Hello, how are you?

I am SOOOO sorry!  I have been MIA and particularly unmotivated to write anything because I am no longer working towards the half-marathon and took almost a week and a half off of exercising.  I went back to my pre-exercising life.  And it was weird.

My ankle is still a mess.  I went to the Mt. Sinai urgent care center on the Upper West Side to have them check it out last Monday.  If I had to write a review of it (which I guess I could on yelp), I would say... it was a very unpleasant experience.  The place is gorgeous (sorry I didn't think to take a picture) but I was there for over 3 hours and I didn't feel like I got a lot out of the visit.

What took so long?  Were there lot's of people and your 2 week old injury was not high as "urgent" as other issues?  Maybe they did a very thorough work up?

NO.

I have no idea what took so long.  When I got there, there was no one waiting in the immaculate waiting room.  I think maybe one woman came in while I was waiting and that was it.  It was bad from the getgo.  It took like 40 minutes just to get called into a room.

Once I was called into a room, a nurse took my blood pressure, asked my history etc.  He then said it would be 10-15 minutes until the doctor came into my room.

It was 35.  There was a clock on the phone in the room that I was watching for most of the time.  I had gone straight there from Penn Station with my overnight stuff from a trip to DC.  My cell phone was dying, my nook was dead and there was not a single magazine in the room.  So I watched the clock.  I think I've enjoyed watching water boil more than I enjoyed watching that clock.

So the doctor comes, and she looks at it for 5 seconds.  "Well it could be a stress fracture or it could be a sprain" No shit, doc, that's what I thought too!  I'm here for your x-ray machine.

She recommends an x-ray (something that could have happened over an hour ago at this point) and leaves the room.  20-25 minutes later, the nurse comes back in and takes me for an x-ray.  He takes 3 x-rays and then sends me back to my room.  The x-rays took about 10 minutes to do.

30 minutes later, I leave the room because no one has come to tell me what the hell is wrong with me.  I ask someone at the check-out desk (I know, its not a hotel, but I can't think of a better thing to call that desk), and within a minute, the nurse reappears.  With crutches.

He comes into my room with the crutches and an ace bandage and wraps my foot.  I asked him what was wrong with it and he gave some weird vague answer that indicated the doctor would tell me.  I then tell him that I do not want the crutches because they are not practical for my life and if I could have something else, that would be helpful. He has to check with the doctor, and so after wrapping my foot (which took about 4 minutes)

So another 10 minutes later, the nurse and doctor both come back in.  The doctor said there was nothing on the x-ray, so its probably a sprain, but it could still be a stress fracture.  Can I see my x-rays?  No.  Can I have my x-rays? No.  She also said that I don't have to use the crutches but I should stay off of my foot as much as possible and recommended that I try not to run.  I thought it was kind of weird that it was just okay for me to not use the crutches, but they didn't have an alternative to promote recovery (i.e. an air cast or a boot). I asked how long it will take to recover, and she gave me a vague, "well it depends" answer and kind of shuffled me out of the door.  She also said I needed to follow-up with an orthopedist anyway.  That all took about 5 minutes.

I go to the check-out desk, and apparently the doctor has to sign off on my paperwork and write up the referral, which of course, she has not done yet.  So another 5-10 minutes go by while the doctor is draining someone else's finger or something (why would you start that before signing my paperwork?? Wouldn't you want to wrap one person up since it only takes 15 seconds?) and then that person comes out and hes all cranky because he was waiting a long time. Except not nearly as long. So she's trying to check us both out at once which is very confusing.

FINALLY... over 3 hours later, I am out of there!  On my way home at 7:00pm and exhausted.  In total, I spent about 20 minutes with people, and the rest of the time waiting which is a pretty terrible proportion.  And not only that, but I knew it was either a sprain or a stress fracture and I'd already stopped running (but thanks for the advice) a week before that.  And now I have to go to an orthopedist at Mt. Sinai because they have my damn x-rays! Mt. Sinai is on the Upper East Side so not terribly convenient for where I live.

OH, and to add insult to injury (haha no pun intended), I called Mt. Sinai to make an appointment with the orthopedist, and after being assured by the Urgent Care Center that all their providers take my insurance, I find out that the foot/ankle specialist DOES NOT take my insurance.

I'm off to the non-foot/ankle orthopedist tomorrow, so we'll see what happens.  Hopefully I won't be there as long.

