Rants, Recipes, and Running

Now to the "meat" of the trip.....the race. For those of you not familiar with "Ragnar": it is a 205 mile relay running race composed of a team of 12 runners ( or 6 if you're really crazy ). It starts Friday morning, and goes straight until Saturday afternoon! Each runner does 3 legs. When you're not running, you hang out in a van and cheer on your team. The race takes you through some amazing scenery and experiences - and it is an incredible experience! There are 36 different legs (exchage stations) Our race started at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, followed through some coastal towns (with insanely beautiful homes and massive hills), and into the orchards of wine country. The race finished in Calistoga, CA (which is cute town Northwest of Napa). I was runner #5 - and my legs were 6.4 miles, 8.6 miles, and 4.9 miles. I added an extra 2.2 miles on at the begging to run across the Golden Gate Bridge with Ryan and my friend Sharon. (Ryan was the luc...

This past weekend Ryan, myself, and 16 others did a Ragnar race from San Francisco to Calistoga, CA (which is near Napa). Which is a 205 mile, 24 hour race. I'm going to save the explanation for my "Race Recap Post". We decided to make a vacation out of it, and spent a few days in San Francisco before and after the race. And we obviously indulged in Napa as well. If I recapped the trip in 1 post, it'd be a novel. So I'm breaking my reflections into 4 posts ! We packed that much fun into the trip! Everything was wonderful, and I don't think  I'd do anything different! Day 1: Arrive in San Francisco. We arrived to the city by the bay shortly after 12pm. Our shuttle was already waiting for us! (In hindsight, I would recommend just taking the BART instead of a shuttle. BART=$10/pp. Shuttle=$17/pp). The BART is the train system in SF. We stayed at an apartment in Nob Hill the 1st 2 nights. This apartment was found on VRBO, and it totally exceeded my...