The Very Hard Leg

I mentioned a while back that not only was I planning on doing the 12 in 2012 Running Challenge this year, but I also have another couple of races on the horizon. One of them, I am very excited to say, is The Relay, which is a two day, 199 mile relay run from Calistoga, California to Santa Cruz, California. The very coolest part is that the race is run over the Golden Gate Bridge at midnight on Saturday. 

Here’s some info from the website: CALIFORNIA'S LONGEST PARTY - YOU'RE INVITED! Gather your friends (12-member teams). Decorate your vans. Dress your best (costumes optional). Run (or walk). "It's the most fun 24 feet can have in the best place on earth." From Napa Valley to the Pacific Ocean, 12-member teams run 36 legs (3 legs per runner, 3-8 miles each) through 36 cities and across the Golden Gate Bridge at midnight in support of Organs 'R' Us("ORU") and 100,000 Americans waiting for organ donors. Contact info.

This run has a special meaning for us, since our team, Jonnycat’s Dirty Dozen, is running for our close friend Jon, who is currently on the donor list for both a kidney and a pancreas. There are twelve runners, who each run three legs each, each ranging from 3 – 8.1 miles and ranging in total from 12.9 to 18.5 miles. You can see on the chart below what I am talking about. As you can see, they rate the legs (on the right column labeled “difficulty”) by harder (#1) to easier (#12). You can also see that the “more data” section below states that legs 34 and 35 are the hardest. 

Now, I am going to give you three guesses as to which runner I am. Nope, it’s not number 1, the easiest runner. Nope, it’s not number 6, the cool runner that gets to run across the Golden Gate Bridge. Did you say that I should probably try one of the harder runners? That’s what I thought you said. Well, I guess you are right. Why don’t I pick number…11?

Actually, I “picked” number 4. I know. What a copout right? Right smack dab in the middle of the difficulty scale. But, I will tell you why I picked that one. I picked it because it was the second highest amount of miles. And I can run a lot of miles. But my friend who is organizing this emailed me a week after I sent her the email saying which leg I wanted and begged me, pleaded with me, told me I was very strong and brave and good looking asked me to switch to number 11. I said yes right away. Then I looked at what I had gotten myself into. This is what it looks like.

It “looks like” a 500 foot elevation gain over 6.2 miles! So it’s a difficult 10k race, which I will run after running two other “races” that day (6.9 miles and 3.7 miles) and probably getting little sleep.  Phew! I am going to be a mess! I guess I should be glad I am not number 10!

I’m actually very excited about this race, even though I am joking around about it right now.  I am, as always, nervous, even more nervous than normal, because I wouldn’t only be letting myself down if I do badly; I will be letting my team down! I am looking forward to a few things. One, Dean Karnazes has won the Ultra portion of this race (yes you can run it by yourself. Maybe next year) several times and will be hosting the Friday night pre-race dinner in Napa County. Two, it’s on my home turf. I have relatives north of the city who will be able to watch as I run leg 11. I have friends south of the city who can watch 23 or 35! The weather is going to be great; the scenery is going to be awesome; I will meet 11 new people! Plus, I get to sleep in a van with five (smelly) other people (down by the river).  How can you beat that?

Have you ever run a relay race? Have you ever been to Napa County? Have you ever walked across the Golden Gate Bridge?

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Winter Break

I've kind of been absent this week. Not only have I been busy, but I have also been in "no internet land". This makes for good stories, but nowhere to put them! So next week you will hear everything! Until then however, Grab a Beer (inspired by Kim) and check out a quick version of WIDLW!

Last weekend was spent with my friends from the East Bay. We stayed in, made dinner and celebrated the New Year by watching the ball drop in New York. At 9 o'clock. Just kidding! We actually made it to midnight this time! But I did go to bed at 12:01.

 

The next day we went to The City and had a snackapalooza! One of the items on the menu: Dungeness Crab! Yummy!

Then it was Road Trip time! First stop: Yosemite!

Next up: Monterey, Carmel and Big Sur!

Monterey, CA

Monterey, CA

17 Mile Drive

Carmel, CA

Hwy 1

After that, we drove north on Highway 1 and went to Santa Cruz, where the waves were HUGE! 

 

Then we took a nice hike in the Marin Headlands at Point Reyes. 

Last but not least, but with no photo, we had our extended family "Christmas" last night, where we ate, drank and were merry until late into the night! It was so good to see family and eat turkey again (I can never get enough! Hello turkey pie!) 

Were you busy this week? Are you back to work yet? To school? Did you take any time to relax after the hectic holidays!?

