It's been a long, social weekend.  It started off gently enough when Em and I met some friends for dinner Thursday night.  We had some friends over for dinner on friday, whence we made gourmet filet mignon tacos with mango salsa--finally using the grill that's sat dormant on the roof deck for almost a year--and paired them with a nice syrah, at the suggestion of one Quiet Lion (who we were meeting the next night).  I played poker all day saturday until we met QL and his girlfriend, who are in town for marathon festivities, along with Em's brother.  We went to Sel de la Terre, a casual New Englandy/organic/french sister-restaurant-of-the-more-fancy-L'Espalier (which is probably our favorite higher end restaurant in Boston).  The real fun began when Brodie looks at the menu, calls over the sommelier and says, "WHAT?!  You don't have a SINGLE bottle over $150?"  I suggested that he might just want to pay double or triple the menu's asking price . . . After some awkward silence the Lion growls, "Can we see the wine list from next door?"  And the sommelier complies.  RFB.

Em and I ran a 5k race that started 2 blocks from our house on Sunday Morning at 8, just to get in the spirit of marathon weekend.  8 is a pretty early hour for me, particularly for any sort of athleticism, and the previous night's dinner--and > $150 bottle of burgundy--was still sitting heavily in my stomach.  I had a pretty brutal cramp right through the very end of the race, at which point I was out-kicked by a couple of 12 year-olds.  In my defense, they looked lanky for their ages.  On the women's side, Em out-leaned (ahem . . . 51 year-old . . .) Olympic champion Joan Benoit-Samuelson for third place, won a glass cup and shook the mayor's hand.  Afterwards, We met Brandon Adams and his wife, Marisa, for brunch, then sprinted off to meet a friend who just arrived in town to stay at our place to run the marathon the following day. 

We live two blocks from the finish, so it's hard not to get caught up in the excitement of it all.  The last few miles of the race, there are crowds of people several bodies deep lining the roads and the Comm. ave mall, holding signs, hooting horns and ringing bells, leaning out windows, sitting on couches on lawns, sipping cocktails and generally being very revelrous.  It's a giant party and over 500,000 spectators participate.  So anyway, I'm going to try to qualify to run next year.  The standard will be difficult for me:  I'll have to run another marathon in 3:10, which to put in perspective means I'll have to run about 18 seconds faster/mile than I did in the half marathon I was so thrilled about completing.  It's a long journey from here to there and I'm honestly not sure whether I'll be able to do it, but at least at the moment I'm pretty excited --I'm always happiest when I have goals to work towards.  With that in mind, this morning I registered for the Chicago Marathon, which takes place in October and is probably the fastest marathon in the US as it's a very flat course.  I think one of the biggest hurdles in the whole thing will be getting good runs in during the WSOP this summer.  Summertime in Vegas is not very runner friendly--running outdoors is pretty much out of the question--and I hate treadmills, but that's what it's going to have to be.

And I have to say--my training has gotten off to an enjoyable start.  Monday night after the race, Em and I were so exhausted from the weekend of socializing that we curled up on the couch, watched television, and had cupcakes for dinner.  It's never too early to carbo-load.