Hi. How goes it?

I have been so ridiculously busy with work stuff. But I’m not complaining. It’s wonderful to have so many freelance opportunities. I basically have a day job and a night job at this point. I even took work with me while I was out on Long Island. I can rest easy for the time being knowing I’ll be able to keep kibble on the table for Duncan and I. 🙂 

After my terrible long run on Monday I  took a couple of days off. But yesterday morning I had planned to get a 3 mile “keeping myself honest to mid week short runs” run in and at 4am I woke up to the sound of the loudest thunder ever. I thought about taking my run to the gym but by 6:45am it was just a downpour without the thunder and I saw some sunlight trying to peer through so I just put on an older pair of kicks and bolted. 

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This weekend I am going to be really pinched for time. I thought I was gonna try for 17 miles this Saturday but decided to swap with next weeks shorter 10 mile long run (yeah, only). I just have too much work to do and need that extra hour and a half that I would have been running those last 7 miles 🙂 I’m moving the 17 to next Saturday so it’s not a loss.

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Today is September 11th. My Facebook newsfeed is filled with posts about it. A real contrast to what it looks like on National Pancake Day that’s for sure :(. I thought I’d share with you guys how September 11th, 2001 unraveled for me.

I was commuting from Staten Island to Manhattan on the bus and we were in Brooklyn just about to enter through the tunnel that brings you into lower Manhattan. Mind you my husband had died 2 1/2 years prior. I was looking out the window of the bus and saw this wild explosion by the Towers. I literally assumed it was special effects for a movie being filmed. When you’re in NYC it’s common that there are blockbusters being filmed. All of a sudden someone on the bus screamed as they received a phone call from a loved one in that building. We never made it through the tunnel that day. We spent hours on that bus just sitting on the highway. There were papers that had blown across the water from NYC all the way to Brooklyn and they were landing on the highway. These papers were from the desks of people in the towers. That is how forceful the impact was. My bus driver started to collect them saying this was part of history. Eventually we got off the bus and walked around Brooklyn—we being me and a bunch of fellow bus commuters. We ended up at an electronics store (Like Best Buy) where we first saw that the Towers had fallen. We watched them on about 100 TVs simultaneously. I was so worried about my dear friend Susan who worked in that building. Thankfully she was running late that day and was also still on a bus in Brooklyn. But the saddest feeling I had that day was knowing there would be some many new young widows. I knew so many wives wouldn’t see their husbands again. I eventually got through to my family to let them know I was ok. By about 1pm they finally opened the Verrazano Bridge again which was locked down as soon as it was apparent this was a terrorist attack. I jumped on a bus that got me back to Staten Island and a friend picked me up and brought me home. Later in the evening my brother and his coworkers who had been running away from the towers as they fell arrived at my house because they couldn’t get home to NJ. I washed their dusty clothes and we got take-out from the diner for dinner and sat in front of the TV with our mouths wide open. We were all still in shock.

I had nightmares for months. I still get anxious every single day I commute to work.

I’m thinking of all those who perished on 9/11 and their families and all the men and women and canines, too who worked so hard for months and months as part of the recovery efforts. Let’s all remember the amazing acts of kindness that day. There were so many.

Hi folks

It’s September 11th… I just want to start out by sharing this Facebook exchange…

sallpostsusanreplyYeah, I’m lucky to have come out of that tragedy practically unscathed. Susan never made it to her office (thank god!). Her picture frames on her desk and other personal effects became dust like the thousands of human beings we lost that day. I’ll never forget how scared I was 2 days later as I tried to resume “normalcy” and return to work. This just touches the surface of how that day has changed me and I’m sure all of us. How often do you find yourself meeting someone new, a stranger and somehow the question gets asked “Where were you on 9/11?”.

And so I set out for this morning’s run with that this, the 13th anniversary on my mind as I do so often (I still break into a sweat when my bus gets stuck in traffic in the tunnel or on a bridge thinking “is this the next target? am I going to die right now?). I actually set out for 6 miles today but I’m just feeling so sluggish. I decided to cut it short at 5.

