Seriously, thank you so much for all of the amazing inspirational comments on my last post. Even though I share stories and a part of my life everyday, it does take courage to post wants/needs/desires and hopes, but you all made it so easy and so worth it. I wish I could give you all a giant hug. So THANK YOU, from the bottom of my baker’s heart.

You know we had a big weekend. I didn’t get to post at all because we left Saturday morning and didn’t get home till Sunday afternoon. We were busy busy busy. Saturday we met up with Danny’s parents at Le Bus in Manayunk. I had been having big dreams of their 6 grain pancakes with blueberries, so I got them for lunch. DID NOT disappoint. I had been dreaming of these for after our race, but it was too crazy to get to Manayunk, so it had to be a pre-race meal. I love their pancakes and bread basket. Yum.

We stopped by the raco expo to pick up our numbers, t-shirts and to walk around. It was packed and I was very overwhelmed and claustrophobic so we left pretty quick. For dinner we went to Melograno, (2012 Sansom St.) where the food was delicious, but I was less than impressed with our waiter. He was not friendly at all and when I asked for a little bit of a special order (of things on the menu) he flat out told me no, rudely, without asking the chef first. Still the food was great and we enjoyed our dinner.

I know this post is long. But there is SO much I want to share!

Race morning we got up at 5:00 am. We both fell asleep quickly around 10, so we got a good amount of sleep. I brought some overnight oats (I knew there was a fridge in the room), but the hotel did put out coffee, fruit, Luna and Kind bars, and instant oatmeal at 5 am. We went down grabbed some coffee and fruit for later. I had 1 cup of coffee and my overnight oats, which was the breakfast I ate the morning of all my long runs. There was not going to be ANY change race morning for me.

(Danny was upset his said “Daniel”. It is too formal for him…)

dressed and ready

We hung around and left at 6:20 and walked down. Danny and I pretty calm, I was getting really excited. My biggest fear was I’d have to go to the bathroom and use those porta potties I HATE. (GOOD NEWS: I didn’t have to.) The race start was about 1 mile from the Hotel Palomar so it was a nice warm-up walk. We bought cheap sweatshirts for $15 each that we knew we’d take off and donate before the race began.

Lovely, I know

Race Start

Danny and I crossed the start at about 7:25 am. We were in the orange coral, which we thought was a bit far back from where we belonged. When we started our race training, I didn’t know what to expect so I over estimated our time. We were completely fine with it though. Before the start, I began to get nervous, but I knew that we trained enough and we were ready.

Mile 1 and 2 I was struggling to find a pace. I always find until I get into a groove, I just think about the future miles. Mile 1 we came in a 9:50, and I was happy, because my first mile is always my slowest. Mile 2 was 9:00 and mile 3 was 8:04. When I got to the first water station between miles 2 and 3, I started to feel good. I LOVED how our names were on our bibs because so many people said my name and it got me excited. Miles 3-10 were pretty easy. We stayed around an 8:30 mile, which was right on track for our sub 2 hour half. I loved reading everyone’s signs and hearing the cheering from the crowd. They really kept me going because we didn’t use ipods.

Mile 10 was a pretty big hill. Mentally, I was okay with walking but before then we didn’t think we needed to. We were about to walk when we saw our cheering crowd. I wish I got a picture because they were AMAZING. I almost started crying because I was so happy to see my mom, stepdad, cousin Jess, sister-in-law Katie, her husband Jeremy, 3 kids and Danny’s parents. We ran over and gave them a quick hug and were just flying high. They gave us the push we needed at the hardest part of the course for us.

Miles 11-13 were flat (THANK goodness). I knew we were right on pace and had to keep up a 9 minute mile, which we were doing. The last 1/2 mile was tough, but all I could think about was the end. We ran as fast as we could and ended with an (unofficial by my watch) 1:57 half marathon time!

Race Finish

We mostly used our water belt and cut up a PURE bar to keep us fueled. We had trained with that, so we knew it worked well. I cut up the PURE bar so it was easy to take pieces. I only ended up eating 1 piece the entire race and same with Danny. We pretty much stayed clear of the water stations because of our water belt.

