DO IT!

Register for the Flying Monkey Marathon with me.

The race is on 20 November in Nashville, TN.

Registration opens tomorrow (Monday) morning at 8am CST. Last year, registration was only open for 32 minutes. You will have fun. I will be doing it. You should do it, too.

Yeah, my sister is still here

But I'm less excited about it.*

See, I arranged yesterday morning for her to run with a group of women around her speed. She's much faster than me, and I knew I'd be holding her back if we ran together the whole time.

We were meeting them at 6:15 at Engineer's Gate. That's on the east side of Central Park and I live on the west side of the city, so the easiest way to get there was to run. No problem! It's a touch over 3m. Oh, wait... that meant waking up at, you know, 5:15. Let me clarify - 5:15 in the morning.

I got my sister up, though, and we sort of shuffled/ran into the park when disaster struck!

[Redacted: my sister made me take out an anecdote here that was very relevant, trust me. She said, "How is that important to anyone?" JUST CLICK THE LINK, OKAY, AND YOU'LL UNDERSTAND.]

Finally at the meeting point a few minutes late, I left my sister with the group. It was originally my plan to shuffle around while they got their run in, but when I got there I promptly decided I needed to go back to bed instead. I went to Starbucks and got a trenta of iced tea and then headed home. (I actually got a large. Trenta is redonk).

When I got home an hour later, my sister was sitting, soaking wet, in the stairwell outside of my apartment.

I asked her how it went, and she was kind of demure. "Oh, I was really dehydrated," she said, sheepishly. What? "I was kind of out of it. Um, I think that they might have thought I was kind of rude," she added. Errr?

I asked her, "Did you get to talk to Maria? She's nice and she's funny, and I think her training plan is a lot like yours!" She said, "Um, not really. Um, no."

I asked her, "Did you compare notes with Susan on your marathons? I think her PR is only about a minute off from yours!" Her, "Um... um, no?"

Me: "Did Megan tell you that she lives in my neighborhood (for now)?" Her: "No, no, um, that didn't come up."

Me: "Did you talk to Kelly? She's a really good friend of mine!" Her: "I'm not really sure which one she was? They all just kind of talked. I didn't really say much."

ARE YOU SERIOUS? In other words, my sister is that girl of the running group. The one that stays apart from everyone else and just kind of lurks.


What the hell, Mandy, what the hell!

*(Just kidding. I mean, my sister is weird, obviously. But my annoyance is meant in good fun.)

My sister's here!

Nothing to say today because I'm out running with my sister, who's in town from Chicago to visit me (and run in Central Park). Yay!

Christmas 2010. I guess I gave her a colander?

I'm calling you out.

I'm calling you out.
Well, some of you.
Well, actually probably not any of you who read this.
And I'm not calling you out by name, anyway.

Who am I calling out, then?
I'm calling out bloggers who give training advice.

I'm calling out people who are all "This is what I do, and it worked for me that one time, so this is what you should do, too. Eat this, run that, buy all of this... Trust me."

STOP IT.

I can't tell you what to do. I wouldn't tell you what to do. DO NOT TRUST ME. Sure, if you want advice on something I'm actually professionally qualified to speak on, I'll give it (but first you have to tell me what it is that I'm professionally qualified to speak on) (Hint: nothing).

What I can do is give you anecdotes about me, about my training, about what works for me, about what I like. More often than not this falls into the category of "anti-advice." Cautionary tales.

See, if you've read this blog for more than a day, you know a not-very-well-kept secret: I'm not a very good runner. I have enthusiasm and some modicum of perseverance and absolutely no natural talent. Why on earth would you listen to me if I gave advice, anyway? And I'm not alone! Sure, there are blogs out there by talented runners. But even more of them are by crappy runners, like me. (No links there. You know who you are.)

But that's the rub: a BlogHer study has shown that 88% of blog readers trust the advice they read in blogs. Now, let me tell you a little secret: not only am I not qualified to give you running advice, but neither are most other bloggers. And yet they give advice... by the droves.

And this bothers me.

Clue phone, it's for all of you blog readers: even professional athletes have coaches. Even professional runners (well, minus Ryan Hall) don't profess to have all the running answers but instead listen to someone else's advice.

Or, as Running is Funny said in response to why he doesn't give running advice, "1) Everybody gives running tips; and 2) they are mostly full of crap."

So stop giving advice you're not qualified to give. You're mostly full of crap.

