Saturday, March 26, 2011

How to practice safe cycling.

New York City has a Greenway that stretches alongside the Henry Hudson Highway, there is also one alongside the East River. Our city encourages people to use "green" transportation to travel throughout the city. Now, the greenway is also home to many skaters, runners and walkers - yes, cyclist you must share. During my run today I reached a turn around point at the first leg and I turned my head to look and a cyclist ran me over! Toe, throbbing I had to tell this wanna be Lance Armstrong that unless he was in the middle of the Tour de France, he should slow down. He yelled something back at me, but I was timing this run so I just kept going on my merry way. Here are a few points:
  1. If you are operating a car, bicycle, roller skates, roller blades or skate board - you are no longer a pedestrian and must yield to walkers and runners.
  2. Just like any sport, there are several rules of etiquette to follow, when passing on the left - announce it. 
  3. You know those bike bells? Buy one.
I hope in some strange way of the universe the man that ran me over with his bike finds this post and takes the appropriate actions to practice safe cycling. Oh and my toe is just fine, finished my 18 miler with an extra half mile for good luck.

Friday, March 25, 2011

Roller coaster called my life

This week has been a trip. I went from feeling like I've been broken up with on a post-it to attending a swanky party at 1-OAK and then preparing for my eighteen mile run tomorrow. I won't revel in the planning aspects for my run OR the annoying random mis-happenings of the week, so I will tell you about the party.
Eliza and I at Platform H fundraiser: SOS Japan
First, apologies in advance to my readers from the ivy leagues, but being in a crowd of ivy leaguers brings a different attitude and style. It's like a premature billionaire boys club with anticipations to one day rule the world. If you have every hung out with a crowd like this you know what I mean. Never condescending, but always on a pedestal. They definitely know how to have a good time, but if I have to pay 20 dollars for a mixed drink that isn't used with top shelf alcohol it should come with an appetizer.

Highlight of my night was walking into the bar with my sequins dress and seeing someone wearing the same thing. She went home to change. WINNING.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

And sometimes you just know...

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Has anyone ever revealed to you that some friends can be toxic?? Yes. The toxic friend. You know that friend that really doesn't give a crap about you, but they are a lot of fun?! The ebb and flow of the relationship is just as destructive as an over flowing toilet. No one likes to clean up the mess and pending the situation you might be knee deep in poo. Those toxic people are all around, my roommate is still friends with that psycho-kleptomaniac that used to live with us and I have witness a toxic or two incognito as man stealers. Back in high school during my I'm trying to be cool years, I had one of these toxics in my life. At the time I was the only one that could drive and she convinced me it would be cool to go joy riding in the middle of school. Well since this was my first time in the cool crowd and I didn't want to disappoint - I cut class and there we went piled into my VW bug and headed to the McDonald's on the other side of the tracks. Thinking and praying that I didn't run into my dad (and practically having my stomach drop every time we passed a black Lexus) all seemed to be going well... And then a little red light came on in my car - engine, dying. Immediately, I started to cry pulled over and saw bright red liquid pouring out the bottom of the car. I called my mechanic who told me that was a really bad sign and I should stop driving immediately or the engine would blow. Why me, right? Of course, we were no where near school, how was I going to explain to my dad what happened? So I lied. And if anyone knows me, I'm a terrible liar. I blackout, forget my story and get in even more trouble. Anyhoo, my so called "friend" this whole time is giving me horrible advice telling me to ditch the car and hope someone steals it. ABSOLUTELY NOT. Needless to say joy ride over, we stopped being friends and I was grounded for a week.
Again, one of these lessons learned -why didn't any one tell me that they aren't your friends if they tell you to skip school and go joy riding in the hood?
After Prom 2005 with Shan

Out of the phase, no longer susceptible to peer pressure and balanced by my ever So True friends, I embraced my nerdy self... ahhh much better (minus the acrylic nails).

Saturday, March 5, 2011

A little R&R

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Day one of my cabin fever - I've been sick all week and now I'm ready to leave. Remember that body realization I had this week in Dear Body, what's wrong with thee? well turns out the flu like symptoms were a virus. Going back to the origins of those viral symptoms, I forgot to record my run in with the crazy drug head on Sunday night before church. Yes, a crack head - stalked me at the 125th subway, slobbering, pigeon-toed and disgusting looking, yelling at me to leave the station. Needless to say, once I got away unscathed I thought of all the things I shoulda coulda done. Like kick her!! Everyone knows people who are high lack in the reflex department... Anyhoo since she touched me when she pushed me and tried to grab my purse, I blame this virus and my sentence to the bed on her. Thanks, and no thanks.

