So I am sitting here at work on this swampy Monday, after a pretty good weekend. I had put in for a personal day last Friday because I had a doctor's appointment that historically takes much longer than the typical lunch hour. It was great to have the extra day to get things done. And I would have too, if not for the soul-sucking heat & humidity that swept the NYC area last week. Trudged through the 100* heat to my appointment and then entertained the idea of going to NikeTown and Crate & Barrel and any number of other East Side places I normally don't have a chance to frequent. But the heat sucked my will to live and it was back on the train and home to my air-conditioner and Lola the Pug. Still, it really was nice to have the extra day off. Saturday (a surprisingly brilliant day -- poof! the humidity was gone) was for running in Central Park and meeting with friends and outdoor brunch and beer and street fairs and walking around. Sunday was for unashamed loafing, pure and simple. This approaches the perfect weekend for me. To accomplish it, you need three days. One day for errands, laundry, getting crap done around the apartment. One day for socializing, going out to brunch, dinner, cocktails, whatever. And one day for complete loafage. Of course, being the active person that I hope to be someday, some time has to be set aside for running, working-out, etc. This "perfect" weekend is not to be confused with "Weekend O' Fitness" which can be accomplished in two days and ideally takes place once a month. This is a weekend that is devoted to fitness pursuits, other healthy-for-you activities can also be added (giving yourself a facial, exfoliating, etc.). W-o-F has to start on a Friday night with some fitness activity, in order to qualify. Hmmm, haven't had one of those in a while (like years). I should do one someday.

Rant of the Day: People who wear tons of perfume/cologne (especially the cheap stuff). I was on an elevator with a woman this morning who was wearing so much, I swear my eyes were watering. I literally held my breath for 27 floors.

Today is a running day, so despite the swampiness, I decided that I had to get my butt outside and to the park. It's nice to have the treadmill as an alternative, but running outside on the roads (and the hills) is really the best. In case you haven't noticed, I hate the heat. Well, maybe not the heat so much, but the combination of the heat and humidity, which is a really unfortunate disposition to have when you live in the North East. I suppose it could be worse, I could live in D.C. or something. Anyway, I would have loved to bag the run tonight, but I am never going to have a true running program if I keep doing that. So I just sucked it up and ran. I'd like to say I had a fabulous run, but it was just HARD. Kept plugging away though, up and down the hills, first on the park drives, then on the bridle path, and once again on the park drives of Forest Park. The running mileage was about three miles (plus an additional mile or so of walking getting to and from the park).

After the run, I came home and exploded an Amy's Burrito in the microwave. I'm not much of a cook.

Geez this chair is hard, I can't even feel my butt anymore. Maybe that's why it's not sore from spinning last night.

So I took a Spinning class tonight. Oh, sorry, New York Sports Club calls them "Cycling Classes". Same thing. Anyway, way back when, when I used to be in some amount of reasonable shape and in the midst of marathon training, I was a Spin-aholic. Truly. Started with one class a week, tacked on another, soon I was taking four classes a week. And this was in addition to getting up and running 5 to 8 miles at 5 AM (15 to 20 miles on a Saturday or Sunday). There should be a 12-Step program for Spin-aholics. Anyway, I'm not going to go into details now (maybe another day) but I've been in horrible shape for a good while now. About three or four years. So I'm trying to get it back. Here's the thing: I'm older! It's surprising how much harder this is now a few years later. Or maybe working out is like childbirth, you just forget how impossibly hard it was.

So I took my first Spinning class in my "new" life. Talked my friend E into coming with me, which showed a lot of guts on her part since the last time I talked her into coming to the gym (Saturday) we drank maragaritas afterwards and lost an entire afternoon. Don't ask. Anyway, Spinning was great! I had my doubts before class about whether I'd be able to make it through the class in it's entirety and I did. Woo Hoo! It was hard, but such a good workout. I'm going to see how my butt feels tomorrow before planning when my next class will be (I'm tempted to shoot for Thursday -- see? This is how it all starts).

Why a blog? I don't know. I love computers. I used to keep a written journal, but I prefer technology. If you don't have email, I won't even keep up with you. Sorry, that's just the way of the World these days. If my 72 year old father can have email, then anyone can. I hate talking on the phone and unless you live relatively close to me, chances are I'm not going to run into you at the grocery store. Email works for me. 'nuff said. Anyway, I was keeping a fitness journal on another site and finding myself from time to time (and more and more) wanting to write about stuff above and beyond my workouts. I mean, how many times can you read, "I did 30 minutes on the Elliptical and 20 Mins on the Stairmaster"? without getting bored? Even my posts about running were becoming routine. So it was suggested to me that I might start a blog. We'll see how it goes. I can't promise it will be exciting, or even interesting. But, hey, it's my blog, I only have to entertain myself.

Okay so. Today was the first nice day in what, five, six days? I mean we had a horrendous weekend. Basically, torrential rain for days. So what do I do? Come home from work, mill around for too long until it's too late to go to the park. Yep. Instead, I go downstairs to the small (unairconditioned) gym in the basement of my apartment building. Ran for 30 minutes and did the elliptical for 20 minutes. I watched some terrible reality show while down there, "Anything for Love"? Something like that, and the start of another horrible show, "Paradise Hotel". I don't know what the state of network TV says about us as a culture these days, it's pretty appalling. And I am not one of those people who is going to say they don't watch much TV, or what they watch is all public television. Yeah. Right. I admit it, I'm a TV addict. Friends, ER, Sex in the City, Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Law & Order, even the Osbournes and Real World. Bring it on. But these new reality shows that are cropping up everywhere? No thanks. All I can say is, thank God for cable.

Actually, I have a funny story to tell that sort of relates to reality TV. I remember the Summer of the first Survivor series. It was such a huge hit, no one had seen a show like that before (or not in this country anyway). And also, being on in the Summer, a lot of people watched it because Friends was all repeats at that point. Anyway, I watched it on and off, more so than any subsequent reality program. Anyway, I think it was September and I was doing a long run in Central Park. And I see this big guy running a little ahead of me and people are waving to him, people are passing him going the other way and turning around to check him out some more, so I'm running and I catch up to him a little more and as I pass him I realize it's Richard Hatch (the winner of the first Survivor). Okay no big deal, I've certainly seen plenty of real celebs in NYC, I'm certainly not going to get excited by this guy. Anyway, he was running near me for a while and I hear him ask a couple of girls if they knew how to get back to the Plaza Hotel. They don't know and so I pipe up and say, "oh just keep following this road, up a couple of hills and you'll eventually see a road to your right... " yadda yadda yadda. Anyway he says, "well I'll just run with you". So I shrug and say, "okay". So he is blathering away and he's asking me questions about NYC, and I'm telling him whatever and finally he has to tell me, "you know that big survivor show? I was the winner... " I think it was killing him that I never said a word about it. I just smiled and shrugged (I know, I can be really evil). Anyway, I ended up losing him on a hill. He couldn't keep up.