I know I say this a lot, but I never started a blog to meet people, but I have met the most amazing people through my blog. After work last night, I hustled down to the East Village to have a drink to celebrate a friend’s new job and then back up to Hell’s Kitchen and Five Napkin Burger to meet up with this fabulous group.

Liz, moi, Emily, Meghan, Ben and Pa. Good thing Pa was there to take Ben down a notch. Fun fact: Liz and Meghan were among the first Internet people I met in real life!

I had an Italian turkey burger, which means it had mozzarella and tomato sauce. I’d had a few beers before, and was pretty full, so I didn’t touch many of the fries. The burger was great; the fries were a little underwhelming. While I definitely do eat red meat, I usually stick to turkey burgers because they’re a little easier on my stomach and definitely lighter on the calories than regular burgers. Since I knew I was running this morning, easy on the stomach was definitely the name of the game.

Emily and I went for a drink at 44 1/2 afterwards, having remembered that Jordan loved it. I got home around 1am and wondered what the hell I was thinking agreeing to run 10 miles at 7:45am. 

I woke up this morning and contemplated bailing, but I really wanted to see Emily and Ashley, so I woke up around 7, threw on running clothes and power-walked up to Columbus Circle to meet them at the entrance to the park.

L-R: Emily’s friend Laura, me, Emily, Ashley

I’d last seen Emily in Chicago when we first met and ran 16 miles together, and she told me that I looked like I’d lost even more weight since then! I haven’t, at least on the scale, but I work hard to stay healthy and fit, so while I’m not losing weight/trying to lose weight, it’s always nice to hear that my hard work shows.

So, clearly I got a bagel after the run. I was planning on doing 10, but we did one lap (6 miles) of the park, and the cold weather and stepping strategically as to not slip made it pretty damn hard. We were going to run a few more through the city as Emily went back to her hotel, but we stopped to say goodbye to Ashley and ended up walking and chatting. Oops. I’ll try to do the last 4 tomorrow morning.

And I would take running in the extreme heat over this weather any day. And yes, you can remind me of that this summer.