A (good) long day

Well, we've finally made it back home after our day out to Santa Fe. Here's a quick recap of today's activity:

1) Wake up and get Bandit, the rescue pup (German Shepard), fed and watered for the trip to Santa Fe at 5:45-ish in the morning. Bandit spent the night with us and tolerated my pesky, sometimes pushy pack (especially the big grand pup) pretty well...by spending a lot of time safely laying down in her crate instead of roaming too much. This morning she was roaming the house and I think was on the verge of figuring out how to use the doggie door. She went to a rescue in the Santa Fe area. Oh, did I forget to mention that I remembered to get Bandit all fed...but forgot to feed our pack before we left! My bad. There were not happy campers when we got home!

Bandit at the vet.

2) 8 Mile run - I got out on this run about 45 minutes later than I had planned because I was downloading new running playlists from iTunes. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that I had changed the settings to sync all music. While I was waiting for this to finish, Bandit had to come and stick her nose in the KT Tape that I was trying to use to tape up my knees for light support or the regular athletic tape that I use to tape up my turf toe. Let me tell you, it's not easy working with tape while a curious pup is literally sniffing at the stuff while you put it on. I did think of sticking a piece on her nose, but decided not to be mean (although it would have been interesting to watch her reaction when the tape kept changing from paw to paw). Today's run was done in the memory of Sherri Arnold, a runner and school teacher in Montana who went missing during a run last Saturday and was whose body was found late this week. The run itself went pretty well and actually was my best time for that distance at 1:44:26 with a pace of 12:49 which is about 30 - 45 seconds faster than my normal. Felt really good after the run and immediately got ready for the all day drive/trip. Made my first ever smoothie (hey, I just started drinking smoothies last year!) which needed vanilla yogurt or something sweet instead of plain yogurt. Note to self: Look at some recipes for smoothies.

3) Historic Santa Fe Plaza - We used to go up to this historic area of Santa Fe fairly often when we first got to New Mexico. It's probably been 4 years or so since the old man had been up there and the only reason then was because we were transporting out first Chihuahua, Corky, to be cremated. I was last there myself probably in 2006 or so with a small group of students before clinicals started in Las Vegas, New Mexico about an hour away. We were going to go eat at Il Vicino where we've eaten several times before, but we walked past The Atomic Grill where the fish tacos and the turkey burger caught our eyes, so we ate ther for the first time. Well worth the stop...nothing fancy but our food was tasty. Next stop was The French Pastry Shop at the La Fonda Hotel just off the Plaza. This is a regular stop for me when I come to the city. I rarely have a chance to get a good Nutella crepe (I got hooked on chocolate crepes from street vendors during 2 trips to Paris). A plain Nutella crepe is $4.50 and the husbands Nutella/banana crepe ran $8 (ouch!). A nice hot cup of hot chocolate and mocha topped off dessert. When we checked out, the owner was working the register and counted out change and spoke primarily in French. First time that's occurred for me!

The French Pastry Shop & Creperie (duh!)

Santa Fe Plaza

 4) REI (Santa Fe) - Now, I didn't know that there was an REI in town. I guess it would make sense with all the outdoor things that you can do up there, but I had just never thought about it. I stocked up on Gu Energy Gels (chocolate, of course) and also picked up a couple of Clif Shot Bloks and some Honey Stingers Energy Chews and Honey Stingers Waffles (kinda like a cookie). I'll use the gels and maybe one of the Bloks during the Tinkerbell Half Marathon, but I'll try the Honey Stingers stuff during my 6 mile run next weekend or a long bike ride. The thing about the Honey Stingers is that they are all natural and organic.

REI Santa Fe, smaller than Albuquerque.
About the same size as Concord, CA.

5) Santa Fe Half Century Ride Route - We drove the entire 50 mile route to see exactly how terrifying the hills would be if we continued in our pursuit of this ride. Ummmm...really scary! The course is fairly flat and even downhill initially then becomes gentle hills progressing to rolling hills and then, one after the other, some really big ascents...14 of them! Of these, 11 were pretty quick increases in grade the other three were long, drawn out increases in elevation. We've determined this route to be too much for us as newbies with mountain bikes and slicks. So, we're going to opt out and instead do the Tour de Muleshoe in June which is only an hour away from home and relatively flat. We'll probably end up doing the 40 mile ride, but I haven't ruled out the metric century ride (62 miles).

6) Osaka Express - While we were up in the Plaza area, the first restaurant we came upon was a sushi restaurant. Unfortunately, they had already closed for lunch...just 5 minutes before. So, for dinner I decided we were having Japanese and opted for this place because it had an express side. I really didn't want to go into the full restaurant. The shrimp and vegetable tempura I had was good although the shrimp was a lot smaller than I am accustomed to getting in tempura plates. The husband got chicken teriyaki which looked more like chicken in a curry sauce. He said that it was good but didn't taste like teriyaki. The California roll was okay and the tuna nagiri was rather pricey at $5.95 for 2 pieces. We walked out of there with a $50+ bill (not including tip). I might go back there for a bento box at lunch, but next time I'll try a different Japanese grill/sushi bar.

So after a very quick stop at Target to see if they carried Fuel Belt items for runners (which they do not) we got back on the road home. I had to have the old man take over driving in Clines Corners (about an hour south of Santa Fe) because I had forgotten to take off my contacts before leaving home. For some reason when I wear my contacts at night I have fairly bad issues with night blindness, especially with on coming headlights or headlights in the rear view mirror. Ah, the joys of aging. I don't know why, but with my glasses the night blindness is barely and issue. We finally made it home just before 11:30pm (we left at 9:30ish this morning). I've typed this up and I'm ready for bed. So, farewell, adieu, aufsetzen, adios, au revoir...and good night!

100 Days Challenge:

• 8 mile long run in 1:44:26 (12:49 min/mile pace)

What I Ate Today:

• 1 Slice whole wheat toast
• 1 Tbsp peanut butter
• 1 banana 
• 6 oz hot water with lemon
• 1 Clif Shot Bloks - Black Cherry
• 50 oz G2 (during run and throughout the day)
• 18 oz mango/banana/strawberry/pineapple smoothie with 1 cup Greek yogurt & 3 tsp sugar
• 3 fish tacos (deep fried Pollack)
• 3 iced teas (1 with 3 sugars, 2 with 3 Splendas)
• 1 Nutella crepe with powdered sugar
• 1 hot chocolate
• Shrimp & vegetable tempura (6 small shrimp)
• 1 cup of white rice
• 1 cup of Miso soup
• 1 simple salad with Ranch (they were out of ginger dressing)