It's Been a Tough Week

Thus far Easter Sunday has been a very relaxing and quiet day and for that I do thank the Lord. The preceding seven days have been well, somewhat hellish and perhaps worthy of a little blog post.

One week ago today Salena and I drove back to New York from Charlottesville, Virginia. It was a nine-hour drive full of magnificent sights such as the New Jersey Turnpike, The Fort McHenry Tunnel and the Delaware Memorial Bridge, delectable meals at IHOP and Burger King and immaculate rest stop facilities. Oh, and least I forget, the fuse to the car radio/CD player fizzled out early in the trip. A trip truly worth the gas and tolls! We were in Virginia visiting Salena’s mother. Joining us were Salena’s younger sister Shonet who made the trek down from Kingston, NY with Salena’s Boston-based sister Susan and Susan’s significant other Joe. It was a nice visit and we all had a most agreeable time – enjoying plenty of good cooking and lots of yummy wine (thank you Shonet for the bottle of Ravenswood Icon!).

I had hoped that I would be able to leave the office on Monday with enough time to make it to hill work with the Hellgaters but my employer had other ideas. Instead it would be a 10 hour + day. We’re launching a new division of the business and it has become part of my job to make sure that they have everything they need… Including an office. Setting up an office for 13 people complete with real estate, office furniture, telephones, internet, computers, printers (and other ancillary items) in 5 business days while simultaneously doing your “actual” job is sort of like running a marathon at a 5K pace.

Knowing Tuesday would bring more of the same I got up early and got in a 30 minute tempo run at a sub 7 minute per mile pace. When I got in from my run I jumped in the shower and the phone rang. I knew it was not good news. A little before 8:00AM on Tuesday, April 11, 2006 my grandfather, Elmer “Old E.C.” Connelly passed away. He was an amazing man and will be dearly missed and is sure to be the subject of a future post to this blog.

Needless to say, the rest of the day was spent trying to hold back my emotion and focus on work. For the most part I was successful on both counts but still managed to put in a 10 hour day at the office before meeting Salena at a favorite neighborhood restaurant where I promptly put back a couple of Knob Creek Manhattans.

Wednesday was hump day and it brought the real joy of the week. I was at the office at 8:30AM to meet Donald MacDonald, our interior designer, before heading back to the Jersey Turnpike, this time to Elizabeth New Jersey – the home of Ikea! Countless hours and about $10,000 later we had our cargo van and what must have been about 3,500 pounds of unassembled Swedish office furniture. I got home from work sometime around 12:30AM Thursday. It was a 15 + hour day and vive hombre what a work out! Shout out to Bryce who helped unload the van.

I stopped keeping track of my hours Thursday but know that it was a long day spent with our bookkeeper approving invoices and cutting checks.

Friday was a somewhat long stressful day due to competing priorities between my Marketing duties, Finance duties and the task of setting up the new office space – Marketing won. Which meant that Saturday would be spent at the office on finance.

Before heading into the office Saturday I did get to go for a run on Saturday morning with the Hellgate Road Runners. It was a good long run at a solid pace from Astoria Park in Queens to McCarren Park in Brooklyn - 9.7 miles according to my Nike Traix v10. I spent the rest of the day (about 6-7 hours) generating and sending invoices. Exhausted, Salena and I went for dinner on Saturday night.

I had fully intended to get in some Easter Bunny speed work down at the track today but instead found that the only repeats I would be doing were naps.

I am resolving to work fewer hours this week and make it to the 7:30PM Hellgate workouts on Monday and Wednesday at a very minimum which means that I will need to leave work at 6:00PM. Not all that unreasonable I should think! After all, how am I going to PR at the Queens Half Marathon if I don’t get some speed work in?

For the moment, I am going to enjoy my dinner, pour another glass of Veuve Clicquot and let the bubbles work their magic!

Happy Easter to all.