Weekend in Review

As I mentioned yesterday, I had started writing a “weekend in review” post to cover all the fun stuff I did on my first full weekend back in NYC, but that ended up getting trumped by the incredible Boston Marathon. If you didn’t get to watch the race live, be sure to check out yesterday’s post for a recap on the unbelievable elite races. But now, back to my regularly scheduled weekend in review…

On Friday, we had a women’s event at work that was absolutely fantastic. Since our acquisition, most of our affinity groups and office events have fallen by the wayside (mostly because we aren’t sure quite how to book rooms and get funding for events). But on Friday, we relaunched our women’s initiative by watching Sheryl Sandberg’s TED Talk (I know I’ve mentioned it before, but in case you still haven’t seen it, GO WATCH NOW because it is so fantastic, and weeks and weeks later, I am still pondering it) and discussing it over Buttercup Bakery cupcakes (yum!). While the event was only scheduled to go until 6pm, we ended up talking until 7:15pm about all kinds of stuff – it was definitely really enlightening to hear about others’ experiences.

From there, a few of us went to a happy hour at one of my favorite beer bars – The Ginger Man. It didn’t last very long, though, because people needed to get home for various reasons, so as of 8pm, I had only had one beer but found the party breaking up. I didn’t have any other big plans for the night, and considered going home for a quiet night in… but decided to instead visit my absolute favorite beer bar in NYC that was only two blocks away – Rattle N Hum. (This is where I had my birthday party last year). While I will occasionally go out on my own when I’m traveling and in another city, I’ve never done it in NYC – it just feels odd to me to go out by myself in a city where I have plenty of friends. However, on short notice, I figured I’d just head on over to RnH and then see who I could find to come join.

The advantage of going solo to a bar is that when there’s only one spot at the bar, it’s easy for you to squeeze in. And when only one chair becomes available, while all the couples and groups are playing the game of “you take it; no, you take it!”, I could quickly snag it for myself. Victory! Where I was not so victorious was in finding friends to come join me… but I made some new friends at the bar who kept me good company until I caught a cab home around 11pm. One of these new friends was actually the owner of the bar – definitely a good person to know. What a perfect Friday night!

But as a result of those escapades, my sleep-in Saturday led to a full day of sloth. I convinced myself that my downtime is so infrequent that I deserved a lazy Saturday… but I think I may have taken lazy a bit too far! I got a solid elliptical workout in when I first woke up, but then I mostly stayed in bed until about 4pm (with a few trips to the kitchen and the bathroom), catching up on books and TV. At 4pm, the day of doing nothing caught up to me… and I decided I would try to take a nap. I’m not usually a nap kind of person, but I was yawning, and figured I might as well try…

…and I woke up 2.5 hours later, when my “just in case” alarm went off. What happened? I just wanted to go back to sleep, but knew it was time to drag my lazy butt out of bed and get showered and ready for dinner. I was meeting a group of about a dozen friends for a Peking duck feast in Chinatown, and didn’t want to be late!

Dinner was amazing – so many neat dishes, including a lot of Asian delicacies I hadn’t tried before (believe it or not, I thought the chicken feet were delicious). The restaurant also happened to be BYOB, so we sent someone out to pick up bottles of wine for the table. I only had two glasses or so, but when the (three hour) dinner concluded and people started making plans on where to go next… I bailed, in favor of my cozy bed. As Adam tweeted earlier this week: Slowly but surely, I’ve turned into a 9:30pm to bed kind of a guy. Hide your daughters, party man is on the loose!!! #ImOldOrMaybeAMarathoner

I woke up Sunday feeling totally refreshed after getting yet another 10 hours of sleep – which was a good thing, given what was on the docket. I had plans to go to a BYOB fondue restaurant with two friends that night, and I knew it would be a bit of a mess, diet-wise. In preparation, I planned to eat lightly all day, and work out hardcore. Preemptive calorie burn to make up for all the gooey deliciousness I’d be eating that night!

Down at the gym, I hammered out 45 minutes on the elliptical, and then invented a new workout routine: dumbbells on the treadmill. After 45 minutes on the elliptical, I was plenty sweaty already… but you truly haven’t sweat until you’ve cranked up the treadmill to a 9.0 incline (and set the speed to 3.5 for a pretty fast walk at that incline), grabbed a pair of 10lb dumbbells, and cranked out a few hundred reps of various types while walking. My arms and legs were burning, and I was using my towel to mop up more sweat than I think I’ve ever before produced in a workout. Woo hoo!

But just in case that wasn’t enough, I finished the workout and decided to take the stairs instead of the elevator back up to my apartment. For those of you who live in smaller cities, this may not seem like a big deal. But I live in a high rise in New York City… which means I hiked up 25 flights! Took me forever, but I had the latest episode of the Biggest Loser playing on my phone, and matched my strides to those of the contestants climbing the Sky Tower in Auckland, New Zealand. Who says Biggest Loser is reality TV and not a workout video? 🙂

Dinner turned out to be not quite as pants-splitting as I had imagined, but delicious nonetheless. We went to Taureau, a tiny little French bistro in the East Village that offers BYOB with no corkage fee (hurray for cheap wine!) and some of the most amazing cheese fondues I’ve ever had. We tried and enjoyed the “Devil’s Wiff” (pepperoncino, red wine, and extra sharp cheddar), but were blown away by the “Smoked Dutch” (smoked gouda with beer, cheddar, and Monterey). In an effort to keep things light, I tried to focus on the unlimited beets and asparagus we had ordered for dipping… but the tasty croutons proved too tempting at time. Also way too tempting was the dark chocolate fondue we had for dessert – great with fruit, incredible with marshmallows! However, as with the Peking duck dinner, I left feeling sated instead of stuffed. Perhaps I’m doing better about intuitive eating? My butt hopes so!