Goodbye Pine and Hello Palm!

Why, hello and happy Friday friends!

Forgive me if I’m a little over-giddy about the arrival of this weekend.

 Because this weekend, I don’t have two work-free days to look forward to…

but an entire work-free week.

Spent here:

hello white sand and sunshine, we meet again.

 That’s right. My family and I are headed back to the Dominican Republic for a winter getaway to warm weather. My poor, poor mother broke her ankle in a freak hot-air balloon incident back in May, and was resigned to a wheelchair and crutches for the entirety of her summer. Needless to say, she felt robbed of a true summer vacay, and thus decided to recreate one once her foot was able to take on some sand. Flash forward….to now.

🙂

Unfortunately, like all other exciting things these past few weeks (the marathon, Thanksgiving, the holidays, etc.), this trip has COMPLETELY snuck up on me. And I’m 100% not feeling ready for it…as in physically prepared. Mentally, I’m always 100% ready for a getaway to the Caribbean.

I have not come anywhere close to finishing my Christmas shopping (and when I return Christmas will be a mere 6 days away), packing took me 8 million hours last night and I’m still pretty sure I’m going to arrive in Punta Cana with nothing to wear but running shorts and dry-fit tees (digging out summer clothes in a New York apartment in the middle of December is NOT a fun task) and I epically failed at getting in the long run I wanted pre-DR.

I had a goal of 8-10 miles for this morning, and as luck would have it, Twitter told me that Laura was up for the same distance. I was stoked to make plans with a new running friend (on the UWS, no less!) and last night set out all of my winter running gear so it’d be ready to go bright and early this a.m. (cause you know, I didn’t need to pack the UA cold gear for THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC. bwahahaha. sorry, that was mean).

But last night turned into another one of those tossing and turning and not sleeping nights. I’m hoping the reason behind it was nothing more than happy anxiety over my upcoming trip (when I was a kid I used to NEVER be able to get to sleep on Christmas Eve…or the night before the first day of school. Because I’m a nerd and loved school, but that’s a topic for a different day). Regardless of the reason though, a 6a.m. wake-up call followed by and hour and a half hitting the pavement was NOT an appealing thought to me at 4 a.m. And since I was up, used the time to shoot poor Laura a message that I planned to hit the snooze button (dear Laura, I hate being a running buddy flake. please let’s forget this ever happened).

Instead, I slept in and woke up with just enough time to knock out my boring ol’ 6-mile route before work. And I guess it’s a good thing, because I ran those 6 miles SLOW. And I’m pretty sure adding on another 2 or 4 would have been a big mistake–if not just an embarrassing one. But I’m super sad not to have ended this week with some higher mileage. Especially since I don’t know exactly how I’ll keep the cardio up while down south. Way, way down south…you know, in the DR!!! (again, sorry…excited)

So that is where you, my fellow running/blogging/everything else friends come into play. Pretty pretty please, as a Christmas gift to me, flood the comments section of this post with tips on how to keep the heart rate up while on vacay. Let’s pretend that I have a stretch of beach .5 miles in circumference and a wee-small beach house living room to work with (fingers crossed that’s NOT the case, but this will help you better stretch your imaginations for some creative cardio).

In return for your comment kindness, I will provide you with some tips and advice too…via some AWESOME guest posts from some very bad-ass running bloggers. Hold on to your Asics, cause next weeks going to be great here in marathonwiner world!

AND as an extra special Christmas bonus, when I return to normal blogging/winter weather…I’ve got a super great giveaway slated for ya!

So ready, set…get commenting!!

Thanks much and have a happy Friday, and great week next week!

 

Oh, and because it’s too hilarious and weird to NOT share…here’s one more little diddy for your viewing pleasure…

This is a real event, going on tonight in Brooklyn: 8pm: enter your secret stuffed mounted beaver collection at the secret science club’s most bonkers event of the year- the 6th annual carnivorous nights taxidermy contest. bell house, $7. >>

Only in this dear, old, dirty (and I stress the DIRTY, here) town…gotta love NYC!