Weekend Update

Friday night Nate and I got Chinese food then vegged out and went to bed early. There wasn't much going on and we had been out late the night before so it was nice to be quiet.

Saturday I went to the beach with Christy/Jennifer/Edward. I had never been to a 'beach' in Chicago before. I gotta say that I was a bit disappointed. I forgot that lake water is not ocean water. It was murky and gross and you stood on rocks instead of soft warm sand. And the 'beach' is small. You couldn't go on a big run along the beach like you could in SF. I guess the people who love the Lake Michigan beaches here haven't lived near the ocean before. (you can slap me now) Despite my disappointment at the landscape, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the beach-goers weren't all LA tanorexic types. Lots of pale bbw's running around in bikinis and not embarrassed at all! Like Emily said, it's cool to see that people were celebrating their bodies no matter what shape. On a totally shallow level, it made me feel pretty great in my bikini comparatively. Hooray for the running addiction.

I biked to the beach and back - my first time on my bike all summer. It was a lot easier than I expected. The route was 99 percent bike lanes and my running has kept me in really good shape so I didn't get winded. The physical therapist told me to take a bike ride or a swim this weekend to make up for the 16 mile run I couldn't do, so I'm glad I got some form of biking in. The only negative was that was only 10 miles total I believe, which isn't that much. (Sidenote: I ran Thursday and my leg was fine! Only trace amounts of pain. The worst part was how slow I was :( I ran maybe half the distance I normally do for a 30 minute run. Booo)

Saturday night was a near repeat of Friday. We ate leftover Chinese food, watched Cloverfield (meh not that great), and played We Love Katamari.

Sunday was lots of cleaning. Laundry, floors, bathroom, kitchen, even the fridge and microwave. I find cleaning to be a really cathartic activity, one I enjoy doing when I've got a lot on my mind and too much free time. I also got groceries, hung with Audrey, spaced out a bunch and took a midday nap.

As I was taking Audrey outside around 4:30 I realized this weekend was a perfect SF-style weekend. A low key dinner out, two early nights in, one big outdoorsy relaxing afternoon with friends, and one day to myself. That's what a typical weekend was for me in San Francisco and I really enjoyed it. Mostly I enjoyed the no alcohol, no hangovers, no exhaustion aspects. I liked getting out during the day and having quiet evenings in. Hopefully I can do more of these before it becomes crappy winter time.

Monday is back to busy work land. While being stressed sucks, it's good to have work to do that takes all day. Makes the day go faster. After work I'm going to check out this nearby gym. I've read good things about it. They are a family-owned non-chain gym that does not charge any bogus "initiation fees" and is also super cheap. You can get a one year membership for $399 which comes out to around 30 bucks a month. That's half what I'd pay at one of the bigger corporate gyms. I need to get on those weight machines to prepare for the marathon, and want to keep my exercising up during the winter.