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California Love

Today, as you are reading this, I am probably doing this:

Source: runcim.org via Kyria on Pinterest

Actually, if I am lucky, I am doing this instead:

Source: google.com via Kyria on Pinterest

But most likely, I am doing THIS:

Source: google.com via Kyria on Pinterest

Until the race is over and I get my butt in gear to write a recap, I will leave you with a few photos of What I Did Last Week (inspired by Kim) and a few words from Dr. Dre and TuPac: California...knows how to party! 

I went to San Francisco and....

Ate chicken feet (along with a butt-load of other dim sum!)

Walked along the Marina.

Went running here. 

Danced with this guy. Yow.

Dreamed about buying one of these.

Enjoyed this view.

Went to Ocean Beach.

And the Palace of Fine Arts.

All in all, it was a great week! I ate a lot, walked a lot, visited a lot of friends and got to be in my favorite city!

How was your week? Have you ever been to San Francisco? If so, what is your favorite thing to do in the city?

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Where My Heart Is

The most beautiful city I've ever been to is San Francisco. I have traveled the world and seen many different cities which are also great, but San Francisco has a beauty that cannot be rivaled. I know I am bias and partial to the city that is not only in my state, but is where I lived for several years. I remember first trying to find an apartment in the city. I had been living in Sacramento and working for Nordstrom when I got a promotion to manager in downtown San Francisco. For a while I drove back and forth every day. On a good day, that could be under two hours; on a bad day the drive was sometimes almost 4. Each way.

Getting an apartment was not easy. This was at the tail end of the dot com era. Young, smart kids with money were lined up, and I mean LINED UP to pay cash on the spot for an apartment. Not only would they pay the asking price; they would pay more, lots more. There were bidding wars for rentals. You had to fill out your application, print out your credit score, have your deposit in hand and then BID extraordinary amounts of money in order to get a 300 SF room in this wonderful city.

I got lucky. A friend of a friend of a friend was moving out and I could take over her lease. It would be easy and cheap ("city" cheap, that is). I didn't know the new roommate. I didn't know if he was messy or clean, nice or mean, taken or single. I didn't care. He could have been an axe murderer; at least the rent was cheap.

I spent the next several years exploring. All the different nooks and crannies, each with a different world, were there for my pleasure. You could walk from Mexico to China within minutes. You could taste all the food, experience the culture, all within steps of your own back door. You could see the water from many different vantage points. You could take a walk along the ocean and stare at the Golden Gate bridge. It was never hot and never cold. It was perfect.

I don't need to tell you that San Francisco is pleasing to the eye, with it's hills and it's skyline, it's water and it's bridges and it's buildings like this and this. But I need to tell you that it is much more than just physical beauty that draws me to the city. It's the mish mosh of cultures and neighborhoods and languages and people. It's the traveling the world without even leaving one city. It's the cool, crisp fall weather (in summertime).

It's the life. And the life is beautiful.

(PS Some close second place cities: Seattle, Sydney, Shanghai, Paris, Venice, Istanbul)

What do you think the "Most Beautiful" city is? And why?

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Run Home Barry!

They announced it on the radio. In order to get tickets you had to go to the stadium and get a bracelet. Only 5000 people would get one. I didn't think there was a chance in you-know-where that I would get one. I was at work and luckily I had an awesome co-manager who let me leave work to go see if I could get a bracelet.

I have been a Giants fan since I was a kid. However, the last couple of years had been especially good ones. Luckily our company had seats that they didn't always use for clients and if we begged the VP we would sometimes get the left over tickets. If they didn't have tickets, we would buy them. It was only 9 dollars for a standing room only ticket and you could almost always find an unoccupied seat to borrow. In those days they didn't even check tickets. We would often go down to the third base line right near the dugout. We went whenever we could.

This is a real Polaroid! I mean, it was 1990!

The year before, Barry had broken the home runs per year record. I was at the game where he beat McGuire's record. It was great! The ball went right by me! I *almost* had 450,000 dollars (how much the ball was sold for later). It was an exciting time.

But now, the Giants were going to the WORLD SERIES! And here I was, only a few miles from where they were giving out bracelets that could put me in the middle of the action. I had to get one of those bracelets!!! My friend John and I went down to the park and it was a hive of activity. However, surprisingly, there were not as many people as we thought there would be and we both got a bracelet after all.

The next step was this: the bracelets were numbered 1- 5000. They would draw a number from a hat and whichever number they drew would be the first person in line to buy tickets. It would be announced the next day. I was number 4947. John was 4948.

Once again, I had to work and I was at work when the news came out that the numbers were announced. The first person would be.... 4899!!! And the tickets went on sale in a half an hour! I begged to get off again and ran down to the stadium as fast as I could go. Actually I had to take the train and let me tell you, it seemed to be moving REALLY slow that day. I got to the stadium and the line was outrageous. I finally found my place in line by asking everyone what their number was, only to find out that....I was too late. My number had already gone by! I was TOO late! However, I could go to the end of the line. Since I DID have a bracelet, I was entitled to my 4 tickets.

