Fueled by Margaritas

…and not the shot bloks. Although those are delicious, too.

After a busy spring, and with a busy fall of races, conferences and weddings coming up, I subconsciously made July the Month of No Plans. While I do really like filling my calendar with lots of fun stuff, sometimes I just need time to let plans happen spontaneously.

So I had no plans when I got home from work yesterday. If plans came up, I was going to be okay with that. If not, I was also going to be more than happy being in bed by 10. Being old is awesome.

I had a summer Friday and was home by 4:30, in sweatpants and all ready for a relaxing night, until Laura asked if I wanted to meet up for a margarita.

Well, twist my arm.

She suggested we meet up at Agave, a Mexican place in the West Village. Laura described it as a place with high-quality ingredients, and New York mag described it as “A happy surprise of a place that looks intended for a margarita onslaught.”

I was ready for the margarita onslaught.

They had different flavors, and while I usually stay away from flavored margaritas because they’re too sweet, these used real fruit. I started with that pomegranate beaut up there. You know, for the antioxidants.

Laura got a strawberry one, which was a little too sweet for me.

Next, I got a blood orange one, which had a great, tangy taste. I also tried their plain one, which was good, but not photographed because…it looked like a plain margarita.

It was a ridiculously cheap happy hour, because the drinks were $5 a piece…

…and they had the Foursquare/Amex special, so I’ll get an extra $5 back on my next statement.

Next, we moved on to Citrus for dinner. (Which I just realized is owned by the same people who own Josie’s, one of my favorite chill places to eat in the city.)

I thought their beer descriptions, especially for Corona and Sapporo were amusing.

Since it’s a Latin/Asian fusion restaurant, I wanted to try food of both styles, so I got the taco sampler and a mushroom/mango sushi.

I had another beer there and another one at a another bar we went to and was in bed before midnight and hoping I hadn’t sabotaged my long run for today.

I woke up, drank as much water as possible, and rallied to go meet Jocelyn, Fiona and Ashley.

I ran 2 miles to meet them at the Intrepid, and apparently became really fast overnight. WTF Garmin? If he’s right, I’m going to see about a walk-on spot for the Olympics.

I restarted my Garmin there because I didn’t want that weird mile to mess with my per-mile average.

We ran south, to the tip of Manhattan and then up the East side.

I’m really happy with our pace for those 7 miles. It was a good, solid run and I had some awesome company.

Jocelyn and I were both done with our mileage for the day (she ran 7-8ish before meeting up with us!) around the same time and live near each other, so we stopped around the tennis courts on the east side and walked about another 2 miles home, chatting and discovering that our moms are basically the same person.

Are there any foods/drinks that are unexpectedly decent fuel for your workouts? I may just go to Agave before all my long runs now.