Tonight, I (mostly) ran my first 5K (well, 3.5 miles so 5.63 kilometers) as part of the JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge. I signed up with my company and was one of 15,000 people from various companies who completed the course through Central Park.

I had to slow down to a walk more often than I would’ve liked since my allergies were bothering me and my throat was burning. I now have a nice cough and post-nasal drip to show for it, though. Still, I managed to finish 3.5 miles in just under 47 minutes, meaning that I’m doing a 13-minute mile when I split it between walking and running.

Afterward, a bunch of us went over to a pub to get some food and drinks. We got there about 8:10. They didn’t start serving us food until 9:40, at which time I had to leave to get to the subway (at 77nd and Lex) and take the 6 down to Astor Place (down by my old NYU stomping grounds) to get to the 9th Street PATH and take that back to NJ to get back to my car in Hoboken before the parking garage closed at 11. I got my car at 10:48.

So, until I had some of this peanut butter and jelly sandwich 3 minutes ago, I hadn’t eaten real food (Gatorade and a Special K bar don’t count) since lunch at noon, and had done a 5K in between. I have no appetite, but I ate half of the sandwich so that I don’t wake up in the middle of the night with hunger pains (it’s happened before when I told myself it was too late to eat dinner and skipped it after a day of physical exertion).

I’m glad that I did it, because I proved to myself that I could. But I’m angry that I couldn’t run the whole time because of my allergies. This just means I’ll be working to prove that on the treadmill - which won’t be hard because the treadmill is not asphalt, it doesn’t have hills, it’s not humid and covered in 15,000 other runners, and I can watch TV while I’m at it and not pay attention to how far I’ve gone or how fast I’m going.

Yes, it was good to do, but everything hurts (despite my stretching) and I am not feeling as tired or clear-headed as I thought I would in the aftermath. But that’s my problem, isn’t it?

I should be doing something more than sitting here. I’ve packed what I can since I’m currently laundering the clothing I want to bring and I can’t pack up my toothbrush and stuff until the bitter bitter end. And I’ve got a full calendar of stuff to do outside of work as well -friends to see, errands to run, errands to run for friends, exercise to do. BUT BUT BUT… I wore heels today. My feet hurt. I’m so tired from not having a weekend, I can’t focus much. I am getting a late dinner with friends and then probably going right to sleep so I can go into work early tomorrow.

And it’s amazing how people crawl out of the woodwork when they realize you’re going to be out of the office for more than a day. I mean, it’s fine - a little stress-inducing, but OK. I’m glad to feel all useful and stuff.

But a fun thing today: I was talking to my boss about things that I might need to leave in her hands while I’m away and she asked me if I’d have time for an important meeting tomorrow with another co-worker. And I said that I actually had a meeting with this co-worker at the same time she was suggesting - to which she responded, “Great - that means we can go to Rita’s for two-stamp Tuesday!”

There’s a Rita’s (”Ice. Custard. Happiness”) in Hoboken and we’ve gotten into the habit of walking down there once -OK, a couple of times- a week. On Tuesdays, they stamp your frequent buyer card twice for any purchase. My co-worker is in her third trimester of baby-prep, so ice cream cravings are allowed. The rest of us are enablers. Or just willing to interrupt our work day for some Italian ice (though I vastly prefer the custard and get myself a kids’ size chocolate vanilla twist when we go.)

Yes. So I accepted the meeting invitation for tomorrow afternoon. The meeting called, “Two-stamp Tuesday at Rita’s!”

And it’s not even a team-building exercise. The team’s built, yo.