Carbing Up

Being my first time in California, I wasn't really sure what to expect. I expected to have a good time (duh! it was a vacation!), but I didn't expect to really love the places I went as much as I did. So, in addition to the race report, please indulge me while I share some photos and highlights from the trip with you... in chronological order of course...

And we start with everything pre-race. Or... the drinking a shit ton of beer carbing up phase, as I like to refer to it...

Immediately upon landing in San Francisco, Vandy Montana and I hit up a Mexican place for lunch. Afterwards, since we still had a few hours to kill before our awesome hosts got home from work, we decided to scratch some touristy things off the list:

1. Drive down Lombard Street:

I couldn't believe how hilly San Francisco is... like seriously... if you've never been there, you have NO idea. It's crazy, crazy hilly.

We then parked the rental car on the side of the street and hiked up a massive hill to get to Coit Tower (that we obviously snickered at like 14 year olds everytime we said that name outloud). We paid our 5 bucks and got to see the city from above...

Alcatraz:

By the time we did that (took us like 10 minutes. We are the most time efficient tourists ever), we decided it was time for a drink. And low and behold... we found ourselves an excellent bar... Rogue Bar, where I was reacquainted with an old flame... Hazelnut Brown Nectar (ON DRAFT). We kicked back at the bar... had about 3 beers and then wandered out to our rental car. Where, after only being in San Francisco for about 3 hours we found out just how broke the city is... $55 parking ticket. WTF?

By the time we met up with our hosts at their place, we were all thirsty and after a beer or two there, we  decided to venture out for the night.  First up was a really cool place called City Beer. I immediately ordered a Bourbon Beer (shhhh... don't tell Boyfriend Woody) and enjoyed it so much, that I had another.

At City Beer:

See all that yummy beer? Mmmm....

By this point on Friday night, I was feeling... well...a little toasted. I'd had many, many beers, the last few of a pretty high alcohol content and so I knew I needed some food. We hopped in a cab and headed to a sushi place, Umi. Unfortunately, they didn't have a table ready for us.. so, as we stood around and waited for the table... we ordered a bottle of sake:

Cheers to sake!

And when we finished the sake, and our table still wasn't ready... we ventured outside to the top of the hill, to risk our lives by standing drunk in the middle of the street to get some cool photos:

Once back inside the restaurant, our table was ready and we proceeded to take the servers advice and order everything on the menu that was UBER expensive... And then we devoured it all like drunken slobs and have no recollection of how good it was. Bummer.

Getting the drunken lazy eyes...

The next morning, I woke up with a bit of hangover, but nothing that some breakfast and ibuprofen couldn't fix. After breakfast, it was time to head down to Monterrey to go to the Big Sur Marathon Expo!