And, for the love of god, NO MORE FOOD PICTURES.

From here.

Mind games

Saturday: I ran 11m. It was tough. And then it was done.

Oh, did you want more?

Okay, then. There's also this: my mind played games on me during this weekend's long run. Wicked games.



(Maybe not wicked like that.)

Granted, it was in the 80s when we started our long run at 7am. And granted that I had a miserable cold and didn't get enough sleep. And granted... as sad as I am to admit this... I just kind of wasn't feeling it. I haven't been, for a while now.

But this weekend! On one hand, I'm happy that I got an 11m run in. On the other hand, it was hard. When I would stop to walk, my body would instantly yell at me. Dizziness, chills, all of the symptoms of heat exhaustion would hit me. But they were psychosomatic. (I'm pretty in touch with when heat is bad for me and when it's okay, and I wasn't at risk for heat exhaustion. My head just wanted me to think I was so I'd stop.)

It should have been a great run. Kim was in town from Chicago and we met up at the start. The course for the run was multiple loops of Central Park. Around mile 5, I had convinced myself to stop. Not even Kim's company was pushing me through (I felt terrible and Kim was - literally - running circles around me to avoid taking walk breaks). Not even my plans to meet Samantha for brunch after were convincing me to keep running. Just then, I heard someone say, "Are you Tracy?" It was Tara! Meeting her helped me was one of the only things that got me through a second loop of the park. We gossiped,* we walked, we drank a lot of water, we finished 11m. On one of the hottest days in New York history.

So, 11m done. Ugly. But done.

*It's amazing to me that the NYC running community can be so big and so small at the same time. Here we were, two women who knew each other only from the internet, and yet we were able to immediately start talking about other runners we knew (also from the internet). Maybe the NYC running community is big but the NYC internet running community is small?

A few things...

First off, The Brooklyn Marathon.

Eight laps of Prospect Park.

A much needed marathon in the city's most populated borough, or a crazy, crazy exercise in running in circles? I would kind of lean toward the latter.

The deets: 20 November, in Brooklyn. Only 250 spots, and it was 25% full yesterday. Why anyone would ever want leave Manhattan for a race, I don't know. I'd be there, but I'm going to be running another race in Nashville that day, hopefully. Of course, the super hardcore will be doing 9 laps of Central Park that weekend for the NYRR's lone ultra, the Knickerbocker 60k (last year's link). I will do that race some day. Mark my words.


Secondly, Foot Locker/Runner's World is having their Run Club again this year. Those of you with creepy good memories might remember that I did this program last year and liked it. I'm definitely doing it again this year. (I actually got really squealy and excited when I read their email about it.) If you're curious about my thoughts from last year, you can read them here.

I'm not cool enough to know how to make it that you can click on the picture for a link, so click HERE instead

The deets: every Monday and Wednesday from 25 July (that's three days from now, heads' up) through 14 September. Meets at Columbus Circle at 6:30pm. I'll be there. So will my friend Kate. What more do you need to know?

In case anyone is curious, next week I'll share some of my thoughts on the Jack Rabbit program I've been doing for the past eight weeks and how it compared to this program. If I make it through the weekend, that is.


Thirdly, the NYRR long training run that I'll be doing tomorrow has been scaled back. Originally it was to be a 20m run with paces up through 11 minute miles, meaning that the slowest group would be out running for nearly 4 hours. They're asking the pace groups to back off by 30 seconds per mile and closing the run off at 3 hours, which thanks to the logistics of the run (it's a multi-loop course) could be as little as 11 miles.

I'm cool with that. As I write this, it's 11:30pm and the temperature is 90 with a heat index of 100. I'm no hero. I'll scale back.

But I have a question and I need advice: I have a miserable, miserable cold (I know; nothing more fun than a summer cold!).  Any tips on running with a cold? On knowing when it's okay and not okay?

it would be remiss of me not to talk about the weather

On occasion you'll hear me blustering about how I used to live in Egypt, and how because of this, hot weather doesn't phase me.

Bullshit. I hate the heat more than anything in the world. Take me out of air conditioning for more than maybe three minutes at a time and I turn into a sweaty, sweltering, cranky hot mess. And making me run in it? Yeah. Most days I start sweating even before I start running. That's hot, right?

Still, the heat is responsible for one of my favorite memories from growing up: the Heat Wave of 1995.