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It’s crazy to me that lately I’m struggling with the mile between 4 and 5. It feels like I’m running a marathon. It’s like all I have in me is 3 milers and then I just poop out. I’m taking a step back to look at the big picture. It’s OK! I’m slow, I’m sluggish. But I’m still able to run. And have felt only minor aches in the injured foot that I seem to recover from quickly. #endsoapbox

I ran along the beach on a nice flat loose gravel trail. Thought that’d be a nice change of pace from my usual asphalt route. Oh, and I went and had a moment of silence on the beach. All was serene until I realized I stepped a little too close to the shoreline and the water came right up over my feet! #whoopsie

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I was so thirsty when I finished I guzzled 3 bottles of H2O!

photo 2 Of course I’ve been digging to the bottom of my running gear bin to wear every one of my past Ragnar shirts. Today was from 2011 =)photo 3

I’m currently drying out my kicks with the old trick of stuffing newspaper inside.

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I’ll rewind to last night quickly. Instead of running my 2-a-day today I opted to run late last night and then this morning. So I followed the moon for 3 miles and practiced running in the dark. Really gotta be Ragnar ready right?

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Tomorrow I’m going to try for 3 runs. But only 2-3 miles each and then I think I’ll be taking a rest day. Holy cheese balls I’m leaving on Tuesday!

Have a lovely evening with your favorite people and make sure to appreciate them.

If you could tell one person something that you’ve always felt about them but never shared who would that be and what would you tell them?

Where were you on 9-11-01 and how did you find out about the terrorist attacks?

 

 

What a lovely balmy morning it was yesterday! It was above freezing when I left the house at 7:15am and only got warmer….I think we hit low 40s by 10am! It felt great! Oh, and the running felt great too!

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took this backpack with warm dry clothes to change into post running. I wore it while running and it didn’t even bother me. #miracle. Duncan wanted me to put him in that backpack so bad. Sorry buddy…next time…

With all the Superbowl shenanigans going on in the city I opted to do a multi-transport approach…drove my car to the bus, took the bus into the city and met my peeps downtown right by the Freedom Tower.

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Hi Roger. Welcome to NYC! photo: E. Negron Perez

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Roger (at left) came in from Boston just to run with us because he won a video contest and scored tickets to the Superbowl! Elizabeth joined and while she lives in the city we haven’t run together in a while. Nice to catch up with her too. And then two of my favorites. The Brooklyn duo: Lisa and Mike.

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And that’s Elvia on her phone to the right. Probably posting a FB status or a pic. =)

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still hard for me to accept that the Twin Towers are gone (along with so many innocent lives). This new Freedom Tower just makes me think of the biggest headstone ever. I can’t help but take a deep breath an a moment of silence each and every time I pass it.

In usual Sally fashion I realized I forgot something. It was my Garmin this time! Not really a big deal since we had a plotted map of the course we were running. The rest of the group had already run close to 6 miles before I joined them so while they ended up with 11.5 miles I was just shy of 6.

We headed north along the West Side up to 59th Street and then over to Columbus Circle where we had a yummy breakfast thanks to Whole Foods.

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we ran past the Intrepid…

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and saw lots of the Hudson “Friver” (frozen river)

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The 555-ers reunited.

It was great to have Roger in town for the run so that the 5 of us who ran the Center of the Nation Series (5 marathons/half marathons in 5 days in 5 states) could be reunited. If you are new to my blog you can read my recaps of all 5 marathons/half marathons here:

Center of the Nation Series Marathon/Half Marathon Day 1 North Dakota

Center of the Nation Series Marathon/Half Marathon Day 1 South Dakota

Center of the Nation Series Marathon/Half Marathon Day 1 Wyoming

Center of the Nation Series Marathon/Half Marathon Day 1 Montana

Center of the Nation Series Marathon/Half Marathon Day 1 Nebraska

After parting ways, I took the subway downtown, caught my bus back to my car and drove home. The entire excursion was about 4 1/2 hours. Worth it!