The wait that day took about 8 hours. But finally, I, the last person in line, got to buy my four standing room only tickets. For 60 bucks each. I could have turned around and sold those tickets for twice or three times their price. But I had stood in line all day and I had fought for my right to see my team! Nobody could keep me away from that game. Nobody!

Signs, Rally Caps and Face Paint! October 2002

Have you ever wanted something so bad you would stand in line all day (or all night) to get it? (I have heard of people doing this for Chick-Fil-A.)

This is a Throwback, which may or may not be a re-occurring feature.

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Zippity Do Dah

My oh my, what a wonderful day. As I mentioned, I went to the city of San Francisco this weekend for another round of my favorite thing, SnackaPalooza! Now, you may wonder, what is SnackaPalooza? Well, let me tell you. Basically, it is a pub crawl for food. A food fiasco. An eat yourself silly-a-thon. We generally choose 4 or 5 places to go, and we usually only make it to three. And by the third we are stuffed. At each restaurant, we choose a few "snacks" and everyone shares. This way everyone can try everything, and lots of it.

Here are a few previous SnackaPalooza places.

#1: Berkeley, CA
- Imperial Tea Court (Chinese)
- Cheese Board Cheese & Bakery
- Cheese Board Pizza Shop
- Bay View Cafe (brunch)
- Love at First Bite Bakery (cupcakes)

#2: San Francisco, CA (you can read more about this one HERE)
- A La Turca (Turkish)
- Marni Thai

And now, onto number THREE! Like I said, we chose 5 restaurants, but only made it to three. All of them were in the Mission, so we could walk to each one and pretend we were getting exercise. So here they are:

- Andalu 
- Pakwan
- Limon

The first stop was at Andalu, a Spanish tapas place with more than just tapas. However, we absolutely LOVE the cambozola cheese fondue. It comes with apples, pears and toasties and I could eat about a gallon of it. With or without the dippers. We also had the polenta fries, which come with a spicy creamy tomato sauce. Yum. To top it off, we had a mimosa.

Mimosa!

Next up, and just down the road on 16th St was a taste of India, Pakwan. For cheap good eats, this place is great. We got a paneer tikki masala (cheese with spicy tomato sauce) and a palak paneer (spinach and cheese). And of course, a nan, except this time we tried the potato nan, which is pretty good, although I think I will stick to the plain or garlic next time.

Pakwan -- forgot to take the photo until food was almost gone

Last but definitely not least was Limon, a Peruvian place that I used to go to when it was just 8 tables crammed into a tiny space. They have since moved into a bigger space and gotten really popular, which I have to say, I don't like. The food is still great, but they got rid of my favorite dish, the calamari. It was so great, with just a little bit of breading for crunch, but not to overpower. However, they did have a similar thing, the jalea, which was a mixed seafood fried in the same manner. It too was delicious, but I miss the straight up calamari. We also ordered tuna tartar and truffle mac 'n' cheese, which were both also good.

Jalea

So, after "only" three places, we called it a day and dragged ourselves home.


If I was to go to YOUR city for a SnackaPalooza, where would you recommend I eat?

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Xerostomia

xerostomia 1: abnormal dryness of the mouth resulting from decreased secretion of saliva [syn: {dry mouth}](source)

Okay, I know you are wondering why the weird word? Well, I started the A-Z blogfest and was supposed to be done by April 30, but I didn't do it in time, but I am determined to finish anyway! So...I needed an X word, so I looked it up. What I found was that most X words have to do with medicinal terms or scientific terms.  And they are pretty weird. For example, the above, also linked in family with anything else starting in xero- means "dry". Basically. But that is not what I am writing about today. Today, I am going to talk about....WORK. If you looked at my pictures I put up earlier (HERE) you will already know that my work days have not been DRY.

There is always work to do, even when you don’t have a job. If you are me, you not only have family and friends who need help with things, but you also keep an overly full to-do list of things that you probably won’t get to in years, but always have on your list anyway. And you make work for yourself by adding to this list daily. Organize photos. Clean out storage area. Put all old VCR tapes on DVD. Bake cookies. Eat cookies. Bake more cookies. The list goes on. And usually these things, even if you do them once, still need to be done again by the time you get back around to completing things on the list. So you just leave them on the list all the time.

I have about a million things on my list. As I mentioned before, I wanted to have a little fun before starting on my chores. After visiting with some friends and going fishing with my brother, I had a really great time at the Giants game with my old buddy Jack, who I used to work with in San Francisco. 

Jack and I at ATT Park. Go Giants!

Then my grandma and I drove to my parent’s house, which is about a 4 hour drive (for me – I think it took her about 6). Of course we had to stop at the Roach Coach and get a “real” (read: California. The one with the cheese and sour cream) burrito on the way. 

