How’s everyone doing today? I had quite the weekend (at least Saturday), and I hope you all had a great one as well!

Friday was a work day. I took the morning off of any workouts in preparation for my 5k on Saturday morning. Fresh fruit (watermelon and blackberries) for breakfast, with a flapjacked.

I had my typical salad lunch. This salad featured blackberries, leftover lemon grilled chicken, and burrata cheese. Crackers and a banana on the side.

Afternoon snack:

Post-work, pre-dinner snack while waiting for my mom:

For dinner, we tried out a local salad place that we just discovered. I got a salad with artichoke hearts, sundried tomato, feta, kalmata olives, chicken, pickled onions, roasted chickpeas, and roasted cauliflower (I added that). This was good, but in the future I would get the dressing on the side, since the champagne vinaigrette flavor was pretty strong!

After dinner, we hustled down to San Jose to pick up my race packet for Saturday before it closed. My dad actually ended up signing up for the race at the last minute. He’s never run a race before, and since he ended up not having a soccer game that morning, he decided, why not?

The packet pick up was at a massive sports store, and I bought a ton of new and interesting bars. (See below.) Afterwards, I suggested we stop at Menchies on the way home.

I got vanilla with fudge, and a little chocolate and mint with Nestle Crunch.

At home, I couldn’t resist trying a new find, the Blueberry Quest Hero bar. I’m not a fan of Quest bars, and now I can’t eat any other ones because they all have nuts, but this was astonishingly good. I thought it tasted like a cake doughnut, and my mom thought it tasted like a Danish. Either way, I (surprisingly) recommend!

Saturday morning I was up super early: 3:45am thanks to a certain orange kitty scratching at my door. I gave up on sleep around 4:30 and got ready for the race!

We arrived in San Jose at 6:45 for the San Jose Giants race! The SF Giants race is my favorite race ever. Sadly, I’ll already be in vet school when it happens this year, and since I’m not in the middle of finals like I have been the last few years, I jumped at the chance! (I might have to do the Sacramento race in the series next year! The Sacramento Rivercats are the Giant’s AAA team.) The San Jose Giants are our Class A team.

We might be related.

^Sponsor

^Mascot El Gigante.

My dad and I didn’t really have plans to run together. He wanted to go around 7:55/mile, and for me that’s a solid NOPE.

And we were off!

I wasn’t sure how this race was going to feel, but I knew I’d been getting faster this season. I didn’t go out crazy hard. My dad took off in front of me, and when we passed at a turnaround about a mile in, I saw he was breathing a lot harder than me, so I should probably pick it up!

We ran by the stadium (photos my my mom.) Some of the former SJ Giants, and current Giants’ greats!

About halfway through the race, I realized that a PR was possible if I pushed it a little more. Slowly but sure, I locked in to a faster pace.

We also ran through Happy Hollow zoo! The zoo smell was very familiar to me, haha!

With a mile to go, I thought I had a good chance if I could get a sub-8:00 mile.

Before I knew it, I was entering the stadium. I saw the clock as I entered the field at 24:xx and SPRINTED to the finish.

(I think this picture is hilarious because it shows off my massive blue bruise. I got pretty beat up at the vet this week and my legs were covered in bruises. The worst thing is that big one is from when Chloe came to the vet for her vaccine and was crazy excited to see me.)

I made it!

Guys. I FINALLY PRed! I fastest 5k was my first 5k….4.5 years ago. I’ve been trying (on and off) to beat it since then! Since that first 5k, I’ve gone through numerous injuries, 4 years of college, vet school applications and acceptances, tons of major life events…and I FINALLY beat it! By 10 seconds, but I will sure as heck take it! Official time 24:49. The icing on the cake was I placed first in my age group! My dad placed second! Now I think he has the racing bug at least a little, and we’re trying to find a small race to do later this summer where we might both be able to place again 🙂

We explored the stadium a bit afterwards. It was super cool to see where a lot of Giants greats played!

I wasn’t planning on getting 8am beer, but….

They had Kona Longboard Lager, a great summer beer, so I got convinced to split it 3 ways.

