Solvang

The Beginning of this month I ran my second half marathon at Solvang. Matt had never been there so we figured it would be a fun adventure. We stayed at the Peterson's Inn a very posh and expensive hotel. I procrastinated getting hotel reservations until all the cheap ones were full. It was a beautiful hotel we had our own personal courtyard with fountain. We decided to go enjoy the town so we were off to go experience some Danish food. We found a buffet that was ok, which was disappointing. Word of warning, they roll up the town at 7pm!!!!!!!
The next morning I got up early to catch a bus to start my race at St. Ynez which is just east of Solvang. It was so cold that morning! All the runners were trying to huddle into whatever business was open which happened to be a bar, which was quite a sight to see. Finally the race start, and what a beautiful race it was. The first half we were running among horse farms with quaint farm houses with an occasional hill. At mile 6, we hit the big monster of a hill! It was a pretty steep hill with a bunch of switchbacks. It was brutal, but on top you had a commanding view of the valley which was worth it. Then the rest of the race was downhill. I thought, "This will be easy." I didn't realize that running downhill would take such a toll on my body. Towards the end my right knee started to really hurt that I was just able to hobble accross the finish line. I was so excited I beat my original half marathon time by 13 mintues! I ended up burning over 1500 calories for just that race! Afterwards, Matt and I gorged ourselves on Danish pastieres and chocolate. I'm already planning on doing that race again.