back in nyc

after a two week hiatus (i will be back with updates once we've had a chance to sort through our collections of +2000 photos :p), we're back! we landed in JFK late last night and managed to keep ourselves quite busy today to fight the jetlag.


in the am, a quick 13.1 mile race at central park (just over two loops) and then a short jog home.

in the afternoon, coffee and snacks at dominique ansel bakery with yvonne and her sister, natasha, in town from taipei. best croque monsieur i've ever had and cute step seating inside!

in the evening, we had dinner with relatives in town from australia at pastai. fei liu, sitting next to kevin, is my grandfather's oldest brother's grandson. our grandparents fought on different sides during the chinese civil war; while the party my grandpa was part of retreated to taiwan after the war, his grandpa remained in hunan, china. it was insightful and quite amazing to be able to meet these relatives and learn a little bit about my grandpa's life in hunan.

runner's diet

it's been some time since we've cooked (weeks?), but tonight we whipped up a simple and tasty nutritious meal for dinner.

dinner menu

black and golden quinoa

wild-caught salmon with lemon herb

sautéed organic kale

roasted russet potatoes with garlic

here's our long-ish run that we got in this morning. we were aiming for 13, but came in at 10 (oops). got a bit of a late start and both of us were feeling pretty winded. we'll have to make it up next week!

we met meb & trackjenny!

after our long run in the morning, we picked up a water bottle for me at the new balance store and a takeaway lunch at maison kayser, and headed over to central park where the nyrr fifth ave mile was taking place. it's a fun annual race which begins at the met and ends at grand army plaza. the course is entirely straight, though with a small incline in the first half and small downhill in the latter half.

we caught the end of the achilles runs, the amateur champs, and then, the elites! in the men's elite, nick willis from nz took first in 3:53 (for the third time) and in the women's elite, jenny simpson, from the us took first in 4:29 (for the fourth time)! the women's race was very tight up until the last 150m when jenny's kick and stride outpaced the second-place finisher.

after the race, we met briefly with meb, winner of the 2014 boston marathon, and i got a chance to meet my running inspiration, trackjenny! i think kev and i were both a little starstruck!

girl crush

i have a girl crush and i'm not afraid to admit it!

her name is jenny simpson and she is an 8-time track & field champion recordholder in the 1500m, as well as olympic gold medalist in the 2012 london olympics 1500m, and silver medalist in the 2013 world championships 1500m.

most recently, jenny competed in the iaaf world championships in beijing china where she was expected to take the gold or silver in the 1500m. in second place with 700 meters to go when another runner clipped the back of her sneaker and eventually she had to kick it off. she finished in 11th place with just one sneaker on and one bloody foot, and if you check out her interview, man, how modest and graceful she is about the whole thing. in addition to being an amazing runner, she has a warm, kind spirit as well.

today jenny ran the 1500m in the diamond league championships in brussels, and i managed to watch it in real-time at work! she did not podium this time, but it was a great race nevertheless. and i'm looking forward to seeing her run and possibly meeting her on sunday at the nyrr fifth ave mile! WOOHOO!

who needs a trainer

when you're married to one?

today my groin muscles were KILLING me (thanks to three sets of box steps on sunday), but kevin wanted to get a little workout in so we headed over to the gym after work for what i thought was supposed to be light stretching.

what actually happened:

• a mile on the indoor track (8-8:30 mile pace)
• 300m of leg fitness exercises and a lot of smack talking from me
• plank, superman, crunches (36), bridge, left side plank, right side plank, a good dose of nonsense from me (60 seconds each, two sets)
• a whole lot of foam rolling and moaning

it actually got a lot of the soreness out of my legs, but i wasn't sure if i would be able to make it home afterwards. i complain, but in the end i'm grateful for a PT as dedicated and willing to put up with my antics as kev :) THANK YOU!

fuku

after a run in the morning and running errands around the city all afternoon on citibikes, a dinner at cafe mogador in the east village was highly-anticipated. we arrived around 7:30pm and were told there was a 20-25 minute wait. my hunger pangs were acting up and so i suggested one of david chang's new creations, the fried chicken sandwich at fuku.

too greedy.