No, the heat wave itself is not a pleasant memory. In fact, I still shudder (literally) thinking about it. I was about to leave Illinois for college, and we didn't have central air in our house. It was miserable. My mom, my brother, and I sweated through it, mostly by yelling at each other and by running the heck out of a window unit, taking a lot of showers, and praying for no brownouts to affect our power.

Nearly 1000 people died that summer because of the heat. It was a massive public health crisis. One of my brother's good friends at the time participated in a benefit event, with her youth choir singing to raise money for the cause.

That's where the humor comes in. My brother and I promptly put together a list of songs we suggested to her that she sing. Not only did she not think it was funny, but she was really, really angry about it. The angrier she got, the funnier we found it to be. It got such that either of us humming one of these songs instantly sparked a fit of giggles.

What can I say? We're terrible people with a dark sense of humor that tends to make us laugh when uncomfortable.

Here are our suggestions:
-Summer in the City, the Lovin' Spoonful
-Hot hot hot, Buster Poindexter
-The Heat is On, Glenn Frey
-Heat Wave, Martha and the Vandellas
-Cruel Summer, Bananarama
-Hot Child in the City, Nick Gilder
-This wasn't around in 1995, but I think I'd have to add Hot in Herre, Nelly. (I cleared it with my brother. He laughed.) My brother also added Sex on Fire, Kings of Leon and Burnin' Up, the Jonas Brothers, but I'm rejecting those two as I don't like Kings of Leon and I'm embarrassed that a grown man knows a Jonas Brothers song.

Now, whenever there's a miserable heat wave like the one we're under,* I think to myself, "You're not dead," and then I think, "Remember those songs." And I laugh. I LAUGH IN THE FACE OF A TRIPLE DIGIT HEAT INDEX. It never gets old.

What songs am I missing? What would you add to the list?

Also, thank you for all your thoughtful comments yesterday. I did go out and run yesterday evening and again this morning. They were good runs with good company, but they only confirmed that I need to run more and more and more.

*I know corn futures are tied to the economy and all, but I'm just going to put it out there and say I really don't care about the crop yield when 22 people are already dead and predictions say this heat wave could be as bad as 1995. I may laugh when I hear songs about heat, but the heat wave itself was no joke. There were morgue trucks. The morgues couldn't hold all of the bodies, so they set up refrigerated trucks in the parking lots. Yeah. Makes me really, really not care if I don't have corn on my plate this August.

Why was I crying on a park bench the other day?

Why? Beats me. But, I'll tell you how I got there.

My plan for the weekend was this: Saturday morning, try out the Nike Marathon Training Group (out of Niketown) and see if that could be my long run; Sunday morning, run with the NYRC Marathon Training Group - for my long run if need be, or just for a recovery run otherwise.

I'd heard that the Nike runners were a large group and that they were more friendly to slower runners. They also have a policy of not leaving the last runner behind, which I like. So, I was excited.

I'd run with them once before, and it was an odd experience, enough so that I never returned. I think it may have been before I started this blog. It was the middle of winter, cold and dark, and we were running an out-and-back 4m. A little before the turn around, I noticed the last Nike pacer was kind of circling around near the woman who had to have been the very last runner. The woman was struggling. I stopped to walk, more to see if this woman needed company than for myself. And she did! (When I say the pacer was circling around near here, that's literal - she'd run ahead, run back, stop and stretch, run back.)

It turns out this woman had never run before in her life, but some coworkers had told her to try the Nike group since they're encouraging of all abilities. She was wearing a cotton sweatshirt, yoga pants, and older shoes. We walked together for a bit - just long enough for the pacer to think we were friends and to wander farther afield.

Now, I was stuck. Frankly, I didn't want to walk the 2m back to the store with this woman. But, I didn't see how I could abandon her. I tried everything: "We'll feel warmer if we run!" or, trying to get the pacer's attention and point out to her that I didn't know this woman. Finally, the pacer came over by us and started small talking.

She mentioned something about a race she'd done recently, and I murmured the polite, "oh, that's so impressive," that was called for. And here's what the pacer said: "Oh, you'll get there. Coming out today is a great start. Soon you'll be able to run the full 4m, and then someday a 10k, and if you keep trying, maybe even a marathon eventually! You don't have to run fast to get to the finish, you know."

Yeah, I know. Trust me, I know.

I wasn't offended by her comment so much as by the fact that she didn't even listen to us enough to catch on that a) we weren't friends, and b) I actually was a runner capable of running 4 (or more!) miles. I don't hold it against Nike or against that particular pacer. But it was annoying.

