Running On Empty: Pre-Pre Race Update

Hello Friends!

Let me begin this post by telling you that I'm posting a couple more times to really encompass how fun this Race Weekend was! Let's start with the Pre-Pre Race! This started on Thursday (travel day). I worked a half day, hit the gym, went home to pack, and was off to the airport. We landed in San Diego around 6pm and were starving, but first we had to check-in to our luxurious hotel! I lie...it was 'enough' for the weekend. When looking for hotels in San Diego, we wanted to be near the convention center, but near the race start, but near downtown, but near the finish line, but cheap...so we settled on a $80+ per night hotel about 6 blocks from the start and 2 blocks from Balboa Park! It had a double bed parked right next to a sliding door closet with a tv and modern dresser almost at the foot of the bed and a small area for the bathroom and shower to fit. It was like a utility closet, but it worked (except for the internet...that did not work...more on that later).

We ended up ordering pizza because we were so hungry and didn't want to think about finding places to go and it was nearing 9pm. After scarfing some pizza, we decided to go for a walk around town...not necessarily recommended at 10pm in our neighborhood! Someone, who will remain nameless, and who is not me, but was with me, was a little jumpy walking around in the dark! First off, a plane flies over and about 2 minutes later the wind it created flew over too and shook the be-jesus out of this palm tree and "someone" thought there might be an invisible gorilla jumping around trying to come after us. "Someone" gripped my arm very tightly! Then "someone" jumped out of their skin when they happened upon a homeless person sleeping on the sidewalk, then 2 more homeless people sleeping, and a little later on about 6 more homeless people on both sides of the street...we almost had to walk down the middle of the road just to stay safe!! P.S. They were harmless and probably passed out anyway, but when you don't normally see stuff like that, it can be scary! We walked for about 2 miles just around the town...pretty cute and quiet!

Friday morning we woke up to go for a quick run through Balboa Park. I'd like to take a moment to thank Yes Folks, I Run Like A Girl for posting some great tips on her favorite running spots in San Diego because I was able to find all the trails that run through this gorgeous park! Since we were only 2 blocks away, we headed over there and just started running. We ended up having the best run we've had in a very long time! It was just over 3 miles, but it took us almost 50 minutes because we stopped and took pictures of EVERYTHING! This place is truly beautiful...the gardens, trails, buildings, etc...everything was beautiful! We enjoyed this run so much that we ended up running another 2 and a half miles on Saturday morning (even though it was the day before the race).

After freshening up from our run, the GF and I headed to SeaWorld (please note that we took a $28 taxi ride) and spent the next 5 hours walking, watching shows, adoring the sea creatures, walking, riding rides, eating and getting sun burnt! We decided on riding the bus back to the hotel to save money, but ended up having to wait almost an hour because when the first bus came, out of 20 people on board, nobody had change for a twenty...NOBODY! So, we had to go buy a hotdog to make change and then wait another half hour to board the next bus!

We changed clothes and headed to Petco Park to watch some baseball. They had Beerfest going on, so for 5 bucks a ticket you could get a draft beer from one of 25 different breweries set up in their outfield "park"! It was pretty great...especially since Friday was June 1st and I could start drinking beer again. I definitely noticed the difference of how I feel the morning after drinking beer...I'm sure you could guess that I feel much better on mornings when I didn't have beer the night before! Anywho, because it's my birthday month, I am not giving anything up until July! Anywho, we stayed and watched the first 5 innings of the game and tried to take the bus back to the hotel. Because we weren't aware of the way the bus system works, we missed the bus we needed and ended up having to wait another hour to catch the correct bus (please note that the game has ended by now...should've just stayed). We finally get home and crash right away because it's been the longest day ever!

Pre-Race coming soon! Enjoy some pictures!