Boston, the Non-Marathon Edition

Because I can’t get enough of security lines and entertaining my fear of heights, I went to Boston this past weekends. My friend Jen got all married, and Christina went and bought a house with her manfriend, so I decided to see how grownups live.

My flight wasn’t until almost 5 PM, and I’d heard you can show up at the airport an hour before your departure time and be fine, so I left work a little after 1 and went to the gym to get my 3 mile run in. I don’t remember too much about it, so it must not have been too terrible for the treadmill.  I didn’t have time to shower, but I did have a variety of wipes with me, so hopefully Jen wouldn’t think I was too much of a dirtball.

I flew out of Atlantic City, also known as the Dirtiest Airport Ever. The people, the parking lot, the bathrooms, the security area – all of it. Appropriately, the only airline to fly out of there is Spirit. I knew Spirit was notorious for nickel and diming, but what I didn’t realize is that their planes are old as dirt and they don’t believe in maintaining them. 

 So glad I used a million wipes and wore a dress on the plane. EEK.

Convinced I was going to die, I said my goodbyes to Jen and then somehow landed on time in Boston – right in the middle of rush hour on a Friday. Jen must really love me. We went to Bella Luna for dinner, where I ate a big dinner since I was going to run 10 miles the next day. After all, I had learned my lesson from Austin! I even kept my drink choice limited to one Sam Adams Summer Ale. I was so proud.

We watched the Olympic opening ceremonies, and figured out a game plan for Saturday. Since the weather was going to be refreshingly cool, I decided to ditch the early morning run in favor of an afternoon run. How often do you get to do that in the summer?! We were going to sleep in, go to the Sam Adams Brewery tour which was a two minute walk from their condo, and then I’d run through Arnold Arboretum. Perfect!

So… they give out free beer on the Sam Adams tour. 21 oz. of it. 21 oz of beer on an empty stomach before noon. GAH.

Too buzzed to run, I instead ate a turkey sandwich and willed the sandwich to absorb the booze. Of course it did, pretty much in time for us to head Faneuil Hall about three hours later. Foiled again. We arrived downtown just in time for it to pour. We were soaked and cranky, and went to dinner in the North End early. After dinner my tolerance of the rain lasted just long enough to go get cannolis at Mike’s Pastry. It was good, but didn’t compare to Varallo Bros. 

We came home, watched some of the Olympics, and then went to bed around 11. I had to be up early in the morning. I needed to get done my cross training in time to meet Christina. Despite the rain, we had to go to the beach for a family party. So Jen drove me to Stoneham’s LA Fitness, where I did my 25 minutes of biking, and 25 minutes of elliptical work. Training complete for the day! The day was really low key. We hung out with her family, went to go check out the new house, and then had the dinner of champions before tackling my take two of 10 miles: Red Robin.

As terribly as I ate there, it got me through the 10 miles I needed to do on the treadmill. You know what I learned while spending two hours running nowhere? CNN would rather show the same tweets over and over about NBC’s coverage of the Olympics, than actually show coverage on the Olympics. GAHHH. I didn't even have sound to the TV. I was listening to house music while reading repeat tweets. However, I did finish the run in 1:59:30, which is almost 5 minutes fast than I finished the Broad Street Run. Christina met me at the gym armed with ice water, and then made me a fabulous omelet while I showered. From there we discussed her life as a grown up, got our toes  done, and then she took me to the airport.

Trust me, they looked a lot worse before.

I’d like to think my training went better than it did in Austin. My terrible choices didn’t completely derail me, and while I’m sore today, I don’t think I’ll have any problems getting my 3 mile run done tonight. Of course, now that I said that out loud, it will probably be miserable. At least my feet will look good doing it!