Long Pond Iron Works State Park

When I was little, vacations often involved overnight train journeys. My mother would cook puli sadham (tamarind rice), mutton fry and coconut thuvaiyal (chutney), boil a few eggs, and wrap them up in aluminium foil. In the train, my brothers and I would fight for window seats, then settle ourselves as the train pulled out of the station, eagerly drinking in the moving landscape. Barely half hour into the journey, we would approach my mother, her face buried in a book, the worries and cares of mundane existence already forgotten. My mother would look up smiling, and know exactly what we were after. We would soon be munching, the tanginess of tamarind rice perfectly complementing the spicy mutton fry and thuvayal, and before long, every morsel would disappear.

This weekend, DH whipped up a perfect puli sadham and delicious mutton fry. I contributed the thuvaiyal. Perfect comfort food, eaten by Greenwood Lake,

after a short hike at Long Pond Ironworks State Park.The water was cool and refreshing. As we ate, we spotted a water snake, that would rise above the water every now and then, then disappear again. Every time it rose, it got a little closer to us. Disturbing. Enough to dissuade us from taking a dip and finish our lunch in a hurry.

On Saturday, my 10-mile run with the group was going really well, when into my sixth mile, a pain started developing on my right foot. A completely new pain, that vanished when I slowed down. I was able to complete the run at a slower pace; but after the run, walking was painful.

We had friends over on Saturday, and we checked out the local Greek Festival. It was more like a food festival and we left several gyros, souvlakis, kabobs and baklavas later, feeling like stuffed grape leaves. It was a scorcher of a day and the chilled mythos was very welcome. Greek beer rocks! No pics, unfortunately.

The week's mileage total is 28.

I awoke this morning with a swollen, painful foot. The pain is a 3-4 on a scale from 1 to 10, bearable but annoying. Oh well, it still could be a lot worse. I was overambitious (euphemism for stupid), trying to tackle a huge hill, just over a week after the half-marathon. And I should be doing my long runs a lot slower. I need to temper my goals and my training. I can do that. I have to remember, one day at a time. It's time to tune up the breast stroke again. And back to core training. The gym will be seeing a lot of me over the next week.

How was your weekend?