the thing was ginormous! there were two pieces of perfectly fried chicken and a few pickle slices tucked into (though completely sticking out of from both sides) a small bun. minutes later when we finished, we realized there was no more room for our originally planned dinner. picked up the cereal milk soft serve and called it a night!

and here is the easy run we went out for in the morning. we totally beat the sunrise so my stress levels were low :)

hot humid hell run

trying to build off some of the momentum from running in vancouver in seattle, we went out for a short run on the west side highway today. it was hot, humid, and hellish though, so we cut it short at 3.7 miles.

really need to take it up a notch this weekend and start getting some real mileage in if we're going to be in shape for the ny marathon on november 1st!

boeing tour

this morning, although we aimed to arrive 45 minutes early to our reserved boeing: future of flight tour (per the website's instructions), jen and i ended up arriving just in time. it can be a little confusing when you enter the boeing campus and my SIL and i were so caught up in conversation that we missed two exits on the way over :p kevin and his parents, in a separate car, arrived right on time.

after arrival, you need to put all your personal belongings into a locker since there are no purses, bags, backpacks, phones, or cameras allowed on the tour. then the fun begins! after a short video introduction on the history of boeing (had no idea boeing was dismantled by FDR's anti-trust regulators), we were led onto a AC'd coach bus to begin our tour of the boeing campus, and visited two hangars to see where the boeing 737, 777, and 787 jets were built. 

it was quite extraordinary, to learn about the process and see the planes being built in parts. it would have been even cooler if we could have walked down into the plant and check out the planes close-up as they were being built, however, i can see why they have to keep tourists away from the jets which cost upwards of $200 million each.

one of the most interesting things we learned was how the planes are "picked up". pilots from customer airlines arrive to the boeing campus, test out their new planes in the airspace above the campus, and fly off with the product just like we walk out of the supermarket with groceries! haha makes sense i guess.

below is a little seahawks pride!

  

we checked out a new route near weowna park heading west on the lake-to-lake trail! it was largely shaded, which was nice, and the surface was mostly trail, which is easier on the knees. passed by a nice blueberry farm!

lululemon seawheeze

the 2015 lululemon seawheeze half marathon finally arrived today!

our pre-race nutrition consisted of a half of a banana and a cup of coffee, and we were off to the race start! arriving later than we should have to the 7am start, we were stuck in a slower corral, and spent the first 4-5 miles of the race getting around runners. we were going at a slower pace, but expending unnecessary energy to get to a comfortable place within the other 7,639 runners. 

the weather was great - cool and cloudy (SERIOUSLY somebody up there loves me), with an unfortunate dose of humidity. the clouds proved to be somewhat of a nuisance in the beginning, however, making it difficult for my garmin 10 to get gps until the start of kilometer 7.

the race course was really nice, and we were able to explore different parts of downtown vancouver and cross over a couple bridges, before entering my favorite part of vancouver: stanley park. kevin and i have run along the seawall several times during our first trip out here together in 2012, but always in the counterclockwise direction. it was pretty darn amazing to run with thousands of other happy, motivated runners in the clockwise direction this time, and a great way to finish the race.

most notably for us during this race was the positive energy and enthusiasm of the runners and the enormous crowds! lululemon organized costumed cheering squads basically every mile or so, so our mental energies were boosted by the sight of heavily made-up and scantily dressed transvestites on one of the early hills, the entire cast of the wizard of oz and someone in a full-shark costume at the end of a bridge turnaround, goofy scientists in lab coats, cartoon raccoons jumping around, poseidon-like mermen on stand-up paddle boards, a live-jazz band on a barge in the pacific ocean, mermaids perched on rocks, and more!

here is the seawheeze 2015 recap video! i don't think we made it into their video, but it gives you an idea of the fun events they planned for the weekend. i really hope we can do it again!

post-race, we rewarded ourselves with fresh oysters, manhattan clam chowder, and dungeness crab at rodney's oyster house in yaletown. sadly the weather has been unusually warm in bc so the government of CA has banned the sale of west coast oysters (raw), so we feasted on their cousins from nova scotia, pei, and other parts of eastern canada.

