holiday goodness

thursday:

went for a run with max in the morning in golden gate park, it was cold and cloudy, but once we got going it was nice. we took it easy and did a very relaxing 6 miles while natalie cruised around with the pup.

then it was back to the apartment where we made/prepared:


stuffing


mashed potatoes


gravy


yams


cranberry sauce


green beans


half an unturky


pumpkin pie


vegan cheesecake


chocolate cake (we didn't make that, max brought it over)

then max came over and we ate ourselves sick and laughed ourselves silly while drinking wine and watching 'ab fab'.

we also managed to play a game of trivial pursuit (max stomped all over us) and open the four(!) birthday presents max brought for me.

friday:

headed down to pinnacles national monument for a day of climbing with max and his roommate. i'd heard horrible things about the rock down there but it turned out to be pretty good. it's weird brecchiated stuff with tons of pebbles and cobbles stuck in it, and it LOOKS like it should be loose, but it's not.


a friend of ours met us down there, and he put up a scary 10d and a HARD 11b, both of which i go on (but only on top rope). i led a 9, -- which was fun! -- a 6, and an 8, and by the time we were all done it was time to head back.

saturday:

saturday started out rainy, but cleared up. we slept in, and i did a bunch of errands while natalie did homework, and then we watched the third harry potter movie, which i hadn't seen. i think it is far and away the best of the three.

sunday:

sunday morning i ran in the 'run to the far side' which is a 10k (my first). i was hoping to run 7:30 miles, and ended up running 7:10's which pleased me. 10k is NOT my distance, and there weren't any hills, so i'm extra-pleased with my time.

sunday afternoon i went riding with s. again. we did the tiburon loop, which is a nice easy 40 miles, and took it slow and enjoyed the ride.

60 miles and a vegan, whole-wheat scone

it was gorgeous out this weekend, and i like to think i took full
advantage of it.

saturday morning i went for a run with the club. we started at baker
beach and ran south along the coast, past lands end and down onto the
great highway along ocean beach. the conditions were almost perfect;
cool, with very little wind, and crystal clear. i tried to keep up
with a couple of the faster folks, and did pretty well. the course we
ran includes a flight of stairs, and i was able get ahead a little bit
on the descent. for whatever reason i seem to be pretty good at
technical downhill running. (at least compared to the other people in
the club. i suspect that it's because i do a lot more trail running
than most of the members).

on sunday i went riding with my friend s., who is all kinds of
hardcore in ways that i am not, including competing in ironman
triathlons. we've ridden together a couple of times before, and it's
great to have someone else to ride with, in addition to which she
knows a ton of different routes.

this time we started in the little marin hippy-haven of fairfax, and
headed north. the weather was gorgeous again, and the route was too;
rolling, grass-covered hills, winding roads, freezing-cold
redwood-filled canyons, and the occasional cow.

up until this ride the farthest i'd ridden was about 40 miles, and i
was looking forward to doing something longer, so we decided to do 60
miles.
the first 30 miles were great, and there were a couple of good hills
that i really enjoyed, (one of the -- few -- benefits of being scrawny
is that riding up hills is relatively easy) and i was feeling strong
enough to push it a little on the flats.

after about 30 miles i was starting to feel it a little, and when we
pulled into pt. reyes station at about 40 miles i was all to happy to
agree to s.'s suggestion that we stop at the bovine bakery for a
snack.

the bovine bakery has vegan stuff, including vegan, whole-wheat scones
studded with blueberries and strawberries. now, when i think 'scone'
the word tends to conjure up images of dry, sand-colored, triangular
monstrosities with the texture of old foam rubber.
this was nothing like that, it was round for one thing, and soft and
moist with a fantastic crunchy crust on it. add a cup of coffee to it
and i was in heaven. (the fact that i felt like i was starving to death may have had something to do with it too).

all too soon it was time to go, and we headed south along the eastern
edge of tomales bay, through rolling grasslands and the occasional
oyster-farming community. this was where s.'s power and greater
endurance really showed. she was flying; swooping through the turns
and powering up the hills, while i trudged along behind her, wishing i
had a lower gear.

by the time we got back to the car i was toast, and very grateful that
we didn't have to ride all the way back to the city. one of these days
maybe, but for now i was happy to be driving.

top ten!

i got my first top-ten finish in a trail race on saturday. the course was a hilly 20k (with just under 3k feet of climbing) in the hills above stinson beach.

the course climbs 1500 feet in the first 5k, and i went out way too hard, and thought i was toast by the time i hit the top of the first hill, but i managed pull it together for the rest of the run, (not running for the two weeks prior to the race didn't help) even though my left calf started cramping during the last 200 meters.

mmmmmm, geeky!

i installed suse on my desktop machine at home about a week ago, and i have to say i'm pretty happy with it. the only hiccup was that my soundcard didn't work, but a quick search on google groups turned up the answer and i had it fixed in less than 5 minutes. (the fix was trivial, and didn't involve anything as arcane as tweaking drivers or editing conf files).

that machine is used mostly for surfing and playing music, and natalie occasionally uses it to write a paper, and it's been a breeze to use for all those things.

the main things i miss about running under windows are using itunes rather than juk, and playing the new myst game, but since the suse installer quickly and easily set up its own partition, it's a breeze to restart and boot into xp.

and i'm working on getting wine working, after which i think i can probably run pretty much windows-free.

this is the extent of our halloween activities. (well, we watched 'the simpsons' too).