I had so much fun in the past seven days, so I thought I’d share what I’ve been up to?

Friday Oct 30^th

After a morning swimwear shoot and a couple of castings, I met up with an ESPN crew in Soho. The channel approached me to shoot a documentary about me running the New York City Marathon. I met with the producers and filmmakers, Ben and Alvaro, and I realized I’d committed to quite a lot in just a few days. They also told me they wanted to shoot at my house, so I rushed home and got cleaning!! A rock’n’roll Friday night!

Saturday Oct 31^st

I didn’t get much sleep the night before the marathon, I was both anxious and excited in equal measure. I met up with the ESPN crew at the Health Expo in the Javits Center early that morning, where I collected my running bib and the guys interviewed both myself and some other runners about the course. Then it was off to my apartment in Williamsburg.

I prepared a meal for the cameras; my own invention- “Strawberry Goodness”. I’ll share the recipe once the documentary airs. I’ve never cooked on camera before, obviously, it was actually quite tricky. All the utensils have to face the camera, so you need to remember where all the buttons are from memory. Well, I managed, but had to make a lot of fun of myself, it’s just going to be a little messy. We called it “Adela’s Cooking Show”, so original!

Sunday Nov 1^st

The big day! The one I’d been preparing for, for a such looong time. Months of training and commitment were about to pay off, hopefully!

I got up at 4:30am to head for the Staten Island Ferry and then a bus to take me to the start line. I got maybe 4 or 5 hours of sleep, which is my pre-marathon record, so I was in high spirits. It seems nuts, but not many runners actually sleep the night before a marathon, everyone is so nervous, so much adrenalin rushing through your body. I finally got to the start line 3 hours later, and then there was a lot of waiting around. I took my own pack of oatmeal and was really glad that I had. We were ushered to our corral quite early and I threw my fleece jacket and gloves in the charity bins provided (love this idea). Two deafening canons and then Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York” provided a magical start to the run. (Read more about it here.)

Well…I did it and it felt awesome, so painful, but so incredibly rewarding, when I crossed the finish line I wanted to cry. I wanted to cry even more when I realized I had to walk another 30 blocks to meet my friends and family! I eventually reached them wearing my huuuge blue poncho, they struggled to pick me out from the ’Smurf march’ but it was wonderful to see them. Finally home, I had a quick shower and headed out to celebrate with some pizza and red wine at my local Italian favorite, Acqua Santa.