Food is love

I blew in Tuesday night from San Francisco, and what a fantastic trip it was. A week of rest from running actually made for a good half marathon, despite the horrific lung clearing I did all the way through. I crossed the finish line about five minutes slower than my normal finish for a half marathon in New York on a significantly more challenging course, so there was definitely nothing to complain about. I don't know exactly how many people competed in the half marathon (there were about twenty thousand including about three hundred men in the half marathon and full marathon combined), but I'm pretty sure I finished in the top three or four percent overall for the half, and maybe even a little bit better than that.

Lest that sound more exciting than it actually is, there were a lot of walkers on the course.

Best of all, the finishers' medal wasn't a medal as such: Instead, the giveaway at the end of this race was a really, really nice sterling silver Tiffany necklace. It was fun seeing how many necklaces we spotted throughout the city in the couple of days afterwards.

We ran in the mornings every day we were there, but the rest of the trip was mostly about the food: We hit the farmer's market and sampled tamales featured on Cheap Eats, drank many, many cappucinos and lattes, visited Saulsalito and the wineries in Napa Valley, and finished up with a really wonderful dinner at one of Thomas Keller's restaurants.

My friends are a little more normal about money than I am, and I decided that as long as I stayed within my planned budget, I wasn't going to worry about where the money was going. I budgeted $700 for everything excluding the flight and was pleasantly surprised to come home with $93.

Here's where the money went:

Hotel: $248
Organic dried fruit from the farmer's market: $10
Gift chocolate for a dinner party next week: $10
Candy for SO's kids: $14
Gourmet honey for SO: $16

The rest went towards car rental, trips to and from the airport, and food. Didn't track a cent of it.

I feel totally recharged from getting away from all the stress and worry, and I wouldn't change a thing about this trip. I'm not sure I want to get back to reality, but reality looks just a little bit better than it did last week.

Will catch up with comments later this week; thanks for your patience in the meantime.