Celebrity Weekend

Despite spending 75% of my weekend doing pretty much nothing, I had a really great weekend you guys.  And it started with my night as a "celebrity judge" at the Mop & Bucket Company's improv show on Friday!

I stole that picture off of their website, but if you see those numbers they are holding up -- that was what I got to do on Friday night.  Hold numbers in the air telling people how funny they were (or weren't.)  Pretty awesome, right?

I started having fun with the experience of being the judge at the improv show long before the show actually started on Friday.  Since the role I was playing was called a "celebrity judge" it was fun to just tell people that I was a "celebrity judge" and see their faces as they wondered if I had some sort of secret celebrity life they didn't know about (I don't...)  My friends know about my ridiculousness and ability to get myself involved in random, interesting situations so it was pretty normal for them, however, kind of funny when the head of the business I worked for asked me to do something Friday night and I had to explain I couldn't because I had a commitment as a "celebrity judge" at a local performance.

My friends and I met after work for drinks and dinner at Bomber's -- a local Mexican bar -- where I warmed myself up with a jimbo (mix of margarita and beer... so not on in the WW points range...) and nachos (...I'm supposed to be eating healthy?...)  It's always a good time enjoying drinks and food with friends and I was really happy that everyone had come out!  I went over to the show early to get briefed on how to be a judge, which was pretty simple, hold up a card based on how I thought the scenes went -- 1 is terrible and 5 is best thing I've seen in my life -- and honk a horn if the scene just needs to end.

I have never been to an improv show so I wasn't sure what would happen next but there were 2 teams and they would "challenge" each other to a "scene that is loud" or a "scene that involves the audience" or something else along those lines. The two teams would then go back and forth with different types of scenes that went along those lines.  It was really interesting to watch and all of the members of the teams were so impressive!  Scenes would end when the person controlling the lights shut them off, when the horn was blown, or when the ones that involved battling back and forth had a winner.

One of my favorite scenes of the night was when they involved audience members to sort of play a live version of Mad Libs where the cast would say a sentence and then stop half way through and let the audience volunteer fill in the word.  It was funny, impressive, and I loved that my friends decided to volunteer and take part!

These are the only two terrible pictures that I have of the evening that I had to sneakily take when my friends were up on the stage!  The other skits I loved were the ones that involved singing. I love singing and making up songs as they go along and although the members of the improv group would put me to shame, I have to say that I don't generally do too terrible of a job in making up my own songs!

Anyways, all in all, I really enjoyed the show and the experience and will definitely want to return at some point as either a judge, or an audience member because it was a fun, different experience!

The rest of the weekend consisted of running events, errands, and some time with my laptop catching up on work.  My day on Saturday started with the MOPS fun run, which was a 10K race I had found online and signed up for.  MOPS stands for Mothers of Pre-Schoolers and it was a small race, where I am pretty sure I was the only one there who was not somehow affiliated with the group (aka a mother of a preschooler...)  It wasn't chip timed, but I had decided to do it just as a motivation to run FAST.  And by fast, I mean fast for me.

I've been wanting to work on speed now that the marathon is over and I haven't run for speed in a while since I've just been working on distance.  The fastest I have run an "official" 10K was about 57 minutes before this race, but I know that when I did my half marathon in September, my split for the 10K was around 55 minutes.  That was the time I was aiming for.  When I crossed the finish, the time said it was 55:36 as a finish but my Garmin watch actually only clocked the race as being 6.12 miles so I kept running until my watch said 6.2 (a 10K) at which my watch said 56:07.  I'm not sure exactly what to think of the time, but I will go with 55:36 but still really want to improve on that.

To be honest, although I guess it was "technically" a PR, I was a little bummed with how hard it felt to run for speed.  I know that it was the first race I've done in a while so it probably should have been expected.  I've been focusing on distance, keeping a consistent, slower pace, and have also put on a little bit of weight over the past couple weeks, which matters.  But still, it was a little hard.  One of my goals is to run a half marathon under 2 hours and the race I am aiming to do in is the Saratoga Palio Half Marathon in September.  It's weird, I know I've gotten close to it with a 2:03:46 half marathon last year, but I couldn't imagine continuing to run another 7 miles at the pace from Saturday!  I guess I have my work cut out for me over the summer to work at getting faster.

Anyways, on Sunday (today), I did a little part to give back to the running community by volunteering at a local 5K that was taking place this morning.  I've been wanting to do this for a while and finally did when a co-worker told me about this race she helps organize because it supports ALS, which her brother passed away from a few years ago.  I was given the role of "course marshal" and was set up by the 1-mile mark directing runners around a corner.  It was really a fun time and felt good to be at a race as a supporter, like at the Boston Marathon (but on a much smaller and more intimate level, obviously.)

After a chilly few hours outside at the race, I stopped at a coffee shop on the way home with my laptop to warm up for a few hours with a cappuccino and biscotti.

So, besides some laundry, some grocery shopping, a little cooking, and organizing, that was pretty much my weekend.  I came down with a cold on Friday so I decided to keep it low key and got some rest and caught up on a number of TV shows like Parenthood, Mindy Project, and Sherlock.  I'm still weeks behind on TV, but got a big hunk done this weekend.  Exciting, right?

Anyways, one more tidbit from the weekend I should share because this is the "Hungry Twenties" is my "fat kid" moment of the day today.  I was driving to the grocery store and eating a snack in the car of an english muffin I toasted and spread with a Laughing Cow cheese wedge and some cut up tomatoes (my new favorite thing, by the way.)  A piece of tomato fell between the seat and the center console so I pulled over to get it out right away, otherwise, I knew I'd forget about it until I had a rotten, gross tomato stinking up my car.  When I moved the seat back to get it out I found a piece of wrapped, hard candy, which I was pumped about and ate immediately.  It was only after it was in my mouth that I thought to myself.  Is this gross?! I have no idea when or where the candy was from, but didn't really care.  I love candy, haha.

Happy start to your week everyone!