & it makes the song even better than it already is.  No lie.

To the evil gnat…no thank you for flying in my eye at mile 2 and not leaving until about mile 4.

To the man running topless in jeans…thank you for entertaining me during my descent down the Williamsburg Bridge.

To the East River Path…thank you for being flat, breezy and wonderfully packed with runners.

To the men practicing karate…thank you for not karate chopping me as I passed by.

To the Manhattan Bridge Overpass…no thank you for blocking my satellites and causing my Garmin to get all wonky.  I know I didn’t run mile 3 at a 14 min pace.

To my Aspaeris Pivot Shorts…thank you for being so comfortable, not riding up, and keeping my legs fresh.  You are awesome.

To the water fountains on the East River Path…thank you for being around and making sure I didn’t regret my decision not to bring my hydration belt.

To the RevHoney Energy gel…no thank you for being wayyyy too sweet for me & making my tummy hurt for a good mile.  You may have helped at the end but dang, you were like eating straight honey…in a bad way.

To Mr. Meteorologist…thank you for being wrong about the weather.  Instead of sunny with no rain, it was cloudy with a light drizzle for most of my run.  Wonderful running weather   Also, had you predicted torrential downpour I may have rethought my long run.  So, thank you again.

To my iPod…no thank you for not playing “Call me maybe” once during my run.  It is on my playlist but I heard songs twice numerous times without hearing my jam.  I literally had to manually play it at the end of my run just to hear it.  On a different note, thank you Carly for making a song I could listen to 1,000 times without getting sick of it.  Your song single-handedly helped me to finish up my run strong.

To Mr. Downpour…thank you for deciding to start after I was already finished with my run & giving me a nice, cold nature shower.  My sweat got washed off AND I got to save water.  I’m so green.

To the Dunkin’ Donuts next to my subway station…thank you for giving me a place to get out of the rain and provide me with a delicious iced coffee.

To the blister that refuses to go away…no thank you for being so annoying.

To the bodega next to our apartment…thank you for have six-packs of Coors Light for $6.  It was necessary and also, won me the award for Wife of the Year.

Deranged wet rat, home from a run with a six-pack.  You are welcome, BLC.  You lucky bastard.

Now I’m gonna go drink beer, watch college football & google how to dry running shoes.

Go Penn State!

Is anyone else really excited that summer is almost over? No? Just me?

I feel like all I have been doing this summer is running around, vacationing (not a bad thing, I know), being really hot & dehydrated on my runs and sweating wherever I go. I have also neglected my training like whoa. Something about running in the 100 degree 80% humidity hasn’t appealed to me. Go figure.

Yuck. (yes – I always feel better after the run but getting out there has been tough)

Also, with all the vacationing, I have become gluttonous. Like, all health out the window because I’m on “vacation”. Indulging a little = no biggie but eating like crap for 3 months is not okay.

But on the bright side, fall is upon us!

Guess what’s on the other side of that double rainbow?!

FALL!!

Fall means:

Starbucks Pumpkin Lattes

Jeans & a long sleeved shirt

Playing with my new little niece, Kira

Reach the Beach Relay with my new best running friends!

Halloween

Cool breezed runs at the track

Hot oatmeal every morning

FOOTBALL!!

Colorful leaves (I’ve missed the changing leaves for the past 5 years while I was living in San Diego so I am even more excited this year)

All my fall tv shows coming back on

Tailgating

I could probably go on forever. I love the fall. I even found this on Pinterest & vow to do it all before Christmas…

(from my Pinterest board – follow me!)

But besides all of the fun stuff, I do have some September goals (although I kinda bombed out on my August goals…oopsy).

September Goals:

1. Stop being lazy & RUN! I know the cooler weather will help with this one.

2. Start cross training (BLC & I got a living social deal to NYSC so I really want to consistently take some classes & weight train)

3. Get back into my healthy eating routine. (more veggies, less takeout/processed food, more water, maybe a juice a day?)

4. Plank a day! (last month this was one of my goals – I probably managed 10/31 days. Impressive, I know)

5. Try to do 30 minutes of yoga at least once a week.

6. Complete the fall checklist above!

I know, I know – I’m the worst at goals but hopefully this month my excitement for fall will help me to accomplish at least a few of them

BTW – BLC & I are finally heading back to the east coast after our awesome trip to visit family in SoCal. It was great to see everyone but we are excited to get home after 10 long days…& of course, see our little Freckle monster!

I’ve missed her sooo much!!

What is your favorite thing about Fall?!