77 miles

i covered 77 miles under my own power this weekend, and the last 15 were
the hardest.

on saturday i went for a run with the club and did 12 miles on the
sawyer camp trail, which runs along a reservoir that sits on the trace
of the san andreas fault. the trail is 6 miles out and back, with a hill
from miles 5 to 6. it's mostly flat otherwise, and there is water along
the whole thing. i was feeling pretty good, and ran fast. i missed
breaking my previous record for the course by about 90 seconds, which
was a little disappointing, but overall i was happy with my time.

on sunday i went for a bike ride. i rode over the golden gate bridge and
did the headlands loop, and then headed out on the paradise loop. it's a
beautiful ride, with views of the bay and city, and traffic isn't too
bad. there is almost always a headwind on the way back, and i was
cursing it a bit before the whole thing was over.

the longest ride i'd done until then was about 30 miles, and by the time
i got to mile 40 i was hurting; tired, hungry, cursing the wind and
wishing i was home.

i made it eventually, over the bridge through the fog and the wind, and
along the bumpy streets to the mission, where i stopped for an emergency
to-go order from truly mediterranean. i ate it as soon as i got in the
door, and then stared at the wall for 30 minutes until my blood sugar
levels returned to something approaching normal.

anniversary

yesterday was the one-year anniversary of natalie and my first date, and to celebrate i took her out to our favorite restaurant.

the food was, as always, phenomenal, and we ate ourselves into a coma.

Satay

grilled marinated tofu skewers, spicy thai peanut sauce, cool cucumber and mint salad


Cornmeal Crusted Oyster Mushrooms

jicama salad, roasted garlic aioli, golden plum-peron chile jam

(the mushrooms were JUST like deep-fried clams and we could have eaten multiple plates of them).


Steak Fries with Garlic Aioli

(we're both french fry freaks, and these were excellent).



korma 'samosa'

seitan 'sausage', roast eggplant and zucchini, toasted brown basmati pilau, cardamom scented tomato coulis, coconut mint raita


house-made golden potato gnocchi

chanterelle and clamshell mushroom confit, sauteed chicory and broccoli di cicco, sweet basil cream.


Chocolate Almond Midnight

almond cashew crust, mocha chocolate filling, raspberry sauce, white chocolate mousse


and a banana tort with banana sorbet, candied macadamia nuts and lots of chocolate.

then we went home and lay down until we digested enough to go to sleep.

i'm not THAT crazy

this morning, as i was taking my bootcamp class through some exercises
on a pier next to the ferry building, a guy in a swim cap and speedo
walked past us toward the end of the pier.

it was a cold and foggy morning, and it seemed pretty clear that he
was going to jump off the end of the pier and into the bay. the
extremely cold bay, wearing no wetsuit.

about 30 seconds later 15 more people in similar outfits passed us,
heading the same direction. when they got to the end of the pier they
stood around for a little bit talking, then one by one, climbed up on
the railing and jumped into the water, and started swimming.

they didn't swim parallel to the shore, they swam AWAY from it, until
we couldn't see them any more.

crazy swimmers.

dj nobody

i sold my turntables and mixer about a week ago. i hadn't touched them
in over 6 months, and it seemed silly to just have them sitting there
taking up space.

i listed them on craigslist, and a woman who lives in the neighborhood
bought them, which made me happy. i helped her carry them to her
house, and didn't feel any pangs at all that i would no longer have
access to them.

i haven't been out dancing in a really long time; staying up late
drinking doesn't work very well with getting up early and doing sporty
stuff.

selling them made me realize that the part of my life where i partied
a lot is pretty much over. i'm no longer willing to sacrifice whole
days to sleeping and/or feeling crappy. i don't have enough time to do
all the things i want as it is, and wasting time seems foolish.

cathedral peak

on friday afternoon max, johanna, jeremy, and i left for tuolumne meadows. we ran into a bit of traffic on the way and didn't get to tioga pass road until about dark, but we were able, by some miracle, to find a free spot at the porcupine flat campground, and were in bed by 10:00

we got up at 5:00, and were in the car, on the way to the trailhead at 5:18, which is pretty darn fast in my book. we got to the trailhead about 20 minutes later, and started sorting gear and making breakfast.