Final Thoughts: I can’t even say how proud I am of Danny and I. We trained hard and it payed off. Now it’s time to recover and relax after months of training. I loved running Philly because it’s a city we love and have spent a great amount of time in. I also loved how the half and marathon started together. Thank you Philly for being a beautiful city! Thank you for following along and reading our story, but most importantly THANK YOU to our family who came out yesterday to see us for 30 seconds. Your presence was SO special to us and we are SO grateful to have your support and love. You made our race.

*and thanks to my sister and friends who were there in spirit/phone calls/picture and text messages!!

Here’s to many more races in our future! (of many distances, don’t worry Danny.) We are half marathoners!! 13.1!

Happy Monday… or not. One more Monday after this one to sleep in and enjoy my summer. I can’t believe ten weeks has come and gone. It’s been a great summer, so no complaints.

We came back from Philly yesterday from our stay at the Hotel Palomar. I loved the hotel, it was super nice and accomodating. The room we had was gorgeous and the fact they had free coffee, wine and water put it over the top for us. Also if you sign up for their loyalty program you get free internet and $10 to the mini bar. SCORE!

Our Room

Lobby

I loved how the bathroom had a tub and a big shower in one area behind the glass shower doors. That was my favorite, plus our view was pretty incredible up on the 19th floor.  We ate at a bunch of our old favorites and of course a new one also.

We had breakfast at the Continental, a Stephan Starr restaurant, which is like a fancy  diner. I had an egg white omelette with a side of fruit and whole wheat toast. The fruit bowl was especially delish for some reason. My omelette was good, but was kind of soaked in butter, I ate it, but it wasn’t fantastic. The rooftop seating was also so nice. It was a gorgeous, cool morning out that just called for an out door breakfast.

This is my "I need food" face

Rooftop seating

For lunch we went to our favorite place, Di Bruno Brothers. I didn’t take any pictures there, but they are an Italian market that has all different types of meats, cheeses, sandwiches, italian hot and cold dishes, coffee, gelato, dessert, everything. Upstairs they have  a cafe where you can get sandwiches, omelettes, salads, some hot entrees and thin crust pizza. In channeling my inner Rachel Zoe: Die.

Dinner was at this adorable little BYOB. They have so many BYO’s in Philly and Jersey, but I’ve never seen any in New York. The restaurant was called Branzino and they also had seating inside, out front and on the back patio. We chose back patio and it did NOT disappoint. I think I had the best dinner I’ve had in the past year there. I started with a lentil and beet salad, which I will be recreating ASAP. Then I had jumbo shrimp and scallops with mushrooms over arugula. Ugh, it was so amazing, I couldn’t stop when I was stuffed. Danny had potato gnocchi with fresh mozzarella on top. We both REALLY enjoyed this meal.

Outside Patio at Branzino

Gnocchi

Lentil and Beet Salad

Shrimp and Scallop over Arugula

Branzino

Highly, highly recommend this restaurant if you go to Philadelphia any time soon. Sorry for iphone pictures, but I couldn’t get out my camera in time before digging in. Of course we had to end the night with some Scoop De Ville. How could I not???

We also went for a 7 mile run yesterday around the Schuylkill River. It was our longest run yet, and I’m surprised at how much my legs do not hurt. I guess it’s because we went pretty slow, but slow and steady always wins, or at least finishes right?

Today we are celebrating our 2 year anniversary and we’re going to dinner and the Yankee game later on. This is one of my favorite videos from my friend below. It’s a short clip from our after party on Dune Beach in the Hamptons. We had some grilled pizzas, appetizers, s’mores , a fire pit and a DJ (and lots of drinks) to finish our wedding day off. Picture perfect.

Happy Anniversary to my husband!

How can any morning be a bad morning when you wake up to this??? What you can’t see is the iced coffee station behind that guy. I tried to get a picture with no one in it, but you can imagine it’s a pretty hard thing to do at 8:30 in the morning. People want their coffee and they want it now.

Coffee Station

Happy Birthday to my wonderful husband, Danny. He is just so lucky that we get to celebrate our anniversary AND his birthday on our getaway weekend. Don’t worry I don’t (usually) combine presents…he gets seperate ones. So far it’s a great birthday for him and it has to be because it’s his golden birthday. 28 on the 28th! It’s going to be a BIG year for him. Big things are happening.