So, Saturday. They do have a large group, and the plan was to run 10m around Central Park. My typical pace for long runs (and I wanted to add a few miles on post-Nike) has been around 11 minute pace, and with the hills of Central Park I was thinking I'd scale that back to 11:15 or 11:30, even (it was hot). When they divided us up into groups for pacing, the last group was planning to run a 10 minute mile pace.

Whoa, there. I can't do that. My fastest pace for Central Park during a 4m race is 9:52. My 10m race PR is 10:30.

I told the pacer that I'd be the last, and she said she'd keep an eye out for me. She meant that literally - every little bit she'd glance over her shoulder and make sure I was still there.

So there I was, during a hot part of the day (they don't start until 9, which was actually more like 9:15 or 9:30), running a course I hate, all by myself.

I tried to pull it together and salvage the run. I knew it wouldn't be my long run, but could it at least be a decent tempo run? The first mile, with the stupid Cat Hill, was 10:08 by my watch - and I was a ways behind the group. By mile 2 (slowed to 10:20 on my watch), I couldn't even see the group anymore. I was done and I decided to run home. The pacer had turned around to run back to me, so I told her that the group was too fast for me and that my run was over and I'd be leaving Central Park. She looked confused; I could tell she didn't know how to handle the situation and I felt kind of bad about it, but I couldn't keep up.

So I left Central Park at 100th St., sat down on a park bench in the middle of the intersection of Amsterdam and 100th, and felt the tears. Tears that I'm a crappy runner, tears that I couldn't keep up with that group, tears that my long run was bagged, tears that I ran TWO TIMES last week because of this stupid funk.

I got it together after a few minutes (okay, actually after I was kicked off the bench by some guy watering flowers) and I ran home - the second half of the run was actually pretty great.

But that's where I'm at. I'm determined that this week will be better and I'll get myself together. Starting... tonight after work. When I run. Hold me to it.

Emo Tracy

My brother called me yesterday and said that he and his friends were very worried about me because of how many depressing things I've said on twitter lately. At his request, I even gave myself a new hashtag, #emotracy:

Um, yeah.

I'm actually a-okay. Most of the depressio act is in jest. The heat gets me down, sure, but overall I'm fine. Okay, not totally fine. I'm cranky as hell. And running is NOT making me less cranky.

Something I hear people say all the time goes something like this: "I'm so glad I went out and ran! You only regret the runs you don't take!" Right. Because running is always better than not running. But is that true?

I love running, and I love running for the sake of running. I'm one of those weirdos who would keep running even if it didn't burn calories. Still, I've had a bad stretch of two weeks:

• Last week, I went to put my running clothes on one afternoon and got such an intense, chilling sense of foreboding that I promptly sat down on the couch with some ice cream instead. I'm not superstitious, and I wasn't trying to get out of my run. But this wasn't like anything I've experienced before.
• Then, this past Saturday, I had a run that was so bad that I honest to god ended up sitting on a park bench, crying. More on that later.
• And then, yesterday morning when I was all set to get up and run, I rolled over to turn my alarm off and immediately felt the crazy vertigo that sidelined me a few months ago. I walked around all day, tenderly, with my head pointed only in one direction.

Bad runs exist. And it's possible that not running is better than running sometimes.

I'm trying not to beat myself up too badly, but #emotracy likes to take over and she's an angry one. She beats herself up, she doesn't accept excuses (even when legitimate), and she likes wallowing.

She also needs to go, NOW. Pollyana Tracy has a marathon or two to train for.

I'm alive and well

Okay, so maybe not well, in that my Internet went out last night inexplicably. Hopefully I'll be back once it comes back! Posting from one's phone is NOT a viable option.

Have a good day.

Life gets in the way!

Busy, busy, busy, busy.

I really hate it when I can't do things like blog about running because of things like commitments and obligations and real life (non-running) stuff.


I'll be back before you even have a chance to miss me - hopefully within a week? Pretend I'm on vacation or something. Yes. A nice, lovely, relaxing vacation. I'm sitting by a pool or a beach with a drink. It's totally not true unfortunately, but let's pretend.

My last "relaxing" vacation. Less than 12 hours later Cairo was on fire.

Things I've read in the past few days that have made me happy

So you should read them, too:

-An amusing review (by a man, no less) of the so-called "Healthy Living" blogs. He manages to capture perfectly why I feel such disdain for so many of these blogs.

