This lifestyle is good for my diet...

Well hello there, blog friends, how in the world are you?

I am....tired. Dang! I think I mentioned, but just in case I didn't, I'm MOVING and standing up in a wedding in Nashville this Saturday. Meaning I need to be in two places at once...or very prepared. I'm choosing the prepared option since the other one would likely not work for me. So I have been spending every spare minute at my apartment packing! I hired movers whom Taylor will be supervising on Saturday morning while I get ready for the wedding. So yeah, after we got back from our fun trip to Philly yesterday, I packed until 12:30am, got up, went to work, left work, went to practice (more on that later), and came home to shower and keep packing. Hopefully I'll be in bed by a little after midnight so I can get up, go to work early so I can leave early to come back and finish packing! Whew!

So anyway, back to what you really want to hear about: the PAIN of practice! Well, today was another almost-rainy Tuesday (last week was almost rainy in that it stopped right before practice, but I wasn't there, I was running 7:56 miles downtown!). So as I got out of the subway today at 72nd Street, it is POURING rain. Some random participant saw my Team In Training vest and goes, "We don't run in this do we?" The answer is YES, we DO. But I was most concerned about what to do with my bag of work clothes and electronics that I had brought. Luckily, TNT has bag watch so you can bring stuff with you, but not in the rain. Then I remembered that there's a covered area near where we were meeting so all was not lost. I actually ran in to one of my mentees at the entrance to the park. Lauren looked slightly freaked out at the prospect of running in the rain. I realized, though, that it was actually very bright and would probably clear up. Which it did, minutes later and it became a nice night for a run.

Whew, and what a run it was! Our run consisted of 3 miles of effort (not speed) intervals. We had to run 6 lampposts (about .3 miles) at about 80-85% capacity followed by about .15 miles at a recovery pace. Whew! It was NOT easy. I was hurting, but not until the very end when we returned to our bag did I really start to sweat profusely (it was nasty) and get light-headed when I bent over to stretch. Luckily, we did what any sensible people would do, drug our sweaty selves to the nearest bar for a quick recovery drink. Whew!

Ok, my new goal is to have some pictures to post. I'm sorry I keep forgetting! I promise to take some next week at practice.

Well, I will be out of town this weekend at my friend's wedding in Nashville, so I won't have much to report about practice, though I do plan to do an old favorite run while I'm in Nashville. Should be a good time. And now I sign-off like the late Dr. Bob Cooke of Family radio:

Until I meet you again by way of blog, walk with the King today and be a blessing!

11 mentees!

I can hardly believe it, right now I have 11 mentees for the New York City Marathon. I'm going to see if I can name them all: Rosa, Lauren, Chris, Tim, Kirsten, Mandi, Sav, Sue, Sara, Rebecca, and Liz. Whew!! That was in no particular order by the way, but I'm proud I was able to do it. These eleven amazing people are doing what I did a year ago, training and fundraising for their first (or in a couple of cases second, third, or even forth!) marathon! I am so honored to be their mentor and will try to introduce you to each of them throughout the season. They are pretty cool!

So it's Memorial Day weekend (ie, the official kick-off of "get-the-heck-out-of-Manhattan" season). It's supposed to be a BEAUTIFUL weekend, and I'm excited to kick it off tomorrow with a run in Central Park! Then, I think Taylor and I are going to check out the Cloisters and just enjoy the weather. Should be a great, relaxing day. I also have to keep working on packing because I'm moving next Saturday!!! Well...I should correct that, Taylor is moving me on Saturday because I will be in Nashville at my friend Tracy's wedding. Taylor will be here supervising the movers we hired to take all my stuff across town to me new neighborhood, the Upper East Side...yeah I know, I can't believe it either! I am excited though because I'm moving in with my friend Kiernan and it should be a blast. Well, I must get some sleep but I'll update you after my run tomorrow!

Just call me Speedy

Well, today I ran the Wall Street Heart Run 5K for the American Heart Association. I ran with a friend from work and had REALLY hoped to beat him in the race. However, sadly I was unable to beat him EVEN THOUGH I did race my fastest race ever! I did 7:56 miles for 3 miles for a total time of 23:50. Not bad for me! :)

As for my fundraising...things are going rather slowly, but I have confidence that it will pick up. Please donate If you haven't yet! :)

Well, I have to be at work early tomorrow, so sorry to cut this short. Please check back soon for more updates!

Well hello there!

