So based on Beth’s post yesterday you have probably gathered that Beth and I ran our long runs separately this week, but no fear, our running duo is still together! Thank God! Also if you have been following for a while you might have known that I am still in grad school- 3 yrs to be exact, and I have become really good friends with my fellow grad student, Susan. She had a milestone birthday this year- 40 – she really does not look or act a day over 30! After long deliberations in our ridiculous drives together to and from Denton during the week we settled to travel to wine country and San Fran to celebrate, so Thursday we headed out. I was of course nervous to fly as usual and have never flown with Susan before. We lived!! I also worried about how I would fit the long run it as it was going to take at least 2 hours, but based on our plans for the weekend I decided the best day to do it would be Friday morning before we got into anything in wine country.

Friday I woke up and checked the weather – 46 and heavy fog. Had I been in Texas I would have wanted to stay in bed, but nevertheless I got up and got going. Here is a shot of what I first saw across the street.

I headed down not knowing anything about the area and was just hoping to find a route. I ran all through the town of Windsor which is gorgeous! The streets are lined with farms and wine vineyards. Here are just a few shots from my run. It was probably the prettiest run I have ever taken and am so glad I decided to get up and brave the fog!

I have had a lot of pain and a lot of trouble running for the past few weeks. I have had to change shoes, alter my stride, walk, and just overall beat myself up about how bad I had been running. This run kind of made me feel a lot better! I ended up running 12.71 which was close to a mile more than planned- I really wanted 14, but worried about how long everyone on the trip had been awake and didn’t want people to have to keep waiting for me. I was glad to get it over with and also proud of the fact that I made it that far alone – that does not happen very often.

The rest of the day was dedicated to WINE!! We traveled about 15 minutes to Healdsburg and decided to stay there for the day. We went to 4 tasting rooms and a champagne bar. The first was by far our favorite so I will give them a little shout out. We went to Williamson Wines which gave a complimentary wine tasting with complementary food pairings, which was unheard of anywhere else, and they were awesome people. They had an Australian accent so for me I could have listened to them all day! I ended up buying there Meritage Red – SOOO GOOD!

After literally 5 hours of tasting we made our last stop at the Champagne bar for big cheers to 40! One of the girls on the trip ended up becoming a member there so we had free champagne for the morning and of course had to have mimosas!

Saturday we headed back to San Fran and for the sake of your time and reading pleasure I will just show you some pictures and leave you with the fact that I have NO CLUE how anyone runs the San Fran Marathon! San Francisco is INSANE with the hills and I was literally winded walking around. We did make it down Lombard (the crooked road) which was probably my favorite part! I was the driver for the weekend and am so glad I got to drive down that road! I have always wanted to!

Overall this trip was awesome! I am glad my run went well and am excited/nervous for us to run our 20 miles this coming weekend.

Do you have a scenic run you’ve done that you’ll never forget? Where was it?