in the afternoon, we got a VIP insiders tour of the capilano suspension bridge park with the family. the capilano suspension bridge is a 460 ft long suspension bridge 230 ft high in north vancouver which was originally built in the late 1800s and rebuilt several times in the 1900s. in the park, you can walk across the main suspension bridge, and also across many more suspension bridges connected by treetops. in addition, there are forests of cedars and evergreens, guided nature tours, and an aviary where you can get up close and personal with a few of the birds native to bc. basically it's a toddler-child's heaven.

in the photo below, i have a smile on my face, but if you panned in on my body, you'd see that i was holding tightly onto the suspension bridge and cringing in fear of slipping off the bridge!

one of the must-do's on our trip was revisit the richmond night market! it's located in the suburbs of richmond, which is where you can get the best asian, especially chinese/hk food, basically the flushing of vancouver. there are hundreds of stands with all types of asian snacks - savory and sweet. my favorite snacks sold at the market are the 鹽酥雞 (taiwanese popcorn chicken), a mango-coconut milk-almond tofu dessert, and of course, ROTATO.

large taiwanese deep-fried breaded chicken = happy husband!

long run :)

the weather has started to cool down a little this last week so kevin and i made our way to central park to do the full loop this morning. it's been a while since we've run at the park, much less do the full loop, so hopefully it's the start of something good :)

afterwards, maria met us at tavern on the green and we did another loop, less harlem hill, putting me at a total of 11 miles! albeit, the second half was at a much slower pace, but it's a start. in a week, kevin and i will be running the lululemon half marathon in vancouver - i hope we can get through it!

lululemon seawheeze 13.1 training

kevin and i have been a bit under the weather for the last few weeks. that, combined with a decent amount of laziness, i haven't been running consistently, as evidenced in this blog. hopefully that changes starting this weekend because i am finally feeling less congested and, more urgently, we have just two weeks to go before the lululemon seawheeze half marathon which i was so excited for when we initially registered!

we got out for a couple short runs this weekend - definitely not enough to whip us into shape for the upcoming 13.1, but hopefully a start which will gain momentum and help us build mileage in the next two weeks. 

eek, couldn't manage to run more than 5 miles, partly due to the warm 70s weather and partly due to muscle atrophy.

pride run

ran our first pride run today! :) weather was a bit on the warmer and humid side, but it was an amazing morning to be running!

we must have given it pretty much our "all", because both kevin and i were exhausted and tried to stay off our feet for the rest of the day. with the exception of a fun brunch at almond in the neighborhood with kevin's nephew (yes, his 44 year old nephew!), we spent a nice few hours lounging on the couch and ordered in korean for dinner.

it's still hard for me to believe that a couple of relatively "fit" (so i thought) people like us would be so exhausted from a 5 mile race 12 hours earlier. haha ... old age is catching up!

100th st loop repeats

yay ~ my hubby is back from virginia! :) just in time for running class!

with temperatures around 69F and a humidity of 80%, the weather was almost perfect for our NYRR running class tonight. it was definitely the coolest it's been for weeks, which was a nice change.

for tonight's workout, coach glover had us do 6 x 650m repeats around a small loop at 100th street on the east side of central park. i started and stayed within the second group (7-8 min 5k'ers), and kevin ran with group one, though rotating into group two to keep me company for one loop.

the course is really nice! the are small rollers, and some interesting curves along the route, to keep the run entertaining. it was the first time i felt distracted by the other runners in the class though, and particularly, their varying running forms and gaits. oh well.

it was fun exploring a new part of central park for me! it's a quiet part of the park (except for the sweaty running messes) where there are no cars or bikes, and manageable for an evening stroll :)

rockefeller state park preserve

the alarm went off the stroke of 6am and we were at grand central on the 6:43am metronorth hudson line on our way to tarrytown to meet our friend and wedding officiant, ken, for a run at rockefeller state park preserve. 

the hudson line runs on a beautiful route, following the southern coastline of the bronx and north along the east side of the hudson river. if you snag a seat on the left side of the northbound train, you get an exquisite view of inwood hill park along the harlem river and palisades park along the hudson river.

