Turkey Trot

The Long Beach Turkey Trot was on Thanksgiving Day in the morning. I ran the 10K that started at 7:30AM, and ran down the beach path from the Belmont Pool to Downtown Long Beach and back. It was a nice, cool and cloudy morning as we had rain the day before and the weather was still a bit unsettled, but nice to run in such great, cool conditions, but yet not too cold. This made for great running and halfway through, I got a pick me up and somehow felt like the last ½ of the run was like I was flying! It was great. I finished with a time of 46:00 at about the same time when all the kids were finishing with the kids run. It was like an obstacle course trying to avoid all the little tots as they were coming through the finish line! I met up with my friends Tigger and Ana after the race, they had run the 10K as well, and we chatted for a while before heading home to make our Thanksgiving Dinners! It was a great way to start out the Holiday!

El Capitan State Beach

I left work early on Friday for a lovely drive up the 101 to Santa Barbara, where I met my friends Michael and Andrew and we all went camping at El Capitan State Beach, about 17 miles west of Santa Barbara. We met up on the 101 on the way, and stopped in Santa Barbara for some groceries and some Starbucks. It was a beautiful, sunny and warm day in the 80s, and clear weather. We set up camp, and I started to make my Beef Bourguignonne, in my dutch oven over the fire. It was Mike's birthday earlier that week, so we celebrated, and we all had such a great dinner with smores afterwards on the open fire. We spent all evening chatting and enjoying the stars and the moon overhead. The next morning after a nice breakfast of bacon and eggs we all went to the beach for a nice view before we left and headed back to Los Angeles and Long Beach.