Gma + Roach Coach

Man, I really missed these!!!

Then we had a wee small birthday party for moi, where I received gifts wrapped in duct tape (classy!) and got to visit with my oldest friend and her son. We've been friends since we were born, basically. 

The gang's all here! (birthday fun)

Starting him off early

After that, real life took hold again and the work began.

Since then, I have been scraping, priming, caulking and painting. I have used every kind of power tool in the 5 tool set. I helped replace windows. I used a rope to climb up on a roof in order to scrape paint from the fascia. I taped so many squares of newspaper over so many window panes. It’s been a busy week. A very busy week. 

work clothes

primed and ready

What I have realized is this: Carpenters are my heroes. It is hard work! Plumbers are even more heroic. I mean, who wants to dig around under someone’s house looking for a leak in a pipe? Or fix things having to do with sewage? Yuck. Don’t even get me started.  Even painting, at least the scraping part, is a pain in the butt. Inhaling paint chips all day is not fun. So, hats off to all those laborers out there.

The second thing I learned? I am out of shape! Just scrubbing a wire brush back and forth has made my back sore. Standing on a ladder looking up has made my legs and my neck sore. Bending over to scrape has made my knees sore. It’s not like a kick butt boot camp sore, just a little bit every day, but still…wow, I am out of shape.

So. After I finish this round of home repair stuff, I need to find myself a carpenter boyfriend and start running again.

Just kidding! I already have a carpenter boyfriend. Now, about that running thing…

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Snack-a-Palooza & The City

Macy's shiny balls

I used to live in San Francisco. Every year  around Christmas time my family would come down to visit and we would walk around looking at the lights and store windows. It became a family tradition. Although I have not lived in the city for a while, my family still continues the tradition.

K, A & I at A La Turca

This year, we combined traditions. My friends and I like to wander around, eating one dish each from several restaurants until we are stuffed. This year, we only made it to two places (our eyes were pretty big at the first one) but we also went to the Tom and Jerry house on 21st St to see their wonderful decorations.

Mimie & Aila at Tom and Jerrys

The first place we went to eat is one of my favorites, A La Turca, where they have the best hummus in the city! It is a little hard to get to, as it is right on Geary and there is usually no parking, but we got a front row seat. That never happens!! Aila must be our good luck charm!

The next place we went was Mimies pick - Marnie Thai. It is down off of 9th and Irving. I had never been there before so it was a nice addition to my city restaurant tour. We had the sweet cakes, which are like coconut corn fritter things and are cooked one of those pans with multiple sections; these were round and delicious.

After that we went to Tom and Jerrys. These guys have been decorating the huge tree in front of their house as well as placing huge fake presents under it, for as long as I can remember. They have to get a building permit and no parking is allowed near it, it is that serious!

Next I met up with the Fam at Macy's where we looked at all the decorations and then wandered around the city before meeting up with my brother for some ramen in Japan Town.

All in all it was a wonderful time and an awesome Snackapalooza!

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Hawaiin Shirts and Naked People

Whoa, what a week!

First I flew home from New Orleans, packed up my stuff, had dinner with my friend Nadine who is pregnant with her first child. A boy! Yay! She is still the same old friend that I have had since...well...forever. She and I have known each other since we were born. I don't have a photo...I did take some but I did it with the big camera....who is now sitting in my mom's closet gathering (yikes, I hope not!) dust.

I visited with my mom, which was great, but too short, and then headed to Sacramento for Uncle Jay's Celebration of life, a Hawaii themed Memorial. It was great. Many good people, drinks were flowing and everyone wore a Hawaiian shirt, just like Jay would've wanted it. Here is a picture of me, my two cousins, and Mr L enjoying the party.

Next we headed to San Francisco for some nakedness in the Bay to Breakers. It was great! We were joined by many friends, including 7 month pregnant K (I see a theme here...) and her new Husband A. The costumes were awesome. I did not dress up this year but had a great time getting ideas for next year. My favorite costume was either a king skipping along with a hunchback following him clacking two coconuts together (clip clop, clip clop -- you guys know that one? that joke is "not dead yet") or the oil spill -- two guys wearing black trash bags, joined by a red pool floaty noodle. Here is a picture of Alamo Square and the dreaded Hayes Street Hill.

Then it was off to Petaluma and the Lagunitas Beer Fest with my brother, who is a beer connoisseur. It was a little strange. The title was the Beer Circus, and it definitely was that! Ladies on stilts, bearded ladies and tightrope walkers mixed with 40 year old heavy metal rock bands and beer. Hmm... It was a great time and I found a penguin who was willing to take a photo with me. I am not sure what a penguin has to do with the circus, but I love Penguins, so I was stoked.

The next day I hit up the dentist one last time before the big trip and then...it was off to Europe. Woo hoo! Here we go....

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