for our run, ken took us through the rockefeller state preserve park. it was 75F with a humidity of 75%, but slightly overcast and parts of the route were protected by the coverage of the park canopy. we started running around swan lake, running right up and along the edge of blue hill stone barns, lots of private areas marked "no trespassing", and part of the rockwood trail at sleepyhollow. ken was the most amazing tour guide, not to mention, an amazing runner.

the first few miles were truly painful, as we started the first half mile of the run with an ascension, and i realized i had no idea how far we were planning to run that morning. saw lots of cows and recently sheared lambs marked with giant black X's around stone barns. around mile 4, i thought i saw the road again, and breathed a sign of relief as i imagined returning to the car (my pace hastened as well ha), but nope, it was just a tease. more hills. around mile 7, i think kevin started feeling the pain as well and politely asked ken - how much you think we have left? i don't recall ken's reply, but he did not indicate that the end of in sight. ha.

with that said, miles 8 & 9 were stunning, and not too hilly either. we were at an elevation of about 150 feet just overlooking the hudson! around this point, kev had to step off to take care of some business, and ken assured me we had just a couple miles left. those couple miles turned out to be 3.5 more as we made a slightly wrong turn and ended up doing an extra loop, but when we finished, it felt SO GOOD!!

moral of the story: we need more hills practice more often!

the big apple bbq was in town again so we stopped by madison square park  for some spare ribs and beans at memphis bbq and pappy's. LOVE LOVE the pappy's!!!

travel booked

after a year of pining for the lululemon seawheeze half marathon which is held in vancouver every august, i finally got in this year and convinced kevin to do it with me. yay! vancouver is the where we went for our first weeklong vacation together back in the summer of 2012, and we loved the area, especially going for runs around stanley park and the night market in richmond!

up until tonight, the trip was not confirmed, but now that we've booked our flights ~~ we are set for august 14-17! fingers crossed for a cool, breezy, and overcast morning so i don't sweat like a big pig :p

this is the lululemon seawheeze marketing video from 2014's race ~~ every time i watch and listen to it, i get so jazzed!!!

ps. we also booked our new zealand trip for sep-oct! it will be our first two-week holiday since our honeymoon in 2013, and i am looking forward to reading more about the south and north islands!

a loft transformed

another morning, another run! my MIL suggested for us to check out weowna park, a wooded forest with soft trails for walking, running, and hiking, just west of lake sammamish. after passing the kelsey creek blueberry farm driving on 148th ave and a really nice paved (and shaded!! :D) path along the north side of southeast 16th street, we parked the car at a trailhead around 168th ave southeast and southeast 19th street.

the "run" was really fun and almost entirely (99.999%) shaded! it was hot and humid out, but at least we were shaded and protected by cooler temperatures of the forest. the hills were humbling in the first half of the run, and miserably cruel in the second half, but to get a peek of lake sammamish was totally worth it! when we reached the northmost point of the run, we realized that the car key was missing, and retraced our steps (ahhhhh) in search of the key.  to no luck.

luckily, a quick call to the family 911 line and my MIL and nephew were at the park in no time, with an extra set of keys for us. i think this is the third time we've had some sort of car issue in the seattle area in the last four years, and second time we needed to call kevin's parents for help. yes, for some reason i keep track of random stats like that :p

in the afternoon, we piled into doughzone for a seriously delicious taiwanese breakfast, and stopped by the loft to see how the work was going. mike and his guys had prepped, primed, and started painting the south side of the loft, and the north side was being prepped. just a fresh coat of white primer resulted in such a transformation in the loft! i hope one day we can do a full renovation of the place!

it was a beautiful day and we wanted to get to know our area a little bit better, so we walked around occidental ave and first ave to scope out some of the restaurants, bars, and shops we've been reading about online. here are the must try's in pioneer square: 

• bar sajor
• salumi
• the london plane
• dry goods designs
• damn the weather
• kraken congee
• intrigue chocolate
• pizza gabbiano
• good bar
• elm coffee roasters

finally, liam bid us farewell with this adorable line-up. these are all the legos "he built all by himself with uncle kevin, auntie jen, mom, and ah-gong" this weekend :)

nasty

today was the nastiest day of the year so far.

