TGIT

TGIT? Nope, not a typo. Thank Goodness It’s Thursday! My consulting buddy Adam and I often joke about Thursdays being the “consultant’s Friday,” because in the crazy world of consulting, we travel to our clients on Monday morning and return home on Thursday evening. While Friday doesn’t quite become a three day weekend, we have the choice of working from our local office or from home on Fridays – and unless there’s an event or other reason to go into the office, I usually choose the latter.

On Fridays, it’s expected that we’ll spend some of our time supporting the client, but a lot of time doing training, working on firm “extracurriculars” (writing white papers, assisting with proposals, etc), and networking. And given that we’re away Monday-Thursday, we’re encouraged to schedule any doctor’s appointments or the like on Fridays, and aren’t discouraged from taking some breaks during the day to accomplish personal things like that. All of this means that Fridays tend to be a pretty light day for me – which is a pretty great way to ease into the weekend.

As a result, my Thursday afternoon airport jaunts tend to become the bridge between “work” and “real life” (okay, so perhaps my work-life balance is a bit more segregated than most). But they’re the time when I stop thinking about the stress of work, and start thinking more about life… and I am looking forward to a pretty great weekend. Some may think I’m talking about catching up on that sleep debt I mentioned yesterday, but I actually have few plans for that – my weekend is going to be too full of workouts, wining, and dining!

Tomorrow morning, I’ll be up and at ’em by 6am to meet up with Katelyn for a run in Central Park, followed by a free 7am session of “Fat Blasting Cardio” over at the Athleta store on the Upper East Side. From there, I’ll run 2.5 miles back to my neighborhood to meet a friend for breakfast… and then my day begins (ha, because I won’t have done enough already). Time for work! But as if 2 hours of exercise wasn’t enough, I’d like to sneak in a Zumba toning class around lunchtime (work permitting), and then after work, “cuddle up” with a good book while on the stationary bike (because why read in bed when you can read while pedaling?) before heading out to meet my friend Meg for dinner at a new beer bar in her neighborhood.

My Saturday will be along a similar vein (minus the work). Beginning with a 2.5 mile run back over to Athleta UES, I’ve signed up for a Bellydance Salsa class from 9am-10am, and am then meeting my friend Lauren for coffee. We’ll need the caffeine, because at 11am, we’re running in Abbe’s Inaugural Whiskeython, a 5 mile race where the winner receives a bottle of whiskey. Whiskey isn’t really my thing at all, but I don’t have any delusions of winning – I just want to make it to the bar afterward to meet everyone for brunch and perhaps a celebratory mimosa 🙂 Post-brunch, it’s not time to rest just yet – at 4pm, I’m joining the awesome team at Greatist for their “ring in the new year” event: a yoga class. Excellent! I have a feeling they may hear some snoring coming from me by the time we get to corpse pose, though… and a nap may be just what I need to get ready for a friend’s wine tasting party that evening. It may be an early night for me! But even if it is, that’s fine with me – because Sunday is another big running day for me.

At 9:30am, I’m kicking off Athleta’s half-marathon training program with a seminar on the benefits of running (at their Upper West Side location), followed by a 1.5 mile run in Central Park. I’ll do a longer post explaining the program next week, but for now, suffice to say that if you live in NYC and have never done long distance running, now’s your chance – come train with me and a wonderful group of women as we prep for the 2012 More Half Marathon in April! We’ll be meeting every weekend to do a “long run” on Sundays (though we’re starting at a manageable distance and will only gradually work our way up to the big stuff).

For those of you that are already accustomed to running a longer distance, not to worry – I have one of those going on Sunday too. As I mentioned earlier in the week, I’m organizing a 5.5 mile courons à la cassoulet (run to the cassoulet) on Sunday, starting at 12pm in Central Park and finishing at Jimmy’s No 43 in the East Village, which is sponsoring their 4th annual cassoulet cookoff. Recovery food and beer will abound, and after this intense weekend, I am sure to need it!

So… are my plans crazy? This is probably more working out than I’ve ever squeezed into a weekend since I was running two marathons in a weekend and eating a whole pizza by myself the night in between. But what can I say – I love to eat and drink and I love to run, so it’s a good thing those activities help to balance each other! I’m psyched about my busy weekend doing all my favorite things 🙂