Monthly Archives: January 2012

Why I drag myself to the gym

I kind of hate strength training, but I’m planning to do at least two 30-minute sessions a week this marathon training cycle.

Not because it’ll make me a better runner, even though I think it will. Not because it’ll prevent injuries, even though injuries suck and I want to avoid them. And not even because I particularly care about being strong. I know enough guys (and a few ladies) with more upper-body strength than an ectomorph like me could ever build, and I can recruit them for help on the rare occasion I need a really heavy thing moved.

No. I am strength training for the Dayum Moments. Continue reading

“Begin each day as if it were on purpose”

That right there is one of my favorite quotes of all time. (I even put it in my Facebook profile! WHOA.) It seems to be taken from the title of this Mary Anne Radmacher book, but I heard it in the classic Will Smith rom-com Hitch.

(Here’s where I’d insert the Hitch poster lifted from Google Images, but as I’m trying to get away from using potentially copyrighted visuals on my blog, I won’t.)

I fancy myself a morning person. Breakfast is my favorite meal. I’ve done the bulk of the mid-week training for most of the marathons and halfs I’ve run before work. And I have trouble sleeping past 9 a.m., even on weekends when I’ve been up and about until 3 or 4.

Lately, though, I’ve been struggling. I discovered the beauty of the lunch run–it breaks up the day! it’s warmer! it’s lighter out!–and now I can’t get up to run to save my life. In fact, I can’t get up to do anything at all.

My alarm will go off at 7:15 and I’ll snooze three or four times before emerging from the covers. I’ll make myself some coffee and breakfast, then I’ll sit at the table long after both are gone, reading a magazine or browsing the interwebs. Some days, it’s 8:45 before I start getting ready to actually leave. How did I become such a blob?

When I start the day this way, it tends to continue in a downward spiral of feeling sluggish and not terribly productive. I know it’s not possible for every day to be a tremendous win, but these kinds of days are huge losses.

I need to get my morning mojo back. But how?

The things I ate at Cochon 555

Last night, I went to the New York City stop of Cochon 555. There were five chefs. Each got a whole heritage pig to work with, and each made five to 10 sample-sized dishes out of various pig parts. You tried everything and voted for the best “collection” of food at the end. (Kind of like Project Runway, but with pork.)

The butchery demonstration. By the end of the night, the entire pig (minus the head) had been cut up and packaged.

It was a total foodie event. Though I love to eat, I know almost nothing about food and cooking. I didn’t fit in at all, though I suppose I fit in better than the woman who turned down a plate at one of the stations by saying she was a vegetarian. (Seriously!)

However, I ate some things I had never eaten before (and some I may never eat again), such as: Continue reading

Of boyfriends and burgers

Once upon a time, I went out to dinner with a group for a friend’s birthday. I ordered a burger. When it arrived at the table, it was huge, and it came with fries. I was hungry. I ate all of it.

My boyfriend at the time was sitting next to me. He didn’t say anything then, but months later, he brought it up during an argument. He said something along the lines of, “That was disgusting. You ate so much. Everyone was totally grossed out, including me.”

…!

Last night, I didn’t feel like eating the salmon I had thawed for dinner. Instead, I went to a new take-out place on the Triangle. I ordered a burger topped with “extra bacon,” cheddar, and onion rings. I also wanted a milkshake, so I got one of those, too.

When I got it home and unwrapped it, it was huge. (Duh, Meghan. What did you expect?) I was hungry. I ate all of it, except for some lettuce and soggy bun pieces.

But before I did that, I took a picture.

I could barely fit this in my mouth.

I showed this picture to my current boyfriend later on. He said, “Did you eat all of it?” And I said, “Pretty much, yeah.” And he said, “You have no idea how attractive that is.” And he wasn’t kidding.

Giant burgers: Serving as a barometer of relationship health since 2006.

Settling in

During a run this weekend, it occurred to me that soon I will have been out of college for longer than I was in college.

College went from late-August 2004 through mid-May 2008, so if my math is correct, in another month or so, I will have been an adult for longer than I was a college student.

Whoa.

I was one of those people who really loved college. Maybe not as much as Asher Roth, and definitely not for the same reasons, but it took me a long time to get over graduation.

At the 'Cuse-Georgetown game senior year.

If I could go back in time and tell late-2008 Meghan just one thing, it would be this: College was great, but the real world is even greater. Here is why. Continue reading