temperatures were in the mid-80s and humidity must have been in the 80-90% percentile (although accuweather claimed it was 58% somewhere in nyc). for the first day of our second set of nyrr running classes, we jogged up to 102nd street and did 4 x 800m intervals, with 1-2 minutes rest between each. normally it would have been a fun exercise, but today, when we were sweating bullets before the practice even started, it was mildly painful.

kevin wasn't feeling great so he took it easier in group 3 with me! :D it was fun to run in the same group again!

sleepyhollow lake

today was third and last day in hudson! we decided to drive out to sleepy hollow lake on the west side of the hudson river to do the 8 mile loop around the lake.

sleepy hollow lake refers to both the lake and a co-located residential community in green county, ny. the lake is a 2.5 miles long, 324 acres, 70 ft deep man-made, class A drinking water reservoir for the community. the 2,200 acre surrounding living community is a planned unit development (pud) that self-governs residential land use, maintains common roads, parks, beaches, operates most of the sewer and water services, and provides community security and enforcement.

we started out going east and then north along the east side of the lake and boy was it gorgeous! it was an overcast day (!! yay !!) and it was relatively cool out, though quite muggy. the east side of the lake reminded me of our trip to whistler in august 2012, small homes on the lakeside peering down into the lake (although sleepy hollow lake was not nearly as pretty :p), while the west side of the lake was flatter and felt like we were running through any other suburb.

haha if you zoom into my strava course below, you'll see that i did a little extra loop where we parked our car to hit the 8 mile mark :)

we "checked out" of our guesthouse by 11am and made our way back into town for brunch at le gamin before heading back to the city. the food at le gamin, like many things french, was very delicious! and carefully executed. we were extremely hungry after the run, and didn't leave even a speck of our omelet or savory crepe on the plates. like most things french, beware of the relaxed pace of the service. since we were killing time before grazin' opened (to pick up two LARGE milkshakes for the road), we had time to spare :)

last of the 酒酿

i had been planning to check out tedeschi trucks band performance at central park summerstage tonight, but after three days of muggy weather, i didn't feel like sitting at the park trying to aerate myself, even if it was along to some good tunes.

instead, we went for a short run on the west side highway and did ab work, or what i like to lovingly call "abs crap", at the piers. it's been a while since we've been to the piers on a weeknight and it was bumpin in there! it reminded me of the days of single life when i would find myself at the gym on evenings catching up on sitcoms or the latest and greatest on the food network.

tonight, abs crap consisted of three sets of plank (1 min), bridge (1 min), crunches (24), and jazzercise aka leg lifts to stretch out the IT band (20 each leg). while we were getting ready to leave, we saw a guy doing inverted (upside down) situps holding a 25 lb weight. omg! that sounds brutal, but so cool ~ must try it next time!

for dinner, we paired the leftovers (fried rice, bittermelon, and snap peas) with some fresh dishes (tomato and eggs, roasted taiwanese sausage, and super intense mullet roe). a workout, a variety of favorite homemade dishes, and my hubby ... simple things like this make me very happy!

we finished off the night with the last serving *welps* of my mom's 酒酿 (jiu niang) -- ahhhh!!! time to learn to make some for myself! it's become a staple in this household too :)

nat'l stationary show

we "slept in" this morning and went for a short recovery run on the west side highway when it was way too late and bright out. bahh not my cup of tea, but at least we kept it short.

i spent the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon helping out at my friend, yuan's, booth, lemon drop papers, at the 2015 national stationary show! this is her fifth year participating in the show and my third year helping out, and i love seeing her all her creative designs and new products coming out each year!

this last year, she's worked especially hard on her drawn designs, which include motifs such as birdhouses, owls, donuts, floral, and mushrooms surface patterns. and similar to previous years, lots of new retailers as well as repeat buyers stopped by the booth to learn more about the product, the process, and we had a couple big orders by the time i left.

i didn't have a chance to walk around and check out the other booths this year, but i'm going to try to find some time on tues afternoon perhaps :)

in the afternoon, i had my friend, kabraham's, daughter's 4 year old princess themed birthday at the greenwich village kidville, and gave her one of yuan's latest card designs! we stopped by just in time to sing happy birthday and watch the little ball of cuteness run around happily with her cousins and friends. wish i took some pics (but i didn't want to be that creepy adult without kids taking photos of other peoples' kids).