Saturday #1, Chapter 2

Monday, April 18, 2016

As we were tramping about Boston, OVERWORKEDJANET and I realized that we were ready to have some lunch. After checking out menus and availability of seating along Boylston Street, she spotted this little place down a side street:

Awesome choice, Janet. Turned out they had a Greek salad topped with (I hope she'll add the appropriate adjective for the spicing/preparation as I'm having a "senior moment") chicken, beef or lamb.  We both picked this as our lunch, mine was "undressed" because that's how I like it. It was a big salad, with about twice the meat I needed, so I did leave about half of the meat behind... I have ceased my membership in the clean plate club. It is truly odd for a former compulsive eater, but between being around runners and being around Sparkers, I think the healthy eating routine is pretty entrenched. Yes, I have lapses, but this is what I return to. This is what they all mean by "lifestyle change, not diet."

Anyway, this is more the kind of thing to do on vacation: find the unique little places that are local to where you are traveling, and I was grateful to have company for my culinary adventures on Saturday!

After lunch we kept on walking, and I took Janet on a walking tour of some of the places I had run on Friday. Since she's a fan of architecture, we tried to hit the areas that might be interesting due to the buildings and parks. We got over to the Charles River Esplanade where that day, it had some white caps due to the windy conditions. And the rowing shells had been replaced by sailboats!

At some point we headed back town-ward, exploring streets with small shops, more architecture and sights to see. It got to be 4 p.m. and Laura (STRONGDAWG) made contact and we arranged where to meet her. At that point we were back at a corner of the Boston Common, very near the T, so we didn't even head back to the hotel. Janet helped me navigate purchasing my Charlie ticket, which turned out to be good training for "second Saturday".

We met Laura at the Cambridge T station, and it turned out the dinner restaurant we had pre-selected had too long a line, so we all packed back onto the T. I insisted on another selfie, lest we forget to document it photographically... and here in all our dissheveled glory, we are waiting for the train.

Where did we go? Well of course to Harvard! So forever after, we three can say we went to Harvard together (yes, it still takes very little to amuse me!) Laura pointed out the offices of Dewey, Cheatem and Howe, long time known to many of us from Car Talk! Next selfie, from the John Harvard statue, where we all touched his boot (apparently for luck?) can be found in STRONGDAWG's blog.

8/30/2021, I have now copied STRONGDOG's blog, with her permission, and you can access it here:  Dawg Days Spark Meet Edition

After tramping around for a bit as a threesome, we settled on a Thai place. Janet and I looked at the menu and bingo, once again settled on the same entree. A tofu (again I seek the spicing term). When the plates arrived, they were HUGE, of course. I divided the plate into 1/3 and 2/3, turned the 1/3 toward myself and declared "THIS is my food", then indicated the 2/3, "this is NOT my food". I thought about WATERMELLEN's Charlie, I did!

I ate only my designated portion, not wanting to put the potential of doing MOBYCARP's 2 mile course preview with him (turned out I didn't, it was a point at which he needed to be doing some solo prep... very important to a runner). But it was important not to weigh myself down.

So, let's briefly review food for first Saturday: I had three meals with no snacks between! The meals were a little larger than my norm. But I certainly did not die from hunger!

And in the course of the day (since OWJ asked in her blog yesterday)... 34,400 plus steps. Of which at least 17,000 OWJ was along for the journey.

Back to hotel, snuggle in for the night... and we shall continue the next blog with Second Saturday, or the arrival of MOBYCARP to pick up his packet and all that pre-race jazz!

Now go out there and Spark a great Marathon Monday! It's the only April 18th, 2016 we'll ever get!