Have you ever had an experience like this at an Urgent Care Center? Do you know of any more efficient Urgent Care Centers?

I'm a REAL runner!

Why am I a real runner??

I popped my first blister!  It was not as painful an experience as I thought it would be.  I think the worst part was when I touched the hot part of the safety pin after sterilizing it and then dropped it back into the sink. My 2nd toe looked like it was growing another toe on the side and it was very painful.  So it had to go.

Also, I learned today that I'm not supposed to wear cotton socks.  Whoops.. maybe thats why my feet are always overheated and I'm getting blisters in the summer.  What kind of socks does everyone else like to wear?  I read online teflon or dry wick socks are the best.  I looked around and they are all so expensive!! I've spent so much money on exercise stuff, and I love all of it, but I was happy to be done spending more money!

However, my feet are starting to look like runner's feet with callouses and blisters popping up.  I'm well on my way to becoming a runner!

In other news:

On my google reader, I follow Well and Good NYC, which is a website that has information about living healthy in NYC.  There are blog posts, reviews, exercise tips, beauty tips etc etc.
I was reading through the recent articles/blog posts when I came across this article.  Hilaria Thomas Baldwin is going to head up a new yoga place called SoulYoga.  So why do I care?
This is why: Yoga Vida is Spanish for Yoga Life.  I really liked Hilaria as an instructor! That's cool... I just read an article about a Yoga instructor that I have had.
But wait... it gets crazier... when I took her class, she was Hilaria Thomas.  NOW she is Hilaria Thomas BALDWIN.  Yup, she is the 28 year old who married Alec Baldwin.  I took a yoga class with Alec Baldwin's wife!  I really like Alec Baldwin (especially when he hosts SNL) so it seems really cool to me.
Anyway, moving away from my 15-year-old like moment... I'm still impressed at Hilaria Thomas' promotion to heading up SoulYoga, which will no doubt become a massive hit and very popular in no time.  Especially because she seems to have devoted followers from Yoga Vida - I remember people being very bummed when she announced she was taking a break from teaching for several months.

Moving on...

I apparently have had bronchitis for the last 2 weeks.  So no wonder it has felt like I am breathing underwater for 2 weeks when I run.  I went to the pulmonologist on Friday and he prescribed a wonderful Z-pak for me and voila... I'm all better.  Most bronchitis infections are viral, but he said since it hadn't gone away in a couple weeks, he'd prescribe an antibiotic and that might help.  Guess it was bacterial, or maybe it wasn't bronchitis.  He also switched my steroid inhaler to Symbicort, which is less abrasive on my throat.

So yesterday I went for my first post-bronchitis run.  Apparently, it was not normal for me to feel like I can't breathe, because yesterday I felt great.  I ran 4 miles in 41 minutes.  Hence the massive blister on my toe and my hazing into the running world.

When did you have your first "I'm a runner moment"?  What kind of socks should I buy?

Training schedule: Week 1

OK, so here's the deal.  I am not a runner.  I am not fast, I'm not great at pacing myself, etc etc.  This morning, I'm running and I'm doing TERRIBLY.  And I'm re-thinking this idea of posting my training progress on my blog.  I've been running for almost a year and I have made a lot of progress, but I am still not "a runner".

And then I thought... I'm not trying to be a fitness expert.  I'm not trying to show people that I'm this amazing runner.  I am a normal person who decided to get off her ass and exercise.  My blog isn't about mechanics or what research is out there that proves this exercise is better than that exercise.  Nobody should expect me to run like the wind or bench press twice my weight.  And if they do, then they don't know me and don't know what my purpose is.  Which, fortunately for me, is not actually my problem.  

So, I'm just going to lay it out there.  I ran 4.00 miles in 51 minutes.  That's pretty slow.  My pace was 12.86/mile. I could prattle off a million excuses as to why I am so slow, but the fact of the matter is, I'm still getting used to running, especially sustaining my speed, and progress is slow but steady.  I did backslide a little the last couple of weeks because I was super lazy and had a cold, so I didn't exercise for like 10 days straight.  That's my own fault - I should have been exercising while sick, but I just felt frustrated. 

Tim made me a schedule, which starts next week... but I wanted to give myself a little bonus time, so I ran yesterday to test out my heel and then I ran again today for a "long" run.  