-And oldie but a goodie: Washington Ran Here's take on charities, specifically Team in Training. I feel like she says a lot of what many of us think but feel too intimidated to say. (Stick around her blog and read more of it, too. She's good.)

-Emilie discusses why women shouldn't feel the need to apologize to everyone they run with about being slow. I've done the "Oh, no, really, I'm much slower than you are!" dance that she describes before.

-And finally, Bridget talks about a similar (and more annoying, if you ask me) problem: runners who complain about how slow they are, even when they're enviably fast.

And have a good weekend! What will I be up to? Fingers crossed, not much of anything. Maybe going to see a movie. Oh, yeah, and a long run. The schedule calls for 16 miles - hold me accountable!

Things I Do Not Like, July edition

Asics Chafe Free Endurance

Why don't I like it? Because it didn't work. I had a small tube in my handheld water bottle pouch and I tried to use it during a long run a few weeks ago. It seemed to work for about half an hour each time I applied - I would call it a failure, basically. SO, it's back to Body Glide. Except - what's that about Body Glide?

ENDURANCE MY ASS

Body Glide... for her.

Oh, yes, that. Why don't I like it? Because it's pink so I know it's for me since I'm a girl! But it's the same product, only more expensive because... the pink dye used in the plastic cap is pricey or something? Or maybe they charge more because they can. (Just like women's disposable razors are obscenely more expensive than men's.)

I'M A GIRL SO I LOOOOOOOVE PINK AND I'LL PAY HOWEVER MUCH YOU SAY IF IT'S PINK!

1.3 oz of Body Glide on Amazon: $8
.8 oz of Body Glide for her on Amazon: $7

Gu Brew Tablets

Oh, man oh man, how gross. I threw a tablet in my water bottle as I was heading out the door on Tuesday. It was hot, I was doing hill repeats, and I needed water with me. But this stuff - it was so gross. Sort of like Tang mixed with Crystal Light with a nasty aftertaste you couldn't shake.

To be fair, I have two tubes of this and I haven't thrown them away yet. It's mildly palatable as a post-run drink, so I'll keep it around. (Unlike Nathan Catalyst, which I tried and then promptly threw away.)

GROSS. GROSS.

Bikram Yoga

I feel like I'm supposed to like bikram because everyone does it. But you know what? I don't like it. I don't like the focus on pushing yourself further and harder into the poses, I don't like the hot room, and I don't like the fact that every class is always the exact same poses.

I have an unlimited pass to a local studio courtesy of Groupon, and I'll use it through July. But after that, I'm not sure that I'll be back to bikram for a while. And I think that maybe that's okay.

THIS IS BASICALLY ME, BUT I'M SKINNIER AND SWEATIER.

I have a question

I've had kind of a rough past week of running and I'm in dire need of a rest day (which I will be taking today, finally!). In other words, I woke up late and I have nothing witty prepared to blog about.

So instead I present you a question:

Would you rather run a good, solid marathon (or other distance) with consistent splits, and finish at the end feeling physically spent and confident that you did a great job?

or,

Would you rather run an uneven race, with inconsistent splits and some walking, and finish feeling like you didn't give it your all and could have done better... but with a finish time five (or more) minutes faster than option 1?

Yes, I'm back on the skirts again: Runner's World August issue

Living in Harlem, the mail takes as long as the subway sometimes to get up here. That's why I only yesterday received my August 2011 issue of Runner's World, featuring a Running Skirt on the cover. Not just any running skirt, but a pink and orange argyle running skirt. This skirt says, "Pay attention to me!!" (In fact, I happen to know someone who not only owns this skirt, but who looks hotter in this skirt than the cover model does.)

I'm sorry; did I subscribe to a fashion magazine by mistake while I wasn't paying attention? "32 ways to get the look" - are you serious? What's next: Sex tips for runners? "What kind of runner are you" quizzes? Mascara reviews?

I haven't really kept my feelings on Runner's World to myself. I read the magazine each month, but I think that it too often panders to the casual runner. I have no problem with casual runners - but running is a sport, it's a serious sport, and there is a line between encouraging casual runners to get out there and do it, and recycling the same tired tips over and over again and calling it content.

My take on this cover: who on earth wears a sportsbra with arm warmers? Granted if I had her abs I'd never wear a shirt, but still.

