sunrise, sunset

I've spent the last 10 minutes straight staring at this photo:

Happy Monday to ME!

This weekend I did my longest training walk to date - 18 miles, plus 2 once I got back to Manhattan = 20 MILES!!! And man am I paying for it. I walked most of the 18 with Liz, a wonderful woman I've met through my training walk group. She is in amazing shape and keeps a pace that is...well I'll call it brisk. My legs might have some other choice words for it. It was a gorgeous day, though, and there's nowhere else I would have rather been than out walking.

In fundraising news, I'm less than $500 away from $3K! I have to think up some creative last-month ideas. Cause I will NOT let a measly $460 keep me from my goal!

I got to have lunch with my Aunt Sharon this week, who is one of the other members of the Lady Tatas. It was so great to see her and made me all the more excited for the event. It's so easy to get caught up in the logistical questions of everything - Have I trained enough? Which shoes work the best? How the hell do I pack? But, at the end of the (3) day(s), I get to spend an entire weekend with three of my favorite women in the entire world. And that alone will be enough.

I feel like I have lots on my mind and lots of potential new beginnings, but only time for a short post today. I'll end with this beautiful pic from my friend Lindsay's "End of Junior Year of Life" party at ink48. Stunning.

LOVE and the sunrises to come,

KFine

a weekend in the city

How delightful, how fantastically packed.

Another fantabulous weekend! Saturday I went on maybe my most favorite training walk to date. All of my previous long Saturday walks have been with my AMAZING training walk leader, Burt, and other 3Day walkers, but I got some friends interested in walking, so I wanted to take advantage. I was surprised at how nervous I was. Would they hate it? Would they think it was lame? Would it rain?! I pushed my apprehension aside, mapped out a route, and walked with my friends Lindsay and Tavia (with a guest appearance by Andrew, Jess, and Sarah Grace's little brother) from Grant's Tomb at the 122nd Street and Riverside Drive all the way down the west side of Manhattan, across the Brooklyn Bridge, and through Brooklyn to Prospect Park. Our route looked something like this:

View Larger Map

Crazy! And long! And awesome! It was great to have friends with so they could finally understand what I've been doing. I loved it. And I took pictures!

Ulysses S. Grant's Tomb. Nothing like a little US History at 9am on a Saturday. But actually it was beautiful.

Somewhere on the Upper West Side...

Also somewhere on the Upper West Side...

This! OK this I need to pause and talk about. There's a new summer arty thing happening in NYC called "Key to the City." Basically, in June you can go to a booth in Times Square and pick up a key. But you don't just pick it up. There's a ceremony involved. You go with a buddy and bestow keys upon each other. It's performance art-y and Lindsay and I loved it. Now this key. This key unlocks secret rooms, bridges, cemeteries, and other random places all over the city. That's right. This one little key. It's like MAGIC. Seriously, I think this is the most innovative and brilliant idea I've heard since I read the synopsis of Spiderman: the Musical (too soon? too late? I can't tell anymore.). So on our walk, we hit our first Key to the City location here at the Trinity Church. The key unlocks a special section of the cemetery that includes Alexander Hamilton's tomb. Yup. We went from Grant's Tomb to Alexander Hamilton's Tomb. It was Tomb Day.

Now our pal Al died in 1806, but some of these graves were from the 1760s and before. That is before this country existed. Wrap your mind around THAT for a sec. Crazy.

While we were there, we popped inside Trinity Church, which was beautiful:

It was interesting inside...all three of us commented on the kind of strange juxtaposition between the sacred history and the flat screen TVs to improve viewing. The ancient stories and the microphones so people could hear them. It was weird. And there was a gift shop.

We trudged along across the brilliant Brooklyn Bridge, which I hailed in a previous post. Lindsay and Tavia both hadn't walked over it before, so that was fun and New York-y.

How sweet is WAS! At this point, we had been walking for a while. OH and I didn't even mention the weather! It was in the high 80s and MUGGY. Like. The muggiest. So we were overjoyed to see that we were on the last leg of the trip. Lindsay and Tavia dropped out as we walked down Flatbush, but I sweated it out. And, thanks to getting a liiittle lost in Prospect Park, I stumbled upon this:

In case you can't tell, that is a huge African drum circle/clump/love fest. This was in front of the Brooklyn Library and it was AMAZING. I took a video on my phone that I'll try to upload. There were instruments everywhere, you could join in, drum along, or just stand. Well you couldn't stand because you'd inevitably end up dancing. It was one of those great New York things. Like...of course there are 40 people drumming outside this library. Of course. I loved it.

So that concluded my big walk. I had delusions of walking back to a train stop closer to the bridge but, well, I didn't. And I'm OK with that.

Phew! I'm exhausted just writing about how exhausted I was!

Sunday I brunched with my friend Eugenio before he leaves to do The King and I in Oregon. Then I did some lounging, some gyming, and some observing of brilliance in the form of HBO's Angels in America. I've watched it before. I will watch it again. But it's also just so much more fun now that I live in NY. One of the first scenes was filmed literally probably 5 blocks from where we were sitting.

I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna say it for the first time maybe ever. I like this city. I do. It's good.

LOVE and revelations,

KFine

well i didn't WANT to be an american idiot...

...but I am. Why? Because I went on a 15 mile walk on the hottest day of the year so far and did not bring sunscreen. WHOOPS. Somehow every year I think, "This. This is the year I will tan. This is IT." But it never is. So now I'm suffering the consequences in the form of lobster skin and lots of Gatorade. At least I'm not this much of an American Idiot:

BUT let me tell you about this walk! I took a 7:51am train (oof) to Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, where I met five other 3Day walkers and we embarked on this delightful walk. We walked through forest, along water, and through these delightful little shore towns, but the scenery didn't hold a candle to the company. These women (and man) were so inspirational. Some of them had done as many as seven walks and couldn't wait to go back for more. We talked about everything from our families, our travels, and our 3Day experiences all the way to the screwed up college application process, the Mets, and Obama's love of the White Sox. One woman, Liz, talked me through the entire 3Day process, from opening to closing ceremonies, giving me the highlights, lowlights, and everything in between. I got sock advice, shoe advice, gear advice...everything! And, most importantly, I got allies in this crazy thing we're all doing. I'm thrilled to be doing this walk, but it's been hard being separated from my other Lady Tatas, and even harder being in a 3Day Walk-less area without the resources of other cities. So I couldn't be happier I found this group of the most inspirational and amazing people. I can't wait for our next walk on the 15th...this time in my hood!

The walk itself, as I said, was gorgeous. And I made it through 15 miles without too much pain! I will say the last mile and a half was a little rough, and I was definitely stiff later in the day, but I survived! I also looked up equivalent distances so I could have points of reference, and I found out 15 miles is also:

• The distance from the NU theatre building to Wrigley Field and back.
• MORE than the distance from my mom's house to my grandma's (11.2 miles)
• Only slightly LESS than the distance from my parent's house to my apartment in Evanston (17.2 miles)
• LONGER than Manhattan (13.7 miles)
• The length of Liechtenstein.

So, I walked the length of an entire country. HOLLA.

In other news, I'm up to 44% in fundraising. WHAT?! So amazing. I broke through the $1000 mark! I'm a little nervous about turning that 44 into a 100, but I'm starting to think outside the box. It's good...it forces me to be creative! That's what I do, right?

I'm going to try to fight the exhaustion that comes along with major burnage and walk 6 more miles tonight. Pray for me.

LOVE and 20/20 hindsight,

KFine

P.S. Here are some pretty pics: