Monday, May 24, 2010

Enjoying the Outdoors

What an amazing weekend! This seriously was one of the best weekends I have had in a long time. The boyfriend, flew out to the west coast to spend some time with me. And I will tell you, after a few days of being alone here, I now really appreciated living with him everyday. It is nice to have someone to talk to that is for sure. I have been doing a lot of talking to myself, so needless to say I talked his ear off for the first few hours he was here! But enough of that, on to the fun! So seeing as he had all Friday to himself, his mission was to find somewhere to eat dinner. And what a find! He found a nice tapas restaurant, located in downtown Palo Alto, called Joya. The food was fantastic, we ordered 6 tapas, a pitcher of peach sangria, and then fresh churros with chocolate dipping sauce for desert. I have to say, the churros we the best part for sure. They basically melted in your mouth as soon as you bit into them. Seeing as we had big plans for Saturday we headed back to the hotel pretty early and just watched some tv.

On Saturday, I got up and did a 1:05 Z1/Z2 run, with 45 min in Z1 and the last 20 in Z2. I felt really good while running and averaged about 10:20 min/miles, which was good enough for me. Then we headed out got some coffee and made our way to Muir Woods. Once we got there we headed into the park and within a few minutes came across a hiking trail. The sign read “3.7 miles, please allot yourself at least 3 hours. 3 hours for 3.7 miles!! Jesus did they think you would be crawling the trail!? So per the usual, I see something like that and it becomes some kind of challenge. Like there is no way it would take us that long, so now we have to prove it. Thankfully my boyfriend, has the same type of personality and was up for the challenge. So off we went, or should I say up we went. I must have climbed directly up the side of this mountain for about 2 miles. My legs were burning when we hit the top, but the reward was great! We made our way into a clearing of just long grass and the skyline. As we walked a little further, we could see water. It was amazing! Absolutely gorgeous! I will be sure to upload some photos when I return home. After enjoying the view and taking some pictures, we finished up the last .75 miles of our hike. The hike took us 1:45 min. Not 3! So there!!

After the hike we headed back to the car, tired and hungry. We decided to take a ride to Tiburon and make a pit stop at a Mexican restaurant on the water right across form San Francisco, that came highly recommended from a good friend. We headed to Guaymas and got some chips, guacamole and a few Margaritas. And I must say, it was worth the trip. After we finished up there we headed over to Sausalito to do some window shopping and stretch out our legs a bit. We finished up the night a few beers in bed and some catching up on some Lost episodes. Then it was off to bed.

On Sunday, I woke up a bit sore from the hike and headed back to the gym for another run. I didn’t specifically have one planned but I wanted to get one in anyway. I ran for about 45 minutes without a HR monitor and read a magazine then headed back to the room to get ready for another full day. We grabbed sandwiches and headed up into the Palo Alto hills. We found our first open space preserve and headed out for a nice 45 minute hike. What is amazing about California is that one day I am hiking in the woods and the next day we hike in farmland. And it is all so beautiful. After that short hike we headed up to Monte Bello Preserve and heading out on a longer more rigorous hike. This trail had a mixture of forest and open space to hike. About 3 hours later, we were beat and ready to have some fun. We headed back into town and stopped at Sprinkles cupcakes to refuel. We got a carrot cake cupcake, red velvet and a dark chocolate one. We devoured two with a glass of milk and saved the other one for later. Then we headed back to the hotel, got changed and headed into town to have some fun. We found a German brewery and after trying a sampler, we got down to business, but not without me getting my garlic French fry fix! We had probably way too many beers, then grabbed some sushi and headed back to the hotel.

This morning, was a rough start for more reasons than the fun from last night. The bf left for the airport and left me feeling a little bummed. It was such a great weekend, I almost wished that I was heading back with him. But I will be back in a few days, now I just can take some time and relax before heading back east.

Tonight I am hoping to get in some more running and possibly a swim, then to bed early so I can get in an early swim on Tuesday as well. I hope everyone had just as good of a weekend.

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