{sAn FrAnciScO}

San Francisco is such an amazing city. There is so much personality everywhere and the shopping! Oh, Oh, Oh! There are so many great stores, and lots and lots of cute shoes. Also the food is fantastic.


Unfortunately we stayed in the bad end of town. Everyone said don’t be out on Market Street between 5th and 7th at night. There are lots homeless people there and blatant drug dealing. However, I was more scared during the day in those areas then at night. The other bad part was their language. I was so glad that my kids were not there to hear some of the awful things that were said.
I’m sure I probably walked a good 50 miles in those few short days. I am happy to report that their public transportation is great (trolley and bus). We also ended up taking a taxi once because we were going to be late for our airport shuttle. He was nice until the end, then he was rather rude.

I did some of the tourist things: Fisherman’s Wharf, Ghirardelli Square, and Coit Tower.

As always the highlight was visiting with family. It was great to see Adrian & Tane and also my Grandma. My grandma is 90 years old. She’s amazing!

My cousins Adrian & Tane came to rescue me for an afternoon! They took me on an insider’s tour of the city. I was able to meet some of their friends and they helped me discover my new favorite dessert, ginger cake with pumpkin ice cream. It was divine!

The entire country and Canada’s Team in Training got together the night before the race for a pasta party. We had pasta dinner and some motivational speakers. Every team was assigned tables. Our director and coaches decorated our tables. It was nice. It was also the first chance we had to see our whole entire team together.

{My TEAM UTAH}

The night of race day they had a Victory Celebration. I would have been ok skipping that. They feed us turkey and potatoes (of course there was other stuff also). I was just tired, sore and not really up to it! There was lots of walking involved to get there.

All and all, this was an incredible experience. I had no idea I could accomplish such a thing. Thanks to everyone who has supported me in this.