Celebrating the 4th

This weekend I enjoyed four days off in honor of the 4th of July! We had Monday off as a holiday and I was planning on taking Friday off so we could drive up to SF ... but since we hit our Q2 sales number we all got Friday off for free! Yay!

On Thursday night David and I went out to dinner at McCormick & Schmick's to celebrate the start of a long weekend. I'm a "Preferred Guest" member there and they had recently credited my account with a $30 dining credit for my birthday and a free dessert. Mc & Schmick's (as its called) isn't David's favorite restaurant, but I was able to talk him into going with me again. He ordered the lobster and I had the ahi dinner which we both thought were pretty good.

Dinner at McCormick & Schmick's

Driving up to SF

The next day we were planning on getting an early start (~6am) on driving up to San Francisco. Of course I am totally never able to leave on time so we didn't get on the road until about 9am. We hit some traffic going into LA, and since I've been stuck on the Grapevine wayyyy too many times, I decided to head over to the coast and drive up the 101. This route takes about 45 minutes longer but is much more predictable than going up the 5, and is my preferred way to head home. The drive took us about 10 hours total and we arrived in San Francisco just in time to go out to dinner with my dad.

Mika & Kona Checking out Traffic

Long Run Gone Wrong

The next morning David and I got up early to head over to Lake Merced to do our long runs. I'm training for the SF full marathon and David is training for the half. Lake Merced is about 4 1/5 miles in diameter which would allow me to do 3 long run loops while David did 1 or two. In the leading week I'd been having some soreness in my legs but hadn't thought much about it. The past weekend I had competed in the San Diego International Triathlon (more on my blog here) and had then done a couple easy runs and a hard track workout on Tuesday, but didn't think I had gone overboard in my training. 

About 2 minutes into my run around Lake Merced though I knew something was wrong. My legs had gone from sore to painful. I felt a stabbing pain in my right hamstring which was affecting my gait and making other parts of my legs hurt. I knew better to run through pain so I stopped running and sadly decided to call it quits on my long run. I was freaked out about having leg pain in my peak week of training for the marathon (I don't have time to just rest!!) so I called Massage Envy right away to see if I could get in somewhere for a massage. I was able to get an appointment in San Mateo so we headed down there later that day. 

The masseuse felt my hamstring and said it felt like a rock! He said I had a charley horse and wasn't surprised I couldn't run. Over the course of the hour he was able to loosen up the muscle a lot and I regained a lot more range of motion in that muscle, but my legs were still sore. And I was frustrated. I need to run! He told me to rest for a week and take it easy. Rest? Arghhhhhh...

NKOTBSB Concert

After the massage there was barely time to go get lunch, get ready, pick up Garley, and then head down to San Jose for the NKOTBSB concert! Yay!!!!

Before the Concert with Baby Greyson

Garley and I met up with two other high school friends from the concert and spent the remainder of the night screaming and dancing to our favorite 80s and 90s boy band songs. Wow that was fun!! (More on my blog here.)

NKOTBSB Concert!

Visiting Wine Country

On Sunday morning we planned to head further north into wine country. We were meeting Christina in Sonoma where we'd spend the rest of the weekend. The drive up was pretty easy and only took about an hour. We met Christina at her mom's vacation house in Santa Rosa, dropped off the dogs, went to Fleet Feet Sports to pick up our 10K bibs for the next morning (wait.. wasn't I injured? More later on that...), and then we headed to the Russian River to get some relief from the heat.

Dogs Sleeping on the Drive

Russian River

I had never been to the Russian River before and was curious to check out the area since Barb's Race (the 70.3/Half Ironman I want to complete next year) was taking place. I'm leery of swimming in any type of natural body of water and really wanted to see the water quality of the river. As it turns out the water looked pretty good and the area was really pretty. I think I'm going to sign up for that race next year!

We headed to Johnson's Beach to meet a couple more friends and were lucky enough to get parking right by the water and two free umbrellas to sit under! (You normally have to rent them but some people who were leaving let us use theirs.). The shade was a welcome escape from the blazing sun, and we spent the rest of the afternoon by the water. 

Johnson's Beach

The Russian River

I think the word beach is loosely used here ... it was more like a gravel parking lot that ran up to the river's edge. 

Me & David on the "Beach"

Enjoying a Book on My New Kindle!

After spending a few hours at the beach we headed to the grocery store to pick up supplies for our BBQ dinner cookout. We cooked chicken, steak, and corn, and also had a salad. I BBQ'd the corn with the husk on and am pretty sure I made some of the best corn anyone had ever tasted before. ;o)

Christina Showing Off Our Feast

Kenwood Footrace

In the past three years that I've lived in San Diego I've run the Coronado 15K on Coronado Island in San Diego. I love the 15K distance and the race is a really large and fun event. I was sad to miss this race since we were up north but was excited to hear that Christina was planning on running a 10K in Kenwood which was nearby. I haven't run many 10Ks lately and was looking forward to the race. (Especially since I had an awesome Miss American Pie Glam Runner tutu!! More info here.)

Kenwood Winery

After my failed run on Saturday though I was a bit apprehensive about running, but since my leg hadn't hurt walking since my massage I thought I'd be fine. WRONG! My leg started to hurt again about 1/2 mile into the race, and at the 1 mile marker I decided to quit and turn around. My first DNF! (Did not finish) Oh well, luckily I'm at the point where I've done so many races that I don't need to just finish a race, but I was disappointed not to be able to continue. I stood with some of the course marshals at mile 1 and watched the rest of the racers go by, then walked back to the start line where David was waiting. I'm pretty sure I looked like quite a site walking alone through the vineyards in a red, white, and blue tutu. Haha.

Kenwood Footrace 10K & 3K

Heading Back to San Diego

After the race we had breakfast and then packed up the car and hit the road with the dogs. We were taking the 5 back down to San Diego and hoped that we wouldn't hit too much traffic since we left pretty early. Amazingly it ended up only taking us 8 1/2 hours to get back home even though we started further north and had a longer drive.

Driving Back to SD ... Boring!

Upon arriving home (after way too many hours in the car) I was surprised to see a package waiting on my doorstep. When I got closer I saw that it was a cooler of meat from Omaha Steaks. Uh oh. OH yeah .... I had suspected that my company was sending us meat as a 4th of July gift based upon a message from the CEO. I figured it had come this past Friday after we had left, but I wasn't sure. I opened the freezer to find cool (not warm but not cold) meat, and empty dry ice bags. Uh oh.. ewe.

I called Omaha Steaks the next day to find out if the meat was still good if it was in the cooler, indoors, but sitting around for 4 days. Not surprisingly it needed to be thrown out ... BUT ... Omaha Steaks said they'd send me out a replacement shipment immediately. WOW! What great customer service! Its not like it was their fault that the shipment sat around all weekend! I was extremely pleased and can't wait to get my new order of meat. The box contained 4 top sirloin steaks, 4 pork chips, 2 pieces of sole stuffed with crab, 8 gourmet hot dogs, chicken breasts, and 4 baked potatoes. I smell a dinner party coming up!

Omaha Steaks Delivery