San Francisco

Two weeks ago (wow I do a great job of keeping up this blog...) I was in San Diego for work.  Since work was done at 5pm on Friday, I decided to fly up to San Francisco for the weekend.  While I love San Diego and would have loved to have spent more time there, I was looking forward to visiting my cousin Amanda who moved to San Francisco in August.  Also San Francisco is my favorite US city ever, so I could not wait to get up there!
I got there late Friday night, so we just hung out at her place where she showed me her new purchase... Apple TV.  Omg, I fell in love and now have one of my very own :)  That is probably why I haven't been good with keeping up the blog.
Saturday morning we headed out for 10 mile runs.  Mandy is like minutes faster than me per mile, so she went with her friend Katie and I headed down to Fisherman's Wharf on my own.
What a great city to run in... what a great city overall... love it there!

Ghiradelli

Sea Lions at Pier 39

The Rock - Alcatraz

The Bush Man taking a break.  Scares my mom every time!

Golden Gate Bridge

Saturday afternoon we headed out of the city and up to Sonoma for some wine tasting!

I know this is just a bridge, but it is so beautiful!

We even got to meet up with my one of my BFFs, Jamie, in Sonoma!  She lives nearby and left her husband alone with the 3 kids for the afternoon.  His first time with all 3 kiddos - thanks Wyeth!  We hit up two wineries but did not get a single picture together.  Oh well, we were all way too busy talking and catching up.  Fun day!

I've never been to CA wine country in the fall,
so I loved seeing all the grapes ready for the harvest!

Saturday night and Sunday included a lot of walking around town and stopping at one amazing place after the other for food & drink, just what you want to do on a relaxing weekend in San Francisco!  If you have never been, go now.  Best city ever.

View from Mandy's roof deck - amazing!

Miami Beach Halloween Half Marathon

Yesterday morning was the Miami Beach Halloween half marathon.  I ran this race as part of my marathon training schedule.  The forecast for this race was suppose to be rain, but instead it was sunny, hot and humid.  Looking back, not sure which way would have been better.
I don't think I would have run this race if it had not been the plan for my running group.  That is unfortunate since this course was absolutely beautiful!
It started at Jungle Island which is on the MacArthur Causeway, which connects downtown Miami to the beach.  There are several races that run on the Causeway, so this was not my first time.  It is always nice running down a palm tree lined street with water on both sides, cruise ships to the right and multi-million dollar homes to the left.
Once we reached the beach we took a right and followed the path by the marina, past South Pointe park and then headed up Ocean Drive.  Here we entered Lummus Park and ran on the path to the boardwalk.  The boardwalk was the most annoying part of the race because it was crowded, slippery from the rain the night before and hot!  The sun was just baring down on the runners.
A couple of times along this portion I thought I was going to lose it.  Like lose my sanity because I was so hot and also vomit everywhere.  I had a couple of good burps which made me laugh because I know people around me totally heard them :) 
Gross?? TMI??  Ok, probably, but I was ready for this race to be over at mile 7.
Throughout all of this, the ocean was in plain sight pretty much the entire time.  I need to get down to the beach more often to run, it was so beautiful.
At mile 11 the sun went behind the clouds and I enjoyed the last couple of miles of the race.  The finish line was at South Pointe Park.

And the finisher's medal was super scary looking :)

All in all, I ran this like a training run, so it definitely was not my fastest time.  I did the run/walk/run method, took bathroom breaks and also took time to stretch along the way.  It was a nice morning for sure.
While my running group was offered a discounted entry fee, I ended up paying $20 less than that because this race was offered as an Active Swaggle deal for only $45.  It was well worth it for a cool medal, Brooks tech shirt, mexican food at the finish line and decent on course support.  

Most of the volunteers were high school kids and they were great... always cheering us on and were right there offering water and PowerAde at every stop.
Not sure I would have wanted to pay full price.  $100 was the race fee if you had registered at packet pick-up and I don't think it was worth that.


On an unrelated note, I saw 'In Time' this afternoon.  Super weird and out-there premise, but actually entertaining and interesting.  This wasn't my favorite Justin film, but I thought he was ok, definitely got better as the movie went on.  I usually like Amanda Seyfried's movies, and she was good here, though I did not enjoy the short, dark wig.  Blonde actresses should not try to be brunettes and vice versa.  Everyone knows it's fake.


Hope you all had a great weekend!  Any good races out there?

Favorite Thing Friday

Thank you JT for bringing SexyBack while promoting your new movie "In Time"

Source for all 3

That's what I am talkin' about!  Love me some Justin Timberlake!

So I am running the Miami Beach Halloween Half Marathon tomorrow as a training run with my marathon group.  The course is along the water so I should be looking forward to it.
However, this is what the weather is predicted to be tomorrow morning:

Bummer dude.  
Let's see how that goes...

Favorite Thing Friday

When it's October and the weather in Miami turns to this...

Let's hope the humidity is gone for good.  Time to open the sliding doors at home and drive with the windows down!

Have a good weekend!