it was FREEZING cold; there was frost on the ground, and our finger hurt so much that it made simple tasks unpleasant. as we were getting ready, three parties, one of two people, one of three, and a single guy headed up the trail ahead of us.

we headed out at about 8:00, glad to finally be moving in the morning chill, and excited about the adventure ahead. about an hour into the hike we met the single guy who had left before us heading back down the mountain. it turned out he had run up to the base of cathedral peak, soloed the climb, and was on his way back already!

cathedral peak. the route we took goes along the left skyline.

we started climbing just after 9:00, right behind a party of two, who climbed quickly and were soon out of site. we had decided that since we were four we would climb as two parties of two: jeremy would lead, since he had the most experience placing protection, and johanna would follow him, then i would lead behind her, and max would follow me, cleaning the gear off the route as he came. we'd then all meet at the next belay station, max would hand off the gear to jeremy, and we'd do it all again.

while this may have worked well for more experienced climbers it turned out that it made things pretty slow for us. our lack of experience meant that we spent way more time than we should have messing around with gear, and trying not to step all over each other at the belay stations.

during the nine hours it took us to complete the climb we were passed by a ton of people, including a bunch of soloers. i know that the climbing is not that hard, 5.6 or easier, and none of the moves are very technical, but the idea of being 700 feet up on a rock with no protection gives me the heebie-jeebies. we all agreed that the soloers were crazy.

jeremy heading up the 4th pitch.

at about 6:00 we finally got to the top. the summit is tiny, just about enough room for 5 people to sit, and the view was truly awesome. we had a 360 degree view of the yosemite valley and surrounding area, granite domes and peaks surrounded us as far as we could see. it was amazing.

looking back at the summit on our way down.

we spent a few minutes admiring the view, snapped a few pictures (i'll post them soon) and negotiated the short descent off the summit block to the trail that leads back down to the car. we got to the car around 8:30, and headed down to lee vining for a much needed meal and pitcher of sierra nevada.

tuolumne meadows

tomorrow jeremy, max, johanna, and i are going to head up to tuolumne meadows to go climbing for the weekend.

the plan is to leave in the early afternoon and camp friday night so we can get an early start on saturday.

the route we're planning is the southeast buttress of cathedral peak, and it's five pitches of 5.6 trad climbing.

since i've never done any trad OR multi-pitch stuff it's a good thing that it's an easy route. regardless, it should prove pretty exciting (you can read that as "freakin' terrifying" if you like).

the badness

this is wrong in so many ways i don't even know where to start.

i sent it to mimi in the hope that she'll have something funny to say about it.

seamus

natalie's old dog seamus, who she thought she had found a home for a year ago, has come back.

i was supposed to take him to be boarded today, but instead i took him to work where everyone fawned over him to a ridiculous extent. i'm hoping that someone will know of a good home for him.

in the meantime i'm enjoying having him around.

weekend-y

on saturday jeremy and i did the angel island trail run which was pretty fun. we did the 25k distance since neither of us had run much the previous two weeks, and it was mostly a blast.

after a confused and hectic start (the ferry captain overslept) we hit the trail in the dense fog. the course loops around the island 3 times, starting with an inner loop, and moving to progressively larger, and flatter, loops.

the weather was great, and the course -- mostly -- met our expectations, with one noteable exception. if you look at about k17 on the elevation profile below you will see a hill.

it was a bad hill; endless, steep, and there was a howling headwind; i felt really sorry for the people who were doing 50k, since the were going to have to do it again, pretty close to the end of their race.

sunday i went for a bike ride, which felt harder than usual because my legs were a little toasted from the run. fortunately i had my new heartrate monitor to play with (courtesy of craigslist), so in between trying to figure out all the functions and not crash while doing so i was semi-distracted from the fatigue in my legs.

sunday evening natalie and i bbq-ed and drank beer, then went up on the roof to watch the fireworks. i think the city moved the location of the official fireworks display, so we weren't able to see it, but there were some pretty impressive displays of what i assume were private fireworks.

on monday natlie headed off to yosemite for a week of observing ground squirrels with one of her professors, and i did chores and then headed over to marin in the afternoon to boulder for a few hours.

it was a good weekend.