Well, I just sent out a large batch of fundraising e-mails so if you are here as a result of that, THANKS for coming!! :) I hope you noticed I did some pretty fancy merging, so hopefully it all turned out and you were able to read and respond. Don't worry, I'll be sending monthly updates so you can't forget I'm here :)

Anyway, this weekend we had practice on Saturday and it was BEAUTIFUL! It's funny, NYC seems to be in the habit of being gross and rainy on Friday night, thereby making me have no desire to go out or even stay up late. Which is perfect because then when it's beautiful on Saturday morning, I'm all ready to go!

So anyway, on Saturday we ran by time, which our coach assures us is a much better mental exercise than running by distance because it helps combat all the psychological issues that come from thinking "oh I have 2 more mile to go" or "how fast was I running if it took me X number of minutes to go that many miles." It's true, it does help combat some of that, so we had a nice fun, easy, stress-free run on Saturday.

And by the way, I LOVE my mentees! They are just the greatest people! In fact, I ended up going out to the all-team social on Saturday night with Mandi and we had a good time. It was at a roof-top bar and they had drink specials and it was pretty fun. All though, true to form for me lately, I only stayed until about 10pm, so it wasn't that exciting of a night. In fact, I'm up later writing this right now than I was last night! :)

So this week I will be missing TNT practice because I am running a race with my co-worker. I'm a little competitive with him, so I've been training hard! We're doing a 5K and I have to somehow do sub-8-minute miles which, frankly, isn't my style (nor is it technically in my ability, but I am going to try!). So...be on the lookout for an update on the outcome of the great showdown of '08!

With that, I must get to bed. Please bookmark this page and come back often!

Long Overdue Post

Ok! So as promised I re-did my blog this weekend, but I was so busy making that text on the right scroll that i didn't have time to introduce the blog! So this is my new "look and feel" as it were and on these hallowed pages you will follow my adventures through my second marathon!

I am so excited to be startig this journey again. We've already had two practices and I have 7 mentees whom I will be helping through this process. We are having a great time so far! On Saturday, it was a beautiful day in NYC and before practice I went on a short run on my own just to get some miles in. At practice, I joined the Intermediate running group and we did 2 lower loops of the park. Each loop is 1.7 miles so that's about 3.4 miles. It was fun and I got to run with one of my mentees, Mandi who's tons of fun!

Then last night we did another run in the park (and again it was beautiful, we're in luck!). We ran 4.5 miles up the west side of the park. I got to run with another of my mentees this time and realized that the runners in our group are really speedy! It was a workout!

Alright, well sadly I am busy busy at work, but I wanted to update you. My fundraising will kick off this weekend so BEWARE, you'll be hearing from me soon!

Good Questions, Aunt Sheryl and Ben :)

Well, for those who have been following my blog (and I imaging that's probably not many of you beyond those already entrenched in the riveting drama), it's been an exciting few weeks, huh? I mean, Taylor gets the Fulbright, I drink lotion, and now my Aunt Sheryl in Whyoming and my friend Ben from New York are having a good ole' fashioned sharing time :) I'm good.

Well, I wanted to take a minute to warn you. My blog will be debuting a new identity in the very near future. It's about to be taken over by running, fundraising, and homeless people (not necesarily in that order, so watch out!). For now, I actually have some work to do, but check back late on Saturday for the full scoop! In the meantime, feel free to ask any questions you'd like of Aunt Sheryl (or Ben, for that matter).

Third Wheeling - the new dating

Ok, so my friends Megan and Ben have specifically requested a shout out on my blog. They like to read my blog and then torment me about what I write. They take particular enjoyment from subject lines like "Good Question, Aunt Sheryl." In fact, Ben told me on Thursday "I want Aunt Sheryl to ask a question about me!" So, Aunt Shreyl, ask away. In fact, I hope you don't mind, but in order to properly introduce everyone, here is the cast of characters:

Ben:
Megan "Bunchy":
Aunt Sheryl (Only picture I could find, it's my whole family. Aunt Sheryl is in the pink hat):
Ok, so I'll let the questions commence. In other news, I saw some celebrities last night when I went to get a drink with my friend Wendy!!!

So the first wasn't such a major celebrity, but I recognized him immediately from Project Runway this season: http://photos.killervirgo.com/projrun4-cast2.JPG (top, middle).

Yep, he was our bartender, which I thought was king of cool. It was kind of a hole-in-the-wall place too. Not too many people were there when we arrived. So we basically had the bar to ourselves with him. Of course I didn't say anything.

THEN, after we were sitting there for a while, I glanced at these two women who had been there the whole time we had and realized one of them was Cybill Shepherd. I assume she was a regular there because they seemed to know the bartender and didn't really move or get approached by anyone the whole time we were there. So there you have it. New York, so exciting :)