Marathon Monday 2011

In Boston, the day of the Boston Marathon coincides with Patriot's Day, a day that celebrates the ride of Paul Revere.  The city of Boston and some other neighboring towns will usually take this day as a holiday, mainly because the marathon really hinders any sort of traveling across the city.  This year, Marathon Monday landed on April 18th.

Runners and Spectators take over Beacon St. in Brookline

It's actually quite a great day, especially if it's a warmer spring day.  For the most part, everyone on the street is cheering on their friends, family members, and complete strangers.  And all the adults have their red plastic cups out without any fear that the cops will harass them. 

No fear of being hit by a train!
 When Bostonians cheer, they cheer HARD!

There are tons of volunteers who sign up to staff water stations throughout the marathon route.  As we were standing there on St. Paul St and Beacon (a little bit after Mile 24), we noticed that the volunteers started getting in the way of the runners!  They literally were trying so hard to make sure that the runners would grab the tiny cup of water from their hand that they started standing closer to the middle of the road instead of sticking to the sidewalk.

It was honestly quite frustrating!  I get that they were trying to be "helpful."  But if you're literally IN THE WAY of the runners, you're definitely NOT HELPING!  I kept saying to these idiots to keep moving back to the sidewalk, but they would look at me like I was the crazy person.  My friends and I couldn't believe the audacity.

This man, on the other hand, stayed on the side handing out
 Red Bulls.  Definitely not a helpful drink..but he meant well.

While it's truly inspiring to see so many people run through the city with the goal of getting to the finish line, it really did ingrain in me the fact that I could never be a runner.  I definitely don't aspire to finish a marathon.

Instead, I'll gladly spectate and cheer and applaud and hand out water from the side.

Setbacks with Bootcamp and Lent

No Bootcamp This Week
Well, I woke up ass-early on Wednesday, and made my way to the North Station area just to find out that there wasn't class at all this week.

I was so angry about waking up early that I managed to motivate myself to attempt running around the Chestnut Hill Reservoir.

April 2010,
The boyfriend and I were taking a walk around the city.
This is us around the Chestnut Hill Reservoir...
well, I cropped him out...

So, I tried to get all motivated, though my pockets had a little too many things in them (keys, phone, Zune, T pass, and photo ID).  I put on my "Buttkicking" playlist, and did 2 rounds (which turns out to be about 1.56mi per round) around the Reservoir of intermittent jogging and walking.

Running sucks ass.  I just really don't know if I can get down with it.  I just don't want to get so winded just from running around during bootcamp.

Plus, my phone didn't do the best job of tracking how many calories I burned, which was even more extremely frustrating.  I'd gladly have done the hour of bootcamp instead of the hour of running.

A friend of mine suggested a phone app called "Couch to 5K," which I guess makes one able to run a 5K after 9 weeks.  I'm still pretty irritated with running, but I'm willing to give it a try - maybe when bootcamp is over.  Maybe.

Lent Fail
Later that day, I asked the boyfriend to bring me some portobello mushroom burger action, especially since there was some ground beef that needed to be turned into burgers (mmmm...delicious home-made burgers...with cheese...).  He brought home a veggie portobello burger pack.

As I started preparing our Cuisinart Grill, I take a look at the ingredients.  Lo and behold, there is cheese in the garden burger.

One of the first rules that I learned during this diet is that vegetarian ≠ vegan.  There are so many things that have milk lecithin or milk powder or cheese or something ridiculous.

And at the same time, you would be just as surprised to know what things are just high fructose corn syrup or just plain sugar.  For example, I can't have Honey Bunches of Oats (which has whey from milk); however, I can have Frosted Mini-Wheats (which has whole grain wheat, sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and gelatin).

Makes you feel really good that that
frosting is just sugar and HFCS, huh?
Super healthy, for sure...

Well, I ate that veggie burger anyway.  I'm not about to let the food go to waste, and I think the boyfriend will do better about looking at the ingredients next time.

I also went back on my Lent Challenge completely by accident on my way back from New York.  I was in desperate need of some coffee.  Knowing that I probably wouldn't be able to get any soy milk when we stopped at a gas station, I instead asked for a Chai Tea Latte.  Yeah.  Though it *looked* like it might have been an Oregon Chai-like mix (which is dairy-free), I didn't really see it.  It *tasted* like it could have haid milk.  Clearly, I was still too sleepy to realize that I still ordered a beverage with milk in it.

But then, the Saturday before leaving for New York, I knowingly said "screw you" to the diet.  A dear friend was celebrating her 30th birthday with a dessert and cheese party.  I mean, she makes delicious desserts, and it was her 30th!!!  Knowing that I'm not doing the Lent Challenge to get closer to god or whatever, I knew that it would really just be disappointing myself.

Well, that birthday dessert party was so worth it.  But completely losing my mind over the Chai Tea Latte just pisses me off.

Well, lessons learned.

3 WEEKS LEFT!!!