While I'm resting, I'm also thinking - worrying is more like it, because I'm worried this week being sick has set back my training plan. I'm concerned I won't be ready for May 1st (marathon). Luckily, I have a great friend and forever running partner that reassured me that in fact it takes your body three weeks to become out of shape. So this one week and subsequent week of rebuilding should not put me off track. Before talking to my friend, I tried writing, tweeting and searching running forums for an answer from someone else who's been in my position, but nothing on record. So I'm marking this as high priority anyone in training, this will not set you back (fingers crossed, will report back in two months). It also a bit ambitious to think that within 16 weeks training for a spring race, with most of the training at the tail end of flu season that you will be healthy through that whole time.

And if you aren't training for anything, except that extra special stressful work week, good hydration and nutrition can of course keep you on track - unless you run into a crazy in the subway and then you're out of luck.

Write to you soon my dear readers!

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Great minds, don't think about gas stations.

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This past week I joined some of my younger wahoos at the Get On the Street networking event at Public House. Get On the Street a the University of Virginia is an on grounds organization (student run) that creates a connection between current students and alumni that are in the corporate jobs. Not surprisingly, most corporate and communication jobs are lacking in the diversity department (specs of pepper in a mound of salt, if you catch the drift). The purpose of this initiative is to change that! Of course, when a friend reached out to me about it - this is exactly the type of program I'd love to lend a hand to.
Anyhoo, talking to some of these fourth years reminded me of my interview experiences and getting my feet wet in the marketing/communications world! My first interview was with a search marketing company in Charlottesville, Va-  I was a third year at the time and I had no idea what to expect. I thought it was going to be thinking of clever tags for articles so they would show up in Google at the top of the search results list ... wrong. Apparently, you have to be good in math to be in search marketing. When I arrived they decided to test my skills with excel formulas (fail), then they sent me to a room with 5 chairs and a dry erase board. When the 5 suits entered the room, I was asked to figure out how many ping-pongs would fit in the room. I wasn't privy to the size of the room OR the size of a ping pong for that matter. Needless to say I started to tell jokes about how great I was at math  - my interviewed turned into a Friday night comedy routine. Five minutes later with my not so future employers entertained; they said - "Danielle, let's forget the ping pong balls, how many gas stations are there in the United States?" No joke. Blank stare. They were serious! I made up some lame story about how I was from a town with two gas stations and I'm sure that wasn't indicative of an average US city, so I didn't have a good perspective to answer the question.  Embarrassed, discouraged and disjointed - I went to my car and cried. Granted, these types of interview questions aren't expected to be spot on they really just want to see how you think - unfortunately, I never think about gas stations.

So a note to my young readers, just getting out there and getting their feet wet: if you think you had a bad interview, think of this one ... it could be worse and I'm still alive and working!

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Dear Body, what's wrong with thee?

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Slight realization this week, my body is getting older. I'm only 24, yes - but my bod just isn't reacting to things as it used to. I'm not looking forward to my metabolism slowing, child bearing hips and crackling ankles. I went on my 12 mile run this week (in preparation for the NJ marathon) I came back feeling great... and then it hit me, queasy, achy and without an appetite. Bed stricken for a good 24 hours, got me thinking: what did I sign up for? Training is getting a little challenging this year. Work stress, less sleep, trying to avoid being a hermit - all make for a less than desirable candidate for a marathon. It's not the same training and working versus training and college. You had all the time in the world in college, made your hours and had time for a 2 hour run. Now it's less about filling time than it is establishing a commitment and adding it to the to-do list. I would beg for extra hours in a day and now I spend extra time running. As rationale, I guess if I have a few hours, it might as well be used in my solace. Where are all the twenty-year old runners that are having this transition issue? Oh I know, they aren't ready to admit that at their age, 20 is becoming the new 30 and 40s are rolling back the clock. And when did I start to feel my age? Here's the deal, I told my bod healthier foods that are packed with energy and anti-oxidants are on the way. I figure I'll start taking the advice I've been hearing since college - enjoy my body, protect it, start good habits.

Keep you posted - dear readers (and runners).
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