Recap of the rest of San Diego!

Hey guys, sorry I never checked in again from San Diego but I was busy working hard and having a little fun too! I won't recap a play-by-play of the rest of the week but here are a few of the highlights and I guess lowlights too.

On Wednesday when I left you and went to dinner, things turned to disaster and health went out the window. I also probably should have been more diligent this night about being gluten free, but a couple things led to disaster.

One of which was having a glass of wine (okay, it was two...) before dinner at the cocktail hour and allowing myself to get really hungry before dinner. By the time that my coworkers and I sat down at a fun Mexican restaurant, I was hungry and feeling good so I dove head first into the chips, corn tortillas, salsa, guacamole, and cheese sauce that arrived at our table. I had Googled that corn tortillas were gluten free and I assumed that margaritas were too but I didn't check on anything with the waiter and I should have asked about it all. I just assumed that the item I ordered, with corn tortillas, was GF as well.  But to be totally honest, I didn't ask BECAUSE I didn't want to be told I shouldn't eat it.

Thursday morning I didn't work out and started my day with a bath. I originally thought I'd get to the gym in the morning but chose relaxation instead. The margaritas night have helped influence that decision, but also, I wanted the opportunity to try out this oatmeal bath I had bought. I don't have a bathtub at home so is packed it for California hoping I'd have the opportunity.

I did better with my food decisions on Thursday, which doesn't mean I didn't get ice cream in the afternoon or eat this caramels, because I did (and I checked if they were GF too.)

However, when it came to happy hour time I choose to skip it and instead go for a ~2 mile walk along the water instead of have drinks. I had learned from my mistake yesterday and didn't want to have a cocktail before dinner because I knew it would make it easier to make poor decisions. Plus, if been inside and not moving the whole day and wanted to enjoy a little bit more of this view!

Also, I did a little exercising on the beach, doing my daily planks in the sand.  My friends and I committed to doing this 30 day plank challenge.  I don't think we really thought this through before doing the challenge, but the amount of time you are supposed to plank really adds up!!  On Thursday I had to plank for 2 full minutes, which is something I never thought I could do.  I felt really proud of myself for accomplishing that and also snapped a couple of pictures in the act, which I thought came out kind of fun.  And I like how I look in them, so I am sharing (realness.) It took a couple attempts though.  Plank photos are not easy haha.

Oh, and one other thing?  There was an entire group of people taking a ton of photos of a couple birds.  I thought it was hysterical.  There were crazy papparazzi style people taking pictures of birds and it cracked me up.  Thought I'd share.

Anyways, back to dinner, which was really good.  I spoke with my waiter about being GF and he was extremely helpful. We ate at a restaurant in Coronado called Peohe's and it had an AMAZING view of San Diego.

It was a pretty exciting meal for me because for the first time in my life I ordered fish off a menu! I have never been a fish person but have been wanting for a long time to retry it. I like scallops and shrimp (warm, I'm not a fan of shrimp cocktail) but haven't explored much beyond that, except for knowing that I am not a fan of the fishy and flakiness of salmon. At the suggestion of my coworkers for a non fishy fish, I ordered the Mahi Mahi. The restaurant we were at was really nice so I had a hard time imagining anything on the menu would be bad, and I figured why the heck not? Plus, I'd had an appetizer of beefsteak tomatoes and mozzarella so even if I didn't like the fish, I knew I wouldn't starve. I actually enjoyed it and I am definitely going to be trying out fish more in restaurants in the future! I have extreme food envy & a hard time making decisions about ordering food so I'm not sure it will be an every day thing, but I'm open to exploring!

Friday I did a 3-mile run in the AM and is think the fish experience had me feeling brave because I was inspired to run ~1 of those miles along the actual coast, in the sand, as opposed to the boardwalk where I'd been running all week. I kept seeing people running along the water and wanted to try it but was scared. My pace was terrible but I'm glad I tried it! The past 2 days had me feeling like I was writing for my old blog circa 2008 where I chronicled trying something new every day.

I had fun trying these two itty bitty things and realized I want to try to incorporate new experiences into my day to day life. It's easy to think that trying new things need to be big experiences but it's really not the case, i love the thrill of pushing myself out of my comfort zone. Which if you count also the Nia class I did last Monday, I actually did a good amount of this week!

The whole week to this point I'd actually been on Coronado Island staying at the incredible Hotel Del Coronado, which was really breathtaking.

I worked for the day on Friday, getting a gluten free flatbread pizza for lunch that a coworker of mine had raved about.  He said it was better than regular flatbread so I really wanted to try it.  I ate 1/2 the pizza disgustingly fast, pretty much shoving it into my face as fast as I could, and it indeed was really good.  I took the other half as leftovers with me.

In the afternoon I met up with a friend who recently moved to San Diego for some beach time! It was great to catch up and see a different part of San Diego. I'd been in Coronado for the whole week, at the  but moved over to the Pacific Beach area and a little shotty hotel I'd gotten for myself.  The hotel was kind of gross and freaked me out, but I spent as little time as possible there.

Ice cream may or may not have been involved in the afternoon, along with an amazing burger and fries sans any gluten, and possibly crashing a bachelor party and other shenanigans as the night continued (including eating that leftover pizza...)!

I also met up with the younger brother of one of my best friends Teenie, whom you all know. He is in the Navy based in SD and it was great to see him as a "grown up" and he makes his family, and even me, so proud with his accomplishments so far in the US Navy! It was such a great way to wrap up the week in San Diego and luckily there were no travel delays in getting back to Albany. In fact, I had to hustle to my connection in the Atlanta airport so my dinner ended up being a package of Reese's Pieces and 2 string cheeses to hold me over until I had dinner when I got home at 10:00 p.m. How's that for being real??

Also, why are there no appealing gluten free options for when you have a hangover?? This chorizo and egg scramble (which I had to order minus the flour tortilla) was good but I could have really gone for a bagel, or even the dish as it should have been served burrito style!

I'm back in Albany now and there is a couple inches of snow on the ground and I have a 12 mile run to do tomorrow. Back to reality, people!!