On the way home, we made a necessary stop:

Zest, the local gluten free bakery. They only make doughnuts 2x/week, and after seeing literally half of my instagram feed on Friday as doughnuts (national donut day), I had to jump on the Saturday morning doughnuts (plus, the chocolate ones sell out super early so I wanted to try them!)

^That is perfection. Maple, chocolate, and cinnamon sugar. And a warm and gooey cinnamon roll.

Back home, since Charlie woke me up so early, I forced him to help me nap. Cats are pretty good at that, as it turns out.

For lunch, I was craving a Subway salad, but I made it work quickly with what we had on hand! Deli turkey, tomato, lettuce, grated fancy cheese, and balsamic vinaigrette.

Then, it was time for Pints for Paws! This was literally my ideal event. The Berkeley Humane society hosted a craft beer tasting festival where 100% of the proceeds went towards animals. Even better, the event was dog friendly! Of course Chloe came.

The event boasted 20 different craft breweries, with a couple of cider and wine places as well.

We got classes upon entering. My favorite beer was actually the first one I tried: Apricot wheat from Pyramid.

Chloe met plenty of friends.

Dogs. Beer. What could be better?

^Berry beer.

After the initial samplings, we quickly realized we would have to pace ourselves, especially because our first couple pours were extremely generous! Chloe took some breaks in the shade.

After some initial craziness when we first arrived, Chloe was actually amazingly good. She was (pretty) calm, and was good with pretty much all the dogs and people she met. I think meeting tons of people and dogs at once was a really great experience for her socialization, and with so many new people, no one person was too exciting!

^I tried Guiness lager, and it was really good and crisp! I actually don’t really like regular Guiness; it needs more fizz!

Chloe is a pretty unique looking dog, and I think nearly everyone at the festival (we were all dog people!) wanted to say hi to her! This picture basically sums it up:

I really enjoyed tasting so many different styles and types of beer. At some point, my dad and I were splitting the sample, or pouring out the extra of the ones that weren’t our favorites.

We also talked to a few people for a while and had interesting conversations; one was a parent of a recent UC Davis Vet School and another was a couple who had Aussies. Apparently Aussie and Cocker-spaniels get along well. These two just sat like that for quite a while!

I enjoyed trying different ciders as well; everything from traditional apple to sour cherry, pear, and pineapple.

On the way out, of course I had to stop in the kitten adoption trailer and say hi. Look at these beauties!

And on the drive back:

I was actually pretty hungry when we got back despite all the beer, and I requested dinner from our local Mexican place. I got my favorite chicken teriyaki tacos, and ate the insides.

Dessert was a bowl of Halo Top with a couple of Trader Joe’s snicker doodles crumbled in.

Thanks to an early morning and a big day, I found myself struggling to stay away before 8pm, so I was in bed around 8:15 and it was fabulous. I woke up Sunday morning feeling quite refreshed!

Also, I can’t explain it but somehow the beer seemed to helped my tendonitis! My Achilles was surprisingly good during the race, but started to tighten up afterwards. It was pretty sore walking to Pints for Paws, but the beer helped the pain go away. The funny thing though is even the next day, my Achilles was FAR better than it should have been; hey, I’ll take it! Beer for injury recovery? Why not!

Sunday was low key and productive. I started with a gym spin class; it’s different from the other classes I go to in that it works based on percentages of your threshold, which you find during the first 3 minutes of the ride. It’s cool because it’s all computerized; it determines a number for you, and then the screen displays percentages, and you go off those percentages.

After class, I headed over to Peet’s for a decaf iced latte and some forced time finishing up a write up for my advisor on what the vet school interview process was like for me.

I spent the rest of the day partially relaxing, and partially tackling the confusing and extensive medical requirements for vet school. I tried to stay off my feet because oddly, my stress fracture foot was a little bit sore today. I’m not worried at all, but it’s been a while since it’s done this so I was a little surprised!

Finally, for dinner, we made my Sweetgreen copycat watermelon and feta salad.

With a side of roasted rosemary purple potatoes.

Saturday was literally the best day: 5k PR in the morning, beer and pup festival in the afternoon. BRING ON SUMMER!

What’s your ideal day?