Monday, August 13, 2007

Good times

Lots of stuff going on over the weekend :D

Friday after work I went over to Lindsay's parent's house to help her celebrate her 24th birthday! A bunch of TNT people were there, along with Lindsay's family and some childhood and school friends. Her parent's house sits up on a hill in Orinda so we all sat outside in the backyard enjoying the gorgeous weather, stunning views, and great company! We had some yummy pizza from Zachary's, salad from our own salad bar that Lindsay's mom prepared, and a SUPER yummy chocolate ganache birthday cake. After all the food, and the beer, I was dreading my 10 mile run the next day. But it was well worth it... after all, birthdays only come along once a year!

Saturday I was up at the butt crack of dawn to get ready for our run. I met Claudia, Rocky and Jeanette at the Berkeley Marina at 7:00. The weather at the Berkeley Marina is always hit and miss... regardless of the time of year, sometimes it's sunny and warm, sometimes sunny and windy, and sometimes overcast and freezing. Saturday it was overcast and freezing. But if I'm running 10 miles, I'd rather run in that weather than when it's warmer.

We started out running around Cesar Chavez park, which is about a mile, and then stopping to stretch. After we started back up again, Rocky took off, and the 3 of us continued on. Instead of turning right along the frontage road like we usually do, this time we ran south along the water towards Emeryville. That stretch of road is a little boring but at least it's a change of scenery from our usual Berkeley route. We made it to the gas station near Chevy's, turned right, and headed down to the Emeryville Marina. Jeanette had sped on ahead of us not long after we turned to run along the water... we caught back up to her when we turned around. After was started running again, it wasn't long though before she took off ahead of us again! On the way back we ran into some other TNT peeps, mostly those from the summer team who didn't want to trek down to Fremont for their Mentor Led Run.

About 200 yards before the finish, Claudia and I ran into Brandy and stopped to chat with her. A few minutes later we started running again but it wasn't easy.... our muscles had tightened up in just those few minutes and did NOT want to start up again! We finished in good time though....our final time for 10.10 miles was 2:00:56.

After our run I headed back home to do a little cleaning, eat some lunch and take a nap :D Other than a trip to the grocery store and doing some stuff around the house, I spent the rest of the day just relaxing and reading. I felt really good post-run... not at all sore or tight, even on Sunday!

Sunday I met up with Claudia and Rocky in Oakland to carpool to Sonoma, where we were meeting Martin and Minnelli. About a year ago, we all made a trip to Sonoma (my first) to go wine tasting. We ended up at the Cline Winery and really enjoyed the winery, wines, and very personable staff. The majority of our group ended up enrolling in their wine club, which means every few months they get 2 Cline wines that they can either have sent, or pick up. After that, it became a tradition to go pick up the wine at Cline and then spend the day wine tasting and enjoying Sonoma. A few of the wine club members in the group were out of town this weekend so it ended up being just the 5 of us that met up in Sonoma. We decided to break from our usual tradition of brunch at the Carneros Bistro and instead had a nice picnic at the winery. The weather was perfect, the food was good, and we enjoyed some of the wine we had just bought!

Make my sandwich THIS big!!

After Cline, we went across the street to the new Jacuzzi winery. As the name implies, these are the same Jacuzzis that invented THE Jacuzzi. They are also ancestors of the Cline family. We tasted some more wines there, and some olive oil they press using their olives. After leaving Jacuzzi, we decided to head back home (with one detour along the way... see picture).

On the way back, we decided to stop in at the winery we always see on the way to Sonoma. It's this big beautiful building up on a hill and we always wonder about it driving by. It turned out to be Domaine Carneros, which makes some yummy champagne (which of course we had to taste :D). After that we really did head home :D


That's a lot of Champagne!!




At Domaine Carneros

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