I AM The Biggest Loser!
Greetings, blog watchers!  Ahhh....now this is going to be rather amusing for you all.  You should get a kick out of this one.

Following my return trip from Maui last week, I had a couple of days in San Francisco (sleep in my own bed!!  do my laundry!  think about doing my taxes!   procrastinate about doing my taxes!   fail to take my dry cleaning to the front desk!  and so much more to get round to doing later!) before heading off for a very quick 2 day trip to Chicago for market research.  Fly out Weds, fly back Thursday night.

The flight was good (I got complementary upgrades both ways - yey for 1K!), the market research was excellent (the folk doing the research were SERIOUS geniuses - absolutely amazing) and Chicago was FECKING FREEZING!!!  Holy crap.  As I was only going to be in the city just long enough for Jack Bauer to find and disarm a complex nuclear terrorist organization, I hadn't packed my full-on winter gear - i had my long puffy coat, but no gloves, scarf or hat with flappy ears.  Which, as I stood outside the W Hotel, Thursday morning, in a line of 10 people waiting for a cab in the 35 degree cold, I reflected may not have been the best laid mouse plan.  By the time a cab finally rocked up, I was a human popsicle - ironically, my destination was less than a mile away so I could probably have walked it and been a whole lot warmer.  Or I'd walk it with the assistance of Blackberry maps, get horribly lost and then my frozen body would lay undiscovered til the Spring thaw.

So, a cab was probably still a better option.

Anyway, melodrama aside, I got back around 1am Friday morning, ready to then head off to Sacramento late Friday afternoon as I had been convinced (not sure when this happened or how) to take part in The St Paddy's Day Biggest Loser's 5k run/walk event!

http://biggestloserrunwalk.com/Sacramento-CA-2013-5K-KidsRace

I think when i signed up for this event, I thought i would be much further advanced in my training for the Bay to Breakers run thats coming up fast (and which - Sarah Little - I'm giving you advance notice I may end up bailing on) but i am, as of yet, precisely NOWHERE in my training.  Its a little tough to train for a road race when you spend the majority of your waking hours in an airplane.  So, anyway, rather than run the 5K me and a mate (who shall forthwith be referred to as Unidentified Friend A to spare her from ribbing at work from her colleagues....) had agreed we'd probably walk it, maybe break out into a light jog here and there.  At the very least, I wouldn't be running it dressed as a traffic cone, so at least that was one thing going in my favor.

So, getting ready to leave the house on Friday afternoon, I had been on back to back teleconferences all day and was on my final call of the day as I was packing all my gear to leave (dont worry - it was a non-work call - it was with my Co-Director of Programs for the HBA, so we were chatting about the evening events we have coming up and a variety of other administrative and logistical stuff).    So I probably wasn't thinking all that precisely about what i'd need for the race, but I chucked everything I could think of at the time into my overnight bag and headed out the door to go pick up UF-A, who lives about 30mins out of the city, and then continue on to Sacramento.

We actually made great time, managed to avoid the worst of the traffic and so arrived by 5pm at the Sheraton Grand, in downtown Sacramento.  Because of all the traveling I've been doing, I've managed to accumulate a fair number of SPG Starpoints, so had booked a twin double completely on points!!  Bonza!!!  And, what was even better, was that the hotel was only about a 5 min cab ride away from the  starting point/check-in point for the race.  Maximum sleep time before having to get up at 6am, ready to leave the hotel at 7am for an 8am race time - ugh!!

To make sure we were fighting fit for the morning, we then had a quick snooze to recharge after a stressful/busy week before hauling our asses downstairs to the lobby bar and restaurant for dinner.  There was a California Teacher's conference going on in the hotel, so the bar was full of scruffy, disheveled-looking bookish types - a veritable smorgasbord of people watching.  After dinner, we retired back to our room for a quiet evening of looking for cool places for our next adventure (campsite with Human Nest anyone?) before then setting the alarms for 5.50am to get up for the race.

I had a crappy night's sleep.

I'm not sure if it was the early little impromptu nap that threw me off, or a too late dinner, or the incessant farting of UF-A that kept me awake all night*, but I really didn't feel as if I got much sleep at all.  UF-A felt the same too so, as the alarm went off, we both agreed to hit snooze for another few minutes, and then spring into action at 6.15am.  As long as we left the hotel by 6.45am, we'd be fine.

So, another few minutes sleep and then it really was time to get out of bed.  I stumbled up, put some coffee on to brew, got dressed into my running gear - and then realized I had completely forgotten to pack anything warmer than a long-sleeved running top.  No thermal jacket, no hat, no gloves, no scarf - nothing except two fairly thin layers (the Curse of the Chicago Cock-Up strikes again!).   And - as I sat on the loo having a pee (i know, I know - TMI), I started to wonder, for the first time, about the temperature in Sacramento at 7am and whether, perhaps, it might be a bit, well, cold.

Apparently, UF-A was having the exact same thought and was similarly as completely unprepared as I was.  Enthusiasm further undermined by the shit night's sleep we both had, we looked at each other as UF-A stated what was both on our minds.....  "well.... we could just say "F*ck it" and go back to bed and have a lie-in instead".

Hmm, I thought.  Yes.  Yes, we could.

BUT how to rationalize such a decision such that we're not then just complete lazy bums?  So, that's when I declared "well then....given neither of us packed warm clothing and I don't want to freeze to death, why don't you look up what the current temperature is.  If it is less than 50 degrees, then to hell with it, back to bed".

UF-A agreed.

UF-A dug out her smartphone and punched in "temperature in sacramento right now".  After a few seconds, the search completed and the current weather stats came up.  Poker face in place, she turned the screen round so I could see.....

48 degrees.

BOOYAH!!   2 degrees under and we were off the hook!!  With a whoop of joy and with a feeling like we were bunking off class (I blame the influence of all the teachers in the building!), we fairly dove back into our respective warm and cosy beds, switched off the light and happily headed back into the land of Nod, rather than to the race site.

Yes, we had, indeed, driven for 2 hours to Sacramento, to then utterly fail to participate in a 5K run/walk that we'd signed up for.  Biggest Losers?  Yep.  Nailed it.

Post-"race" hydration with UF-A and
our good friend, Piper and his mate, caffeine

But we didn't care and thoroughly enjoyed the rest of our time in Sacramento, before heading home mid-afternoon.  We had a very lazy morning, finally managing to drag our arses out for a delicious brunch and post-"race" rehydration.  As we then wandered round the less dodgy parts of town, we walked past a theatre where I discovered that Don Williams (I think i confessed in a