I’ve taught a few weeks now in my new room at the St. Louis Ballet School. It’s really nice, especially the big windows and the fact that it is a dedicated music room. The expansion of the school is really great overall as well–much nicer waiting area with couches (originally had been just a couple chairs and benches along a hallway). I’m very pleased.
There you have it!
Okay, after a fairly relaxing week, this upcoming week will be nuts! It’s all due to my upcoming performance with Chamber Project St Louis. Well, not all–but the extra busy is. I also have another new student this week (that makes one each week for about four weeks), and that fills up my home teaching schedule until something changes. I can’t believe how many students I’ve added at home in the past month! Usually I add more in August, but this year has been different.
I had a great lunch today with my friend Melissa. We went to Bar Italia and sat outside (it was a bit cool, but nothing we couldn’t handle). I hadn’t been before, but will definitely go again! I was starving after my “long run” in the morning (ran 1 hour 10 minutes doing a 8 minutes run/2 minutes walk ratio, nice, slow and easy) and really enjoyed my lunch–food and company.
After that we had rehearsal for the Chamber Project concert. We’ve been working hard and are down to our last few rehearsals. It should be a great concert, but I am getting pretty stressed–it’s a big program! I haven’t played at the venue “The Chapel” before, but people say it’s really great. If you are local and free Friday night, come to our concert!
What else this week? Two weddings, lots of running/working out, TONS of teaching as usual (no days off this week) and of course Election Day. Yes, I’ll be voting. Will you?
Okay, as promised, a short recap of Saturday morning’s race. I ran this race with a friend of mine, Jen. It was her first race, though she had been running a little longer than me.
I picked Jen up at 6:40 am and we drove out to the St Louis Mills. SO early! I actually had woken up right before my alarm, and was initially really annoyed at myself, but then I got really excited and was ready to go. We arrived at the race site around 7:15 and picked up our race packets. It was pretty cold–in the high 30’s, so I had decided to wear a fleece jacket over my pumpkin t-shirt (with awesome knee socks from Target!). We ran back to the car to drop off our bags and get our race numbers attached. Jen was getting super excited and nervous for the race.
The nice thing about the race was that we got to use actual bathrooms in the mall, rather than porta-potties. Naturally we hit those up, and then wandered around a little bit checking out the tents that were set up.
The race was to start at 8:00 am, so we didn’t have too long to wander around. The course was advertised as being very flat, so we were hoping to just run a nice pace the whole time, and ideally not walk at all, but I was naturally a little worried about my hip. I read online that taking smaller strides could help so I planned to try that for the race.
Finally we got underway! We had lined up towards the middle of the pack, but were getting passed quite a bit at the beginning. It didn’t bother me, but I think Jen was a little annoyed. However, we kept our pace up and kept running. I had told Jen I wouldn’t be at all offended if she ran ahead, but it seemed we were well matched and she stayed with me. I probably ran a little faster than I would have alone, in fact. We passed the first mile, and just kept running. Around 1.5 miles there was a water station, which we walked through simply because I didn’t want to spill water all over myself, and then we ran again! We got to a sign that said “1/2 miles to go” and started running faster, and faster, and finally giving it our all towards the finish line. Believe it or not, we finished with the exact same time: 33:04, pace of 10:40 per mile. Almost 3 minutes faster than two weeks ago!! I was so proud, and I seriously couldn’t have run so fast without Jen pushing me along. Thanks Jen!!
We wandered around a bit longer–picked up our medals (they had them at a table, not at the end), turned in our timing chips, got some free food, gatorade, and samples of “Orange Julius”. It was a great race, well run, though the course was a little boring.
Thoughts: The shorter, faster strides definitely helped. I know now that I can run a 5k without stopping to walk, and anything telling me otherwise is simply psychological. I can’t wait for the next race (and of course, continuing my training 😉 )
What a busy weekend so far! Masquerade Ball last night, and then today I got up BEFORE the crack of dawn to run a 5k, then home, nap, wedding, nap, practice…well, haven’t gotten to that yet, but will soon.
For the Winter Opera Fundraiser (Masquerade Ball) I played two pieces, one for the cocktail hour and one at the dinner program. The cocktail hour was at the home of some very generous donors, just upstairs from Dominic’s, where the dinner was. The dinner was fantastic! There was pasta, salad, choice of meat (I had the tenderloin) and choice of dessert. In between each course several of the singers performed a few arias, and during one of the sets I played as well. The audience was very receptive and appreciative.
Today: 5k and wedding. More on the 5k in a later post. Here’s a teaser photo. Please note the awesome socks!
Today’s wedding (just one) was at St. Paul’s United Church of Christ in Oakville, Missouri. The church was small but very nice. I “retro app-ed” some photos for fun, as usual. The wedding was very nice and straightforward. My friend Sarah hired us, and the bride was a friend of hers from high school, so the event was more meaningful as well.
Unrelated: I wanted to post this hilarious picture of my “new” trainer Mike. He wore a costume yesterday for Halloween. Can you guess what he is?
I hope all my readers have a safe and happy Halloween! I am not dressing up/attending any costume parties, nor will I be answering the door to trick-or-treaters (we just don’t get enough in the neighborhood to buy candy 🙁 ), but I know many of you will.
One of my sisters just got a new kitten. I’m a bit jealous, because her cat is smaller than mine and probably doesn’t take up the whole bed when sleeping (yet). It’s very cute, and I thought I’d post a few pictures I “took” from her facebook page.
I look forward to meeting “Albergo” –evidently means Hotel in Italian and is based on a slight misunderstanding while she was booking a vacation in Italy last summer (yes, Leslie has a rough life 😉 ). Anyway, turns out Albergo was not actually the hotel owner’s name, but the name of the hotel–Albergo Barbara. In any case, an excellent name for a kitty.
Tomorrow night I am performing for the Winter Opera St. Louis “Masquerade Ball”. I’m concertmaster of the orchestra (we had three performances last year), and Gina Galati (artistic director) asked if I would play a couple of pieces for the program. The dinner takes place at Dominic’s Trattoria in Clayton. I haven’t been there but I am told it is delicious (I get paid plus dinner 😉 ). I am also excited to wear one of my cocktail dresses versus the usual “all black”. I don’t have a mask to wear, nor would that work well for violin playing, unfortunately.
Speaking of Italian food, I am excited to go visit Chris’s family in Long Island and the Bronx over Christmas. We recently purchased our plane tickets to visit for a few days. The food will be fantastic, I’m sure! I realize it’s just the end of October, but nonetheless the stores are practically in full Christmas spirit, so it’s hard to not be excited already. I purchased some lotion at Bath & Body Works yesterday, Twisted Peppermint Flavor. The saleslady said the whole store would be holiday-ready by November 1.