Jimmy Takes On Golden Gloves

I love boxing. I always have for some reason. When I was little, I honestly wanted to be Rocky more than anything and I love those movies so much (except the fifth, booo). There's a scene in Rocky IV where he's training and he runs in the snow, throws logs, does abs hanging upside down...all things that I convinced myself I could and would do one day, ha!

My choice last year to hire the amazing boxer, Jimmy Clarke, as my personal trainer has been one of my best decisions, ever. He's totally driven and motivating and he crushes me weekly. The best part is I get to live out my boxing dream every Monday night, heehee. I'm definitely an aggressive person when it comes to working out so boxing has been an amazing fit for me. The addition of it to my workout routine has helped increase endurance and stamina for me like you wouldn't believe. Jimmy just knows what he's doing and he's freaking good at it. It sounds kinda sick but I also get a sort of odd satisfaction when my knuckles get busted up. It's like my battle scars or something. :P

I've been super excited for him this past month because he's been fighting in the Golden Gloves tournament and doing awesome. He won every fight leading up to the finals which took place last night at The Theater at Madison Square Garden. I have a bunch of friends that train with Jimmy too so a big group of us decided to get tickets and go support him. I've never been to a live fight so I was totally psyched up for it!

We met at Tempest Bar for a few beers beforehand which is where Camille proceeded to pull out her special surprise of the night - Jimmy heads on a stick. I almost peed my pants because there were nearly 20 of us going and she'd made enough for everyone to wave around. When we got settled in our seats, I couldn't wait to take a picture:

Hahahaha! Holy crap, were they funny. We definitely went crazy screaming for him though and I think everyone around us loved Jimmy as much as we do. With Golden Gloves, the fighters are only allotted three rounds so the fight itself was really quick. It was so great watching Jimmy do his thing:

Unfortunately, Jimmy lost the fight and it seemed really unfair. Scott sent around an article about it this morning with this blurb:

In the following fight, the crowd saw a standing-eight count in one round, then a fighter fall almost entirely out of the ring in the next.

James Clarke landed a right hook to Joseph Scalafani in the middle of the second round that sent him into the standing-eight in the 165-pound novice class.

As he stood waiting for the bout to resume, Scalafani became even more determined to win."I just said to myself I'm not losing these gloves," Scalafani said. "I worked too hard the last four months to come up short."

Scalafani landed a flurry of punches right after the eight count and continued his momentum into the third. Toward the end of the third round, the two became tangled up in the corner and Clarke refused to let go of Scalafani. Scalafani pushed his opponent off and Clarke fell into the ropes, sliding through and almost falling fully out of the ring.

The referee penalized Clarke for holding and minutes later, Scalafani was announced the winner by a 3-2 decision.

We all felt so sad for Jimmy. He'd worked so hard and it was tough seeing him lose. We took him out for a beer after to console him:

Hahahaha! I'll always giggle about this. It was an awesome evening overall and a true pleasure going to support our boy. You're a winner to all of us, Jimmy!

Pub Crawling With Marcos

Having a packed weekend surely does make it go by fast, doesn't it? I blinked and it was Monday suddenly.

After a super fun Friday at the game, I was pretty excited to head downtown for Scott's pub crawl on Saturday afternoon. His good buddy, Marcos, was in town from Houston so it was a great chance for Scott to get his group of friends together for some fun. I had a dinner party that evening which I was actually sorta glad about since it kept me from getting into too much trouble, aka patron shots. We met at Seafood's and then all walked over to Fiddlesticks to start the shenanigans. Johnny Hume actually brought his good friend, Kat, along so we could finally meet and I just loved her:

Though I couldn't stay for the entire pub crawl, I had so much fun. Nearly all of Scott's friends that I know are just so hilarious and I really have a great time when we're all out. They have all their inside jokes that are hysterical and over time I've gotten more familiar with them which makes it all even funnier. I was really glad to meet Marcos as well since everyone has spoken so highly of him. Also, there is some track suit joke with all those guys that makes me pee my pants, especially when a few of them showed up fully decked out like this:

Yeah, guy! Such fun people:

Also, as a side note, everyone needs to go see the bartender, Andy, at Fiddlesticks. He's just fantastic and completely added to our party. He's adorable too and we had to get a group shot with him:

A super fun surprise to top things off was that one of Marcos' best friends from Houston flew in as a surprise so that totally added to the fun. How adorable are they:

We bounced around to several fun places after that before I had to leave and it was such a good Saturday afternoon overall. :)

My First Giants Game: Bigshot Style

Finally, after three years of being a Giants fan, I went to my very first game on Sunday. I'd been to the Meadowlands last year for a Jets game but had yet to go to the new stadium and boy, was it nice. I was out with some friends on Saturday afternoon when Scott texted about going and I got SO excited. Going to football games is quite possibly one of my favorite things in the world. Going to a Giants game in particular just elevates that for me. :)

We all met at Brother Jimmy's near Penn Station for some food and beers before the train. In all honesty, we were having such a good time before even getting to the stadium that we kinda lost track of time, ha! Finally, we were on our way and I was soooo excited. Of course, brown bag beers were a must for the train ride. That made Scott apparently verrrrry happy:

 Camille was our honorary guest jersey wearer thanks to Abbey:

Once we got to the stadium, I was like a little kid. I know I know, I'm pretty easy to please which I happen to think is a great thing, heehee:

If I thought I was excited then, I had no clue what I was in for with our seats. When we walked in, we kept going further and further down until we stopped at the 7th row, ahhhhhhh:

Dude, that was the best surprise ever. I have to add that there was a mini blackout during the 3rd quarter! The entire stadium went dark which was pretty wild. The lights starting coming back up a little bit at a time. Pretty cool:

I don't think I need to go any further in saying we had a GREAT time:

Thank you soooo much, Pagano! Best day, ever.

4th Annual Marathon Sunday

Why oh why do the best days always have to end so fast? It's so hard to believe that yet another marathon day has come and gone. I feel like I just wrote about it from last year! I also can't believe that this is the fourth marathon I've gotten to watch in this great city. Boy, does time fly!

As usual, I totally got emotional as soon as I turned on the news coverage Sunday morning. I love how they do one off interviews with runners as they wait for their official start times! Since the marathon begins on Staten Island, I have a little bit of time before the elite runners get to my side of town. My apartment is around mile 17 and 18 which is a tremendous point on the course to be out watching. You really begin to see what these runners are made of and it's SO inspirational and moving. As mentioned, I've spent four years supporting people on marathon day and it's a true delight for me. This year was a little different, though. This happens to be my last year watching as I'll officially be running in it next year! For those who don't know, the New York marathon is one of the hardest races to get into in the world. NYRR offers their 9+1 Program which is a fantastic program that allows members to run nine races in a calendar year, plus volunteer for one, which guarantees them entry into the following year's marathon. I have two races left to go this year and then I'm an official entrant into 2011! I am SO excited and feel like it's such a reward for my hard work this year.

Watching the marathon this time was much more meaningful for me than prior years. I was focused on different areas of it than I ever have been before and that's really because I kept imagining myself out there on the road next year, finally participating. That's huge for me and I feel rather overwhelmed each time I think about it. At any rate, we had a fabulous day celebrating the amazing runners who leave their heart out on the road. As usual, you saw everything from people with two fake legs to grandmothers to people in big costumes...it is quite the spectacle, running aside. My favorite part is when I'm fortunate enough to see a runner spot their friends or family on the sidelines and to see the pure joy in all of their faces. It's so amazing and has me choked up even writing this. While many out there aren't runners and cannot understand the pain one endures for a marathon, you still get to see unconditional support and encouragement. It's SO great. We all had a really terrific day together:

Another marathon day passed, another amazing memory for the books. I cannot wait for it to be MY turn next year!