Specific to the "Fastonistas" article, here are things I learned:

• Kara Goucher "popularized the tanks-with-arm-warmers look" after running NYCM in 2008.... never mind that every runner I knew was cutting the toes off of knee socks to fashion arm warmers well before that.



Me in 2003. But I'm not wearing a tank, I guess.

• Shalane Flanagan "made a big splash" in her white knee socks at NYCM in 2010. But, again: have we forgotten Paula Radcliffe's knee socks well before that? Like, a decade before that?

Here Paula is in NY... in 2001.

Not even to mention how stupid and non-gender-specific these examples are. Arm warmers and compression socks as fashion statements? These are functional clothing first and foremost.

Ugh.

A three-page foldout in the middle of the article shows you how you can run! and shop! at the same time! in pretty colors!

I hope it goes without saying: I am not a fastanista. (I'm not an anything-nista, but that's another story).

But if you do want to talk about running fashion, let's address Galen Rupp's fashion choices:

I'll be no one has ever called him a stunner in that mask. (In case you didn't know, "stunner" stands for "stylish + running.")

I'm AMAZING! - a rare weekend post

The AMAZING M, who is an alternate to run Hood to Coast with Team Nuun,* has blog-meme-tagged me!

I'm supposed to answer some questions. Thing is, they're weird ones. Weird ones that I don't really have the answers to. But here goes:

My favorite cartoon character is... Gargamel? I guess. At least I thought so until I recently learned that the Smurfs are clandestine Nazi propaganda. Don't believe me? Read this essay written by an 11th grader. I rest my case.

My favorite thing to photograph is... Anthony Weiner's package, duh.

My favorite thing to cook is... I don't cook. I mean, I do when I need to. But I get no enjoyment out of it. So my favorite thing to cook is nothing. I can follow a recipe like a bamf and if I ever cook for you, you will enjoy it. However, know that I got no enjoyment out of the food preparation.


My favorite way to exercise is... Running. But if I had to tell you that - how did you find my blog, again?


My favorite movie is... oh, come now. We totally already went over this.

My favorite article of clothing is... the obvious answer is shoes, since I'm kind of a shoe-whore. However, I realized the other day that I own something like eight denim skirts. A denim skirt and a hoodie - sometimes with a scarf - is my year-round uniform.

Current fb profile photo. Note the denim skirt and hoodie.
There is a 98% chance I will be dressed like this if we meet in person.
(Unless I'm in running clothes.)

My favorite flower is... Um... there are words that I recognize to be flower names (tulip, orchid, rose, lily, um, carnation, um...), but I honestly couldn't tell you a daisy from a sunflower. Seriously.


My favorite breakfast is... a bowl of oatmeal, artistically photographed. Jk, jk. My favorite breakfast is last night's leftovers, heated up. The sight of Cheerios makes me feel like I could vomit.

I know I'm supposed to tag some people, but I also know that I'm where memes (and chain letters) go to die. So, if you want to tell me how you would have answered these questions, please do. If you'd rather join me eating cheese for the 4th of July, that's cool, too.

Most of this came home with me.

Happy 4th of July!

*It's not really my style to wish someone an injury/illness, but let's just say that I really hope that M makes the team... somehow.

Happy birthday, AMERICA!

And just like that, the year is half over.

IF - and yes, this is a big if since I'm seriously lagging from lack of sleep this week - IF my weekend goes according to plan, here is how I will spend it:

Saturday: I will meet the Van Cortlandt Track Club and run with them. Right? Yes, I will. Something on the shorter side, maybe only 5 or 6, but I'll do it.

Sunday: I will meet the New York Running Company's marathon training program for a 4-6m run. I'm going to try to give this a go, I think. I went to an info session Wednesday evening, and I'm potentially maybe kind of excited about trying it. The coach said that their program would be flexible and would top off about 55-60mpw, which sounds good to me. It's free! You should do it, too.

Monday: I will run the Holiday Marathons July 4th half as my week's long run. It's supposed to be nice weather so I have no excuse not to. It's free! You should do it, too.

Right? I will, not I might. Right?

And yes, this is a break from how I usually spend the 4th of July, which is sitting home in my underwear eating cheese. (True.) Except for two years ago, when I went to the top of the Statue of Liberty the day they reopened it:

...and met Anthony Weiner. Well, sort of. I mean, he was there, and I was there (he's on the left):

And then I went home and ate cheese in my underwear.

How will you celebrate your independence weekend? Please, someone tell me that they have more exciting plans than I have?