This is the air quality report for Concord. The red color on today's forecast is "Unhealthy (U)" which basically means "Not a good day to go for a run" :D... tomorrow it's downgraded to "Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups (USG)"
On Monday I met up with Pam for our usual run. Because of busy schedules, we hadn't run since Monday the 9th, two weeks before. As we were running I noticed that I was doing a bit more huffing and puffing and had this side cramp that wouldn't go away. The problem was either my lack of running in the past two weeks, or the bad air quality. Pam had done some running since the last time we ran together and since she noticed that she was having a harder time too, I'm guessing the labored breathing was mostly due to the cruddy air.
On Tuesday I didn't really feel like going home after work and just lazing around, even though I had some laundry to do. Claudia mentioned that she was going to do a 3 mile walk after work to pass some time before she was meeting Phil and Amy at the pool. I'm such a nice friend I offered to come out and walk with her. :D Funny how during the past training season it felt like such a chore to go out to the Buddy Runs after work on Tuesday's but my first Tuesday after the season's done I don't want to go home and sit around! I met Claudia at her office and we did a semi-leisurely paced 3 mile walk down Camino Tassajara. By the time I got home it was only about 7:00 and I had plenty of time to eat some food and watch some tv.
Last night I twisted Claudia's arm and convinced her that since the air quality was so icky, she should come drink wine with me at the Walnut Creek Wine Walk instead of going to her track workout. I had heard about it a few days ago and thought it would be fun to check it out. Basically you pay $20 for a wine glass, wristband and map, and then from 6-9pm you walk around to various participating downtown businesses who are serving wine, and usually a little food too. I've been to something similar in Danville but it was on a much smaller scale. In Walnut Creek there were 32 businesses participating-- clothing stores, restaurants, a travel agency, a bank (it's probably the only time I'll ever be able to say I drank in the bank!!), a coffee shop, computer store, salons, and even a mattress store. There were TONS of people out there-- they ran out of the special wine glasses so many people just had plastic cups and a few locations even ran out of wine.
Taking out my "wine withdrawal" at the bank :D
I think that Claudia and I both planned on this taking no more than a couple of hours but before we knew it it was already 9:00 and we had hit 23 of the 32 locations. The last place we went to was a Mediterranean food place and we decided while we were there to grab something more substantial than the cheese and crackers we had been nibbling on all evening. Unfortunately they close up at 9:00 so we ended up going to Pyramid instead, where I ate way too much food for that late hour. When I went home my belly was so stuffed with wine, snacks and a chicken sandwich, I thought I was going to burst! We had a good time though and since it seemed to be such a success, I'm sure they'll do it again!
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