Running to Western Beef. Next stop, the marathon!

I'm happy to say that after my relatively successful run today, I've decided to go through with the ING New York City Marathon!  OK, it wasn't the greatest run ever.  But I finished it (albeit slowly) and felt good at the end.  I'm not going to be setting a new PR next week, but I feel like I can run it painlessly and without messing up my legs, and have a good time while doing it.

Today's run took me from my apartment down the WSH, across the Brooklyn Bridge, and back around the Greenway up to 16th Street, where I ended up at the market to buy groceries for a dinner party I was hosting tonight.  The run itself was OK.  I did it with Dane who's running his first NYC Marathon next week.  We took it pretty easy, and had to slow down considerably on the Brooklyn Bridge because there were a zillion tourists there taking in the first nice fall weather that we've had in a while.  My butt issue (which I've self-diagnosed--with the help of Alison, a Front Runner who's doing NYC three weeks after Steamtown--as Piriformis Syndrome) was noticeable, but not in a big way.  I also felt some tenderness on the top of my right foot towards the end of the run, but I think I can massage it out during the next week.

The run was a little slower and longer than expected.  And Dane and I spent way too much time at Western Beef buying groceries, which is easy to do since it is the best supermarket in all of NYC.  By the time we got all of the supplies to my house, it was 7:15, and we had to shower and make two lasagnas before a group of hungry gayrunners arrived at 8:00.  That was a pretty stressful 45 minutes.  To top it off, we had completely forgotten to get ingredients for a salad, so we had to get Ryan to pick some up on the way to my place.  I'm not sure how we did it, but a vat of sauce was made (decicious meat sauce with onions and mushrooms; I also threw in some ground up carrots for texture and Vitamin A), and by the time the first guests were arriving, the two lasagnas were assembled and in the oven.  My sauteed broccoli rabe and garlic bread were on schedule too.  And we were ready to eat by the time Josh arrived fashionably late at 8:30.

Because of the time constraints, some corners were cut with the lasagna.  I should have taken the foil off before it finished so the mozzarella would brown a little.  Instead, it was a bit of a gooey mess.  And adding to the gooey messiness factor, the ricotta in the lasagna was running all over the place after scooping out each piece.  I usually mix an egg into the ricotta, which I think guards against this exact situation.  Oh well, it was tasty anyway.

Somewhat less successful was the garlic bread.  For one thing, I had not baked it for long enough, so the not-fully-cooked garlic chunks were a bit overly pungent, to put it gently.  But even worse, something happened during the cooking process to turn all the garlic an unappetizing shade of bright green.  I have no idea why this happened, although it has happened to me once before.  The garlic had just been purchased today, and it looked fine after being put through the garlic press.  Was it because I used olive oil instead of butter?  If anyone knows, please leave a comment!

To finish off the meal, we had a plethora of desserts.  Mike Terry brought over some homemade rice pudding.  It was sweet and delicious, topped off with a silky meringue.  Derek brought over a sweet potato pie, which I really love this type of year.

And Ryan, urban planner by day and home brewer by night, brought over a homemade mead, which is a honey-based alcoholic beverage.  I had never had mead before, and am sometimes skeptical about home brews, but this was quite delicious.  It was sweet but light, a perfect dessert beverage.  I think Ryan said he just used honey, water, yeast and some raisins.  It sounded so easy to make that I might have to try brewing it myself sometime.