Category Archives: NYC

Will Run for Tacos

201308112053.jpg

Well, let’s just add this morning’s run to the caravan of strugglebus runs that have made up this year’s marathon training.

I had 12 miles scheduled, and I ran around the southern tip of Manhattan. It was a gorgeous morning, and when I left around 7, there was hardly anyone out.

I fell on Friday and my legs were still a little beat up from my spill. I started off and hoped and prayed that they’d loosen up. I got down to the South Street Seaport area around mile 5.5…and the wheels fell off. I got to 6 miles, looked at my iSmoothRun app and got really frustrated with my pace. I’d been running at no faster than a 10:15-10:20 pace, nearly a minute slower than my long runs last year. WTF?

I was so tempted to bag it all. The run. The marathon. But I’m stubborn, and I wasn’t giving up the run or the race, so on I went after sending out a tweet to hold myself accountable.

Screen shot 2013-08-11 at 9.22.58 PM.png

FINE. I continued on and tried really hard to get out of my head, but I had trouble doing so. Eventually, I settled for appreciating the weather and being happy that I was almost done.

And that it was beach time!

And taco time. My friend Leticia and I talk about tacos a lot, and I’d never actually tried the tacos at Rockaway Taco before. (There is both a stand on the beach and a shack a few blocks away; the shack is the better one.)

I also hadn’t been to Rockaway since Hurricane Sandy. There’s still a lot of work to be done out there, but they also had some before and after pictures, and it’s come a long way since the storm. Rockaway is such a great beach because you can take the subway out there, and it’s free to get on the beach, so I was glad to see all the work that had gone into getting it ready again.

photo 1.JPG

I’m also glad that Rockaway Taco was just fine.

THE GUAC ROOM. PLEASE FORWARD ALL OF MY MAIL HERE.

photo 2.JPG

I had one chorizo taco and one fish taco, and then I laid on the beach and died of happiness.

What’s your favorite: post-run food? Taco? Beach?

My Favorite Meditation Resources

Last year when I started having panic attacks, I was desperate to find new stress relief methods, since it was obvious my previous stress relief methods weren’t working.

Before I even found The Greatest Therapist Ever, I started looking for ways to quiet down my racing mind. A friend suggested meditation to me, and I was desperate for a solution other than Xanax, so I tried it.

I don’t always meditate every day, and I don’t always use guided meditations, but I’ve discovered some awesome ones over the past year that I wanted to share with you. Laura asked me for recommendations a few weeks ago, and I figured some of you might find these interesting too.

meditation.jpg.jpg

Meditation Oasis: I started with these podcasts, and they also have an app. I listened to them in the morning, at night and even at work, with headphones. Even when I wasn’t “meditating” (i.e. at work), it was still relaxing to hear the soothing voice.

Gabby Bernstein: She has some great free ones on her site, but I also downloaded one of her meditation albums so that I could listen to it wherever I was.

BexLife: I’m a little biased because she’s a friend of mine, but she’s got some awesome meditations on her site/YouTube.

GPS4Soul: I actually love some of the mental health/mindfulness stuff that the Huffington Post is getting into, and they have a decent app called GPS4Soul, which has a number of guided meditations of all different lengths.

Heather Waxman: Fellow blogger Heather (formerly For the Love of Kale) has some kickass meditations on her site and is releasing a meditation album through a Kickstarter campaign. I think she’s going to do awesome things with it, so I was happy to kick in a little to help fund it.

Do you meditate? What are some of your favorite meditation resources – books, albums, websites? I also discovered this article recently on 5 Meditation Tips for People Who Don’t (Yet) Like to Meditate.