NO MORE SPICY PASTA!

I spent the last four days in one of my favorite cities, Seattle. We were up there for a family wedding, and I was able to take a few days off so we could sightsee with Lisa's family. The trip overall was fabulous, with great eats and breathtaking sights. To start off, my brother-in-law got us a steal at the Marriott Residence Inn on Lake Union via Priceline.

The going rate there is in the high $100s/night, but he was able to negotiate us a rate of only $70! We primarily ate around the area and had views of the Space Needle and Mt. Ranier.

While we were there, I celebrated my 37th birthday. I thought about doing a special kind of run to commemorate my 37 years here on Earth. Maybe I could run for 37 minutes OR run 3.7 miles OR run for 3 hours and 7 minutes. After debating for awhile, I finally decided on something completely different and gave in to my daughters' desire to go swimming in the hotel pool. So while they went swimming, I relaxed in the hot tub and gave my legs a rest. The later half of the day was dedicated to the wedding. Afterwards, while walking to the car to drive back to the hotel, I passed by a coffee shop (Seattle has plenty) that caught my eye.

Seeing my namesake on the window, I had to stop by for an Americano. It hit the spot and I was feeling energized after an afternoon of wedding dancing with Lisa and the girls. When we got back to the hotel, it was time to watch Game 7 of the Bulls vs. the Celtics. Having grown up in Chicago, my sports' loyalties still remain in Chicago. In the 80s and 90s we were definitely spoiled, having the best basketball player on the planet in Michael Jordan. We watched the first half in the hotel room and then decided to go have some dinner and catch the second half at a restaurant nearby. We walked across the street to a row of restaurants and decided on another narcissistic choice: Joey's.

The game was on inside at the bar, the place was pretty hip inside, and the menu items looked excellent. At this point, I was thinking about maybe getting a run in after dinner, since Sunday was definitely booked and I needed to get my long run of 17 miles in. After browsing through the menu, I decided on a seafood pasta dish: seafood linguine. Bad mistake. The food was terrific, but I would pay for it later on that night. Game 7 was exciting, but the Bulls just didn't have enough to take out the defending champs. When I returned to the hotel room at 8 p.m., I quickly changed and headed to the exercise room with my 2 gels, MP3 player (nope, still don't have an iPod), and water bottle.

The exercise room was small, but they had a TV. Being that I was the only one in the gym, I got to handle the remote control and volume. I flipped to an ESPN classic of the Rumble in the Jungle: Ali vs. Foreman. The first 2 miles were run at 8:57/pace. Then, my stomach started to rumble. Pit stop #1.

After relieving myself, I got back on and started to run again. I picked up the pace a little and ran the next 7 miles at 8:48/pace. I took a gel at mile 7 and was feeling good again. At mile 9, the rumbling started again, and soon after, I was back in the bathroom. After another good cleansing, I got back to running and soon after took another gel at mile 11. Less than a mile later, I hit pit stop #3. At this point, I was just happy to be near a bathroom and glad to be almost done. Wanting to finish off the run strong, I ran the last 5 miles @ 8:00/mile pace. I was thankful to be able to complete this leg unimpeded.

• Overall it took about 2 hours, 33 minutes, including all pit stops, to run the 17 miles (9:00/pace). And the one thing that I will never ever do again is EAT SPICY PASTA before a long run!

Thanks for reading and have a great week everyone!