New York, New York

The week started out with bad news; my Aunt Alice Murray passed away on the 4th of July. While it was sad, it was a blessing at the same time. My aunt had Alzheimer's, which in my opinion, is one of the worst diseases to be afflicted with. The disease "strikes" the patient, but it is the family that suffers.

I made plans to go to New York for the wake and funeral and decided to take my daughter. Coming from an Irish Catholic family, wakes and funerals are our "family reunions" and I wanted my daughter to meet her extended family.

We flew up Wednesday for the wake. Thursday was the funeral mass and then the burial. Afterwards was a get together at my cousin Murray's. It was nice catching up with family members. My dad had already "bragged" to everyone that I will be running the NY marathon this year, so that was the topic of many conversations!

After the get together, we rode the LIRR into the city, per my daughter's request! Back at the hotel, I took advantage of being so close to Central Park and went out for a 2.7 mile run. I ran about 1/2 of the "loop". It was such a great run; the run has ascents and descents, lot's of shade from the trees, and best of all, it was filled with tons of active people riding bikes, rollerblading and running.

Thursday night the girlie & I went out for a stroll; we went to Times Square and got a NY street hot dog for dinner! During our stroll, we saw several of the MLB "Lady Liberty" statues that marathoner had mentioned in his blog at http://marathonomy.blogspot.com/.

Friday, the girlie & I did some more "strolling" through the city, ending up in the Chelsea area. We met up with my stepmom Anne at the Chelsea Market. I wanted to get a "Food Network" gift for my son, but didn't find anything appropriate or reasonably priced. The least expensive item was $22 for Iron Chef coasters and I'm sorry, but that's just ridiculous (plus, he has no use for coasters!). On the way out of the market, we saw the Detroit Tigers Lady Liberty. So far I've seen St. Louis and Detroit, but no Cleveland (my Mom & Dad will appreciate that!).

Friday night we dined at my father's place; we sat on his terrace which overlooks Riverside Park and the river. Dad cooked hot dogs on the grill. More dogs!

Saturday morning I did another run in Central Park. This time, I did the entire loop, running 6.11 miles in 1:03:26. My "slowest" time was mile 4; this is where there's quite an ascent in the NW part of the loop. It was a good challenge, and after completing it, I felt so invigorated (yeah, I know that sounds corny!). Honestly, my runs in Central Park were AWESOME!!! I am so envious of NY'ers. CP is the perfect running spot; you can easily adjust your run length to shorter or longer runs, it's not boring, it's not flat. I don't want to go back to Florida!!!

After my run and a shower, we met up with Anne for some shopping down by Union Square; DSW (my personal favorite), Filene's Basement (got some good deals there) and Strawberry (for the girlie!). For dinner, us 3 girls met up with dad at the Wicked Wolf pub on 75th and 1st Ave. Everyone had lobster; except for me (the filet was great)!!! We topped that off with some ice cream before getting on the bus. The bus went through Central Park, right at the time that Bon Jovi was performing their concert. We got off and listened for a short while before transferring to another bus.

And Sunday we flew home to Florida; hot and humid Florida.......Sigh......

It was great to see Dad & Anne; although it was because of an unfortunate event. But, the girlie and I made the most of it, seeing family, sightseeing, shopping, spending time together. And most importantly, we made it through 5 days together without any catfight scratches!!! (Anyone with a teenaged daughter should appreciate that!).

Till next week.....

Run long, Run strong...........

Dani (blonderx)