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journey home begins in the subway station

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subway reflection selfie

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great morning! well worth the trip!

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do i stink or something?

Today I’m scheduled for 12 miles. I’m on the fence. I think I’ll head out late afternoon and just play it by ear. It’s a long slow distance run so maybe I’ll get in my zone. But I’m giving myself the option to bail early if I’m not feeling it.

I can’t believe how fast my calendar is filling up with races. I better go update my races page…

Happy Superbowl Sunday! Happy Groundhog’s Day. 

Hope you are all enjoying your weekend.

After the jam packed day I had yesterday, I’ll admit it was rough getting up early this morning. But in the long run well worth it. Today was just one more emotionally rewarding day. (I promise I’ll be funny again soon!)

A while back I mentioned in this post that I had signed up for the Tunnel to Towers 5K and the reasons why I wanted to run it. Well, I’m happy to report that my missions have all been completed.

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In memory of James “Vinny” LaGuardia

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into the tunnel • outta the tunnel • freedom tower • remembering the 343

1. Ran my first official 5k distance (after 3 marathons and close to 20 half marathons and a bunch of 10ks, 5 milers and 4 milers)

2. Tackled my fear of tunnels by running through one which was actually not as scary as I thought. I think it helped that there were so many people cheering. I didn’t dilly dally though. I ran pretty hard to get to the other end as soon as I could. I got a shot entering the tunnel and exiting the tunnel but didn’t take any IN the tunnel. FAIL! Also, take a look at our beautiful freedom tower and the amazing firemen all lined up for what felt like forever holding banners of the 343 that perished that day and giving us all high fives as we exited the tunnel. So amazing! I actually was running FAST because of the excitement of it all. I’m more tired today than yesterday after running 18

3. Got my picture taken with firemen!

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Sally, Lisa and Elvia-photo courtesy of JD • Sally with Firemen-photo courtesy of Elvia • Sally finishes-photo courtesy of Elvia • Sally and Elvia all fuhklempt when they played God Bless the USA-photo courtesy of JD

4. And the most important mission—running to honor my friend’s dad who was killed last month so tragically. I talked about it in this post and this post. His name was James “Vinny” LaGuardia. And he was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. He was a hero to his family and so it felt fitting to acknowledge him today.

From the pre-run performances of God Bless the USA and the Star Spangled Banner, to the sights of so many firemen running in their uniforms, reading all of the messages on the back of peoples shirts remembering loved ones, to my personal thoughts of my friend and her dad’s recent passing and my friend Lisa running in memory of her friend who was killed in Afghanistan, it was quite emotional.

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photo courtesy of Lisa

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As Frank Sinatra’s “New York New York” played…photo courtesy of JD

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Lisa ran for Dario Lorenzetti, a friend killed in Afghanistan. photo courtesy of JD

Many tears streamed down my cheek. Meanwhile I have to admit when I got dressed this morning I was giddy that I was ONLY running 3 miles. I even put on some eye makeup and didn’t wear a hat or visor so that I might actually look like a girl in my pictures for once. Well, I learned my lesson. I cried away the makeup and it was quite stuffy in the tunnel and I think I sweat MORE than  I do during a marathon. =)

My friend happened to catch me on TV. If you want to take a look go to this link and scroll down to the second video. I’ll wave to the camera at about 1:50. But it takes so long for the page to load you can just pretend and lie to me. It’s not that big a deal.

And now it’s almost 6pm on Sunday and I’m DOG TIRED! Heck the DOG is DOG TIRED too!
Apparently taking a nap outside on my driveway seemed like a good idea.

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dog tired

Appropriately enough I found this quote in my Facebook newsfeed today:

I’ve got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom. —Thomas Carlyle

Well, it’s off to get some cleaning done and clear my head and ice my tired achy legs after covering over 21 miles of running and about 5 miles of walking this weekend.

Question: What songs make you cry? Have you ever been so tired you just laid down right where you were even if it was a cold concrete driveway?