She said: Running on empty

On Thursday night, Andrew and I went to the James Beard house. For those of you who don't know, the James Beard house invites chefs from around the world to come to New York and prepare dinner for around 100 people. Dinners are open to the public, but the majority of diners (by far) are regulars - James Beard house members. We were party-crashers of sorts - non-members and the youngest in the room by decades. I had received the invitation through work (one of the perks of being in the magazine business is a plethora of free cocktail parties and dinners) and, not knowing anything about it, RSVP-ed for myself and a guest (Andrew). The crowd was sophisticated and very black and white - meaning, black clothes, white hair. At our table, were Estelle and Phil, a polished couple in their late sixties with five children and two dogs, and Jack, a true veteran (he had dined there every night except Wednesday) with lazy eyes that took a good ten seconds to focus. We chatted about "the Beard," the Brooklyn Dodgers and youth. We ate five courses (not including dessert) and put back several glasses of wine (a different wine with each course and cognac with dessert).

So, you can imagine, getting up for a run on Friday morning was not easy. I was up at 6:30, writing in the blog, drinking coffee and waiting for day to warm up a bit before I braved the cold. And it was a chilly one. Perhaps not by normal standards, but in comparison to the balmy weather we've been lucky enough to enjoy, it was quite a shock to the system. Still, I logged in my 6 miles - and walked to work. Not bad, not bad at all.