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First off, I must say, I had absolutely no intentions of going to this training weekend at Lake San Antonio. It wasn't a preview for my event, so I didn't think it was necessary for me to go. And because I knew there was camping involved, it made the decision that much easier. For any of you that know me, my idea of 'camping' or 'communing with nature' is a 3-star hotel! So the idea of sleeping in tents without any room service or private showers, was definitely not my idea of a good time -- I'd rather get a root canal than go camping.
So the day after I had already decided that I was not going to the training weekend, my old buddy from the marathon team, Jennifer Jay, who is training for an Ironman (yes, she rocks, I want to be like her when I grow up!), sends me an email and asks me to go with her and be her tentmate for the training weekend...What? She clearly didn't know about my I-hate-camping attitude. But after a few emails back and forth, she had convinced me that this would be a good idea and a fun time -- huh? Never would I have ever put the words camping, good, and fun in the same sentence...but somehow, she convinced me!
Fast forward to Friday, March 20th -- the day we left for training weekend. I had everything packed the night before: sleeping bag (borrowed from a colleague at work), check; sleeping pad (also borrowed from the same colleague at work), check; tent (borrowed from my sister-in-law) check. Are you starting to see the theme here? Because I am not a camper, I had to borrow a lot of items from the avid campers that I knew -- but, also being the accessory-queen and that I am, I also had to buy a few things myself (I really just needed an excuse to shop) -- like: a new pair of camping boots because there was no way I was going to wear a pair of boots from my closet -- the camping boots would strictly be used for camping only; camping clothes -- thermals, jacket, beanie, scarf and gloves -- all items needed to stay warm; plus other miscellaneous camping gear (poncho, wipes, toilet paper, hot hands, etc...) I was able to pack everything into four bags (which was really an amazing feat for me) -- 1 bag with all my clothes, 1 bag with all my training gear, 1 bag with all my camping accessories, and 1 bag of food/snacks. And so, when Jennifer got to my house, at 10:30am, we packed her SUV with all my bags and took off by about 10:50am -- and we were off to begin our training weekend excursion.
On our drive out to Lake San Antonio (which was about a 3.5 hour drive for us) -- we stopped in Gilroy and had a late lunch at at Black Bear Restaurant. And of course, we couldn't resist, we had to take a picture with the bears of Black Bear Restaurant. Yes, very touristy of us, we know! In fact we told the restaurant worker we were tourists and when he asked us where we were from, we told him that we were from San Francisco and he laughed at us -- well, so weren't exactly tourists =)
When we finally got to the campsite around 4:30pm, the outside temperature reading on the car read 78 degrees -- it was a beautiful afternoon to set up camp! We immediately looked for the 'perfect' area to set up our tent -- 'perfect' as in, relatively flat and in close proximity to the bathrooms! When we found the perfect spot (between both the East Bay Tri team and the Ironman Team) we set up our tent, which was actually pretty easy...I then started to decorate the tent -- hey, I had to make the tent comfortable and inviting (and easy to find amongst all the other tents!) -- in the end, the decorating was all worth it -- I won a massage/spa gift certificate for having the best dressed tent on the campsite! =)
After setting up our tent and getting the car unloaded, we kinda just hung out with the teams, waited for everyone else to arrive, and got our dinner ready. By about 7pm, the sun started to go down. My teammates started a campfire and the rest of us started to gather around it. After about an hour of chatting with my teammates, I decided to get ready for bed -- I had a long Saturday ahead of me -- attempt #2 at open water swimming and a bike ride immediately after. As I was slipping into my sleeping bag, which was actually pretty comfortable, I started to think that maybe camping wasn't so bad after all...at least so far...
...and so ended camping day 1...
...Stay tuned for Part 2 of this this three part series...
Part 2: The dock, the boar, and the rodent -- OH MY!
2 comments:
So far so good, huh? Can't wait to read part two- Rodents?! Boars?! Good Lord!!!
I really enjoyed your camping story and look forward to the rest. Good for Jennifer for talking you into it. Sounds like a great weekend to me, plus a tent with a good friend beats a 3 star hotel in my book! :)
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