Here is next week's schedule:

Tim and I are huge excel dorks, so we have a nice google document that I created (and had to format in an aesthetically pleasing way) so he can see what I'm doing based on the schedule he created.  Every Sunday night, I'll post the next week's schedule along with the completed table of what I did the week before. 

Next Monday I'm going to go to the gym and cross train on a bicycle, then do some abs/arms.  Next Thursday, I'm going to go to the Bryant Part free Yoga class.   I'm not going to add the non-running to the spread sheet just because it adds a lot more clutter to it.

Reminder! Enter my CW-X discount giveaway before July 1st at midnight!!

I love NY

Loving NYC is kind of a big deal for me.  I absolutely adored Boston, and loved living there.  Boston is a great city and it's not as big as NYC, so it feels more accessible.

I was very nervous about moving to NYC when we did in August 2010.  Mostly because when I was in college, I lived in an NYU dorm for a summer and had a miserable experience.  I don't want to go into the details, but I paired those feelings and issues with living in New York, even if that wasn't necessarily the cause of the problem.  My dad had also been mugged a couple of times back in the '80s while in the Port Authority.  So those are my memories of New York.

We moved to Alphabet City, which was incredibly fun for a year, but on Friday and Saturday nights, it turns into NYU/high school heaven and we felt a little old!  So off we moved to the West Village and I love it here.  I started to feel comfortable in Alphabet City and somewhat on the Upper West Side, where I work.  Unfortunately, I didn't really know or care to explore the rest of the Manhattan.

Which is RIDICULOUS.  It really is.  There are so many places to go to and so many things to do, limiting yourself to 1 neighborhood is silly.

I overheard some tourists on the subway the other day, and they just boggled my mind.  They had thick southern accents and were VERY loud.  One of them was talking about how much she loved New York, which made me happy.  Their favorite parts of the city are SoHo, Canal St and Times Square.  They particularly love Times Square because of the bright lights and how stimulating everything is.  Silly tourists... branch out.  SoHo and Canal St are great, and Times Square is... well in my opinion the worst part of New York, but those three places do not make up the city.  Go see the nooks and crannies of New York.

Which made me think about how I've really gotten out and about a lot more in the past few months.  I feel like everything ties back to how exercising has opened doors for me, and sometimes I feel like I'm turning into a broken record, but I really can't emphasize it enough.  I'll try to be brief, but I've run through parts of the city I never walked through.  And I'm taking classes in different neighborhoods.  So therefore, because I exercise I get to see more of the city.

OK, done with my "exercise has changed my life" schpiel.  NYC in the summer is awesome.

There are just so many free events everywhere!!

On Wednesday, Cameron, my brother, my sister-in-law and I went to a free Comedy Central special in Central Park.  It was an Indecision 2012 special with the people behind the scenes from The Daily Show.  Last year, Cameron and I saw Wyatt Cenac tape his Comedy Central special and it was hilarious.  It was a great event on Wednesday, even though it was like 101 degrees.  When the sun set and the breeze kicked in, the park cooled a little and it was almost refreshing.  Plus, it was nice to get out and do something on a Wednesday night.

Yesterday, I went with some friends to the Adventures NYC free event in Central Park (ok, I'm spending a lot of time in the same place so far... but I don't know Central Park that well, so I'm still learning!)  They had rock climbing walls, bikes to rent for free, kayaking etc.  We didn't do any of that because the lines were all too long... BUT Honest gave out lots of free samples, Cabot Cheese gave out lots of cheese, and we had fun walking through the event a couple of times.

Today, we went to the Gay Pride Parade.  Let me tell you, I did not want to go to a parade of any kind.  I hate parades, I hate crowds, I hate being short and having to crane my neck to see whats going on.  It's not fun!  We had a great time.  We kind of wandered around the parade route, but we saw a bunch of awesome floats and lots of people.  It's just really inspiring to see all these people who are so excited and enthusiastic about something so important to them.  So that put me in a pretty great mood.

To sum up... NY is awesome, there is so much to do, and you should not be afraid to get out there!!

Here are some websites with free (or cheap) events posted regularly.  Get out there and enjoy our great city!

http://www.nycgo.com/free/
http://www.nycgovparks.org/events/bM
http://www.cityparksfoundation.org/calendar/
http://www.timeout.com/newyork/things-to-do/free-things-to-do-in-new-york-city-1


Please feel free to leave more event suggestions or links for me and other readers.  Thanks!