london

Back to Reality

June 11, 2012 by Kristy 12 Comments

All good things must come to an end. This is true of vacation-palooza. Kauai, London, and Paris were all amazing in their own way. Kauai was active, scenic, and refreshing. London and Paris were about exploring, strolling, and marveling.

But now it’s back to normal life and checking back into it.

My body seemed to be revolting a bit on Sunday. Too many nights of drinking made my stomach churn. Too little water during the day (coupled with numerous beers at night) made my head ache from dehydration. I feel squishy too.

I’m making a conscious effort to eat better this week and stay away from this:

Evil (via)

Matt went to the grocery store in Paris to pick up wheat bread and PB so we could have a cheap and easy breakfast each morning. He came back with Speculoos; it was the only “PB” available other than Nutella. Oh my god was is delicious. We killed the entire jar in 4 days, mostly because of my compulsive need to eat spoonful after spoonful. Turns out this is available at Trader Joe’s (thanks to Jen for this finding)! I’m trying my best to not make a pit stop at TJ’s and pick up a few jars.

On Sunday I’m making a return to barre to take care of the squishy side effects of vacation-palooza. My last barre class was a few weeks before Boston and I miss it so much. Squishiness be gone!

I do feel really good about where my running is at the moment. I’m hoping to hit the mid-40s mileage-wise this week – nothing fast, just running whatever pace I want for that day.

Have you ever tried Speculoos or TJ’s Cookie Butter? It rivals PB & Co.’s White Chocolate Wonderful, which I affectionately refer to as crack. What would we do without PB or specialty butters?!

Long Live The Queen

June 5, 2012 by Kristy 9 Comments

I’m starting to think we are being stalked by Queen Elizabeth II. That’s right, she is stalking us commoners.

Last May, we were in Ireland and she made an unprecedented visit. Unprecedented as in she never visited Ireland before. And it just so happened to overlap with our trip. It didn’t hinder our sightseeing too much. Some things were closed and we had to take a few detours but, otherwise, no big deal. We even got a glimpse of her going by in her car. Pretty cool.

Giving her best royal wave

Last week we were researching where to go and what to do in London and noticed some things were closed due to the “Queen’s Diamond Jubilee”. Hmmm. Again, we thought no big deal.

Let me put it this way – the Olympics are about to take place in London in a little over 6 weeks and there is no indication of any preparation. The only thing we saw (sadly) was a small, digital countdown to the Olympics near our hotel in Trafalgar Square. That’s it. They are too busy celebrating the Diamond Jubilee. It was a HUGE deal.

They love their Queen, that’s for sure. And while it was cool to take part in the festivities, London was crowded and bridges/sights were closed. Not cool. We spent a mere weekend in London and again it overlapped with a “Queen” event.

We did get to do our run along the Thames though. We had to be a bit creative since bridges were closed and people were camping out along the Thames to watch the flotilla (in honor of…you guessed it, the Queen).

He came out of retirement…

We hit a bunch of pubs at night and came across one called Endurance. Obviously, we had to go in for a beer. It was an odd mix of taxidermy, disco balls, and bad music (Salt-N-Pepa’s “Push It”). We stayed for 1 beer.

We did like London and we did have a great time…I just wished we came last weekend (apparently the weather was gorgeous too). It was nice to watch The Royal Family (and by family I mean Will, Kate, and Harry). We only see pictures of them in the US and it was fun to see them interact with the crowd and one another. They are human, imagine that!

Fireworks after the Queen’s concert at Buckingham Palace…

Friday Thoughts

June 1, 2012 by Kristy 13 Comments

Bonjour! Just practicing.

Speaking of French, after 2 years of high school French and 3 semesters of college French, I can’t speak a lick of it. I can read some but once it leaves my mouth, it’s horribly butchered and completely wrong. The side of your brain (right?) that helps with foreign language learning is also the same side that prevents me from drawing a decent stick figure. But if you need me to explain the intricacies of the kidney to you, I’m your girl.

The past 2 weeks of running have been great! Quality runs, decent long runs, and…fun. Not worrying about pace and not hitting the track every week is freeing.

Since Boston, I’ve been kind of checked out of reality. Pretty easy to do with Boston, Kauai, and now London/Paris back-to-back. I must say the life of a gypsy (that’s what my co-worker called me yesterday) is sweet!

I have 2 runs planned while we are in London and Paris. I wish I could do more but our itinerary is jam packed. In London, walking along the Thames was on our list so we decided to make an early morning run out of it. Notice I said “we”? Matt agreed to join me and come out of his early retirement from running! In Paris, I plan on doing a solo run along the Seine while Matt goes to the French Open with his nephew. Fun, fun, fun!

Would your (non-running) significant other agree to go on a vacation run with you? Matt was technically a runner at one point and did a few HMs and a marathon but he hated every second of it. So he retired.

Are you fluent in another language? If so, I’m impressed. That’s definitely not in the cards for me!

Vacation-palooza

May 9, 2012 by Kristy 16 Comments

What a week.

The whole 9-to-5 thing got really busy (bad) and coaching got busy (very good).

Enter vacation-palooza. Next week kicks off the first of 2 vacations we have lined up: Kauai then Paris/London. Considering they are 2 weeks apart makes for a fun and stressful month.

My running shoes will be in tow for both vacations but I’m not stressing about getting in the miles. We’ll be on our feet most days anyway hiking around Kauai and exploring Paris/London on foot.

That’s all I got, folks – short and sweet today! I may post from Kauai or unplug from blogging. We’ll see.

Good luck to everyone racing this weekend!

Great Destinations

December 5, 2011 by Kristy 23 Comments

Today’s post isn’t running-related at all. It’s all about traveling!

Matt and I got our first taste of traveling on our honeymoon and since then we have not been able to stop thinking, researching, dreaming, and booking more trips. It’s funny since prior to our honeymoon, we both barely been outside the US. We didn’t step on a plane until college and grew up vacationing at the Jersey Shore (Wildwood for me, Ocean City for him). Since gallivanting around Europe in 2009, we can’t seem to get enough.

We decided to honeymoon in Europe because why the hell not? Since we both never been there, we couldn’t decide on just 1 country to visit so we went with the European cruise. The cruise itself was not our thing (old people doing the hokey pokey and macarena – no thanks), but getting to see so many European cities in 2 weeks was fantastic.

208 — stickers = group tour. another not-so-fun side of cruising.

A year later we went to Australia (sidenote: our trips always fall post-marathon – no idea why 😉 We went to Australia 5 days after the Steamtown Marathon in October 2010). Words can’t describe Australia. I’ll show pictures instead.

our first surf lesson ever...in bondi beach!

211 — we found nemo in the great barrier reef

This past May we went to Ireland (again, post-NJ Marathon). So many pubs, so little time.

NEXT UP….Kauai in May and Paris/London in June!!!

We have been thinking about Hawaii for some time now and May would be a perfect time to go (post-Boston, of course!). Paris and London we could not pass up. Matt’s brother-in-law teaches a summer course in Paris and will be there throughout June in an apartment. All we needed to do was pay for airfare. See how we couldn’t pass it up?!?! And Matt came up with the idea to tack London on (it’s only a 2 1/2 hour train ride from Paris to London). So yes, we are very excited!

My question for you…if you could plan a trip anywhere in the world, where would you go (and why)? I love hearing people’s response to this question!