Birthday Boy

Yesterday I drove into the city to save time so we could just get going. I wish someone could have been there to take picture of all the things I carried out to the car. I swear it looked like I was leaving for good. I could barely make it through the door. I made it into the city in record time, about 20 minutes got Danny and then we were off. We hit a little traffic but overall it wasn’t too bad. It was worth it when we saw our hotel room and view.

View from our room

Last night we decided to go to a favorite restaurant of ours, Bar Ferdinand in the Northern Liberties section of Philly. It serves tapas and has something for everyone. It has really cute outdoor seating, but we didn’t feel like waiting for it, so we just sat inside. The inside has a really nice cozy atmosphere so we didn’t mind.

Inside Bar Ferdinand

Bar Ferdinand

We got a bunch of different tapas, including an tuna endive salad, cheese platter, vegetarian sandwich, shrimp kebabs and chicken sandwich. It was a perfect mix of all types of food. I didn’t take pictures because obviously it’s really dark in there and the flash makes the food not look as good and it pretty obnoxious. We also celebrated with a sparkling wine for me and a dark lager for Danny.

After we had to make a pit stop at my all time favorite ice cream shop, Scoop De Ville, which is conveniently located right around the block from our hotel. Who would have planned a thing like that??

Favorite Ice Cream Shop Scoop De Ville

Dark Chocolate Chip Pretzel Vanilla Fro-Yo

Don’t worry I’ll be getting more ice cream so I can take a better picture. They have this machine that you put the fro-yo in (or ice cream) and then the toppings and it comes out mixed all through the ice cream, so you can make any type of ice cream you want. AH-MAZING. Danny gets a boring milkshake, but they are good too. Also their motto is “Eat Dessert First”. How can you go wrong with that???

Today we are being lazy, hanging out in bed until (the coffee runs out) we feel like moving. Then it’s off to breakfast and to walk around. Maybe do something historical. Get new running shoes is also on the agenda.

Have a great day. EAT DESSERT FIRST!!

Hello Tuesday! I just got back from the gym and I have a field trip today to one of my favorite places. We’re going to see Panorama exhibit of NYC. They have a mini to scale model of the 5 boroughs of NYC. It’s awesome, I love this trip.


Have you been to Fairway? You may not even have one near you, we don’t have one THAT close, but we decided to travel the 20 minutes there. It was our first time there and it is HUGE. I wish I took a huge loop around the store to figure out how it was set up. At first I thought it was all organic (even though I read it wasn’t….) and I started picking up things that I usually don’t buy organic because I couldn’t find it in their conventional counterparts (like bean). I was freaking out at the idea of paying almost $4 for a bag of dried beans that weren’t even a pound, but I was thinking of doing it. Finally I reached the 2nd half of the store where they have all non-organic (and cheaper) items. I swapped out quite a few things, like beans, cinnamon, pumpkin, etc. We figured out we saved about $50!


The store really is amazing. They have a ginormous selection of um everything. I could have went crazy, but I didn’t. They had about EVERY type of grain I have and hadn’t heard of and every type of flour. I didn’t go crazy, because well, the BUDGET. I did pick up polenta, which is my one new things to try, (oh and brussel sprouts!).


Fridge before Fairway:

Fridge after Fairway:

I’d say that looks much better…


When we got home from Fairway I was starving! I wanted to make a salad based on one I had at the White Dog Cafe in Philadelphia. It is ah-mazing. Highly recommend it!


Ingredients:
- a large amount of organic spinach
- a nice amount of goat cheese
- carrots
- 1 vine ripened tomato
- 1/4 a ripe avocado


Put spinach and goat cheese on plate and warm in microwave for 30 seconds. Add the rest of the ingredients + whatever you’d like. I added 2 falafels from Friday’s dinner for some added protein and also had some of Mary’s Sticks and Twigs for some carbs. Drizzle salad dressing of choice over salad, mine was TJ’s balsamic vinaigrette. Enjoy.

The falafel made this salad extra filling. Check them out! Have a great day!