Taking It Easy, Wine Country Edition

Russian River Valley Views

I was fairly proud of myself for sucking it up and busting out the See Jane Run Half.  Good thing, too, because my left foot's blister was aggravated by the effort and I needed two full days to recover with no running.  On Tuesday, I did all of the tabatas in my tabata bootcamp that I'd missed in one big chunk.  The whole point of the Tabata protocol is 4ish minutes of ultra high effort once a day, 6 days a week.  Let's just say that when you skip them on busy days and then string 5 of them together on a single day, it's a bit of a disaster, in terms of ability to maintain maximum effort as well as post-workout soreness.  But, I did it.  So that counts for something.

Wednesday, I pulled off a fairly pedestrian 4X400 @ 8:30/mile on the TM at 1% with walking recovery for a total of 3 miles.  But hey, haven't you heard? some effort is better than nothing.  I'm just generally relaxing more and more now that my practice is approaching the full-time sabbatical.  Less and less clients to deal with and more time to focus on chores and trip prep.  Thursday and Friday, I was pressed for time, so my runs took a hit and both were squished down to 2 miles with 0.5ish miles walking.  But, again, I'm a believer that something is better than nothing.

Speaking of relaxing...

 

Garden and Insectiary at Dry Creek Vineyards

E's best man and his wife came into town for their 10th anniversary and we joined them on a wonderful trip up to Sonoma.  It's the most relaxed I've been there in ages, possibly ever.  It's a bit sad to realize how many times I've been unable to truly relax on previous trips to this region due to the work that's been lurking in the background, silently pushing on my shoulders.  Always reminding me that it's not getting done for every minute that I'm choosing not to do it.

Even though it hasn't fully started, this sabbatical year is already teaching me things.  I do love the practice of law, but being the service provider that is meeting such an extreme need (or what is perceived as an extreme need by my clients) is very, very, emotionally exhausting.  I've been carrying much more stress around with me for the last 10 years than I realized (possibly because if I admitted it, I might have to do something about it).

Some seriously unique and delicious dishes at Meadowood.

Super relaxed, we enjoyed a perfect itinerary (arranged entirely by our friends, which was awesome) of Friday night dinner at Meadowood, 3 wineries on Saturday (with a picnic lunch), a party in Healdsburg hosted by a high-school classmate of E & E's best man, dinner at Shed, 3 wineries on Sunday (another picnic lunch), dinner at Madrona Manor, 2 wineries on Monday AM, and lunch at Bravas before heading back to reality.

More at Dry Creek Vineyards

On both Saturday and Sunday, S and I rolled out of bed, took in the gorgeous views from the Healdsburg home we'd rented and ran 3 beautiful miles before starting each day's debauchery.

Total wine purchased: 2.5 cases.  Total mileage for the week: 15. Total weight change over the 3 days in wine country: I lost 2 pounds! (Most likely residual benefits from the last 2 higher mileage weeks and healthy eating before the half marathon, but hey, I'll pretend it's just that wine country indulgence is good for me.  That's totally possible, right?  That I just need to indulge more?)