Apple Crisp Fall Kickoff Day

It blows my mind that summer is over. It's a good thing that Fall is my favorite season or else I might be really sad to say goodbye to summer! I was looking back at some old posts earlier and I'm happy about what a different feel is in the air for me this year. I also got pumped up about putting my cute little banner and decorations up. I'm so cheesy, I swear.

Usually, the start of football season is the way I kick off Fall but, thanks to Camille's adorable mom, that got changed up this year. Camille's parents live in Petaluma and they have gorgeous land complete with chickens and everything. They also have apple trees which is so awesome! Her mom decided to pick some fresh apples and ship them to Camille as a surprise. Things like this get me so excited! Since there were so many apples, we decided to have a "hello to Fall" baking day. :)

Camille and I went over to Allison's apartment yesterday and decided that apple crisp with oat topping would be our treat of choice. Of course, we got all girly about how cute the apples were. We eventually did manage to get to work:

We wouldn't be us if something ridiculous didn't happen during the course of the day, though. Camille got a little oat happy and somehow managed to make the container explode:

Hahahaha, oooops! We cracked up over that for a while and then it was back to work again. Butter and cinnamon, mmm:

While it was baking, we got a surprise visit from Scott who promptly demanded a piece "whether it's done or not". That's Scott for you! :P We told him not to have an appletude, hahaha. It was pretty darn torturous sitting around while we smelled it baking, though. It smelled like Fall and comfort and we got excited all over again. We are such girls! An hour later, it was done and the finished product was SO good:

It was such a fun day spending time together doing something different. Now, we all feel like we can officially welcome Fall and say farewell to summer. We already have plenty more ideas of what we can bake next, hooray! :)

Side note, a huge happy birthday to my wonderful Erica. I love you, friend!

Allison DOMINATES

Last night might have been one of the best nights I've ever had. See, for years, my lovely sister has gone back and forth with the guys at work about how she could win a hot dog eating competition with ease. She proudly boasted that she could take down 8 dogs (with buns) in 25 minutes, no problem. The guys decided that enough was enough and they conferenced me into a call about a month ago so we could get a date confirmed to make these shenanigans happen. Well, last night was the night - and holy crap, was it awesome.

We decided the event should be held at Seafood's (long story on the nickname) place since he's the GUY and has an awesome rooftop. Anyway, I walked in to find all the guys with Nathan's hot dogs hats on and I absolutely cracked up. We opened a few cold beers and poured them right into Nathan's cups. I'm telling you, this was serious business. Seafood threw the dogs on the grill and we all waited for Allison to get prepared. I will admittedly state that I did NOT think Allison could do it and I've said so for weeks. That was the general consensus, though Camille fully supported her from day one. What a nice friend!

When we got the dogs in the buns, we just kinda stared for a minute at how much food was realistically on the plate. I mean, Allison almost didn't even begin out of sheer fright looking at what she was about to put in her body. It really didn't help that Scott sent this lovely gem earlier in the day:

I mean, windpipe?!? Seriously? Let's just say that Scott succeeded in psyching Allison out completely. Anyway, Theo got the 25 minute countdown ready and it was officially time to get the hot dog party started. Allison began slowly which got all of us in an uproar thinking we totally called it that she couldn't do it. However, she totally kicked those dog's asses. Watching her face as she got through each one was absolutely priceless. I can't even describe some of the expressions she was making but I crack up thinking about it, hahaha. The rule was she had to keep them down for 2 minutes and then she'd have Seafood's apartment to herself for 20 minutes. Um, I'm sure you can guess why. She completely dominated, with time left on the clock, and proudly put each of us in our place - minus Camille, the "real friend".

I seriously about peed my pants several times watching her. It was tremendous. Afterwards, once she had time to get herself together, Seafood treated us to an awesome night out with dinner and drinks. We had SO much fun and that'll definitely be one of my favorite memories for a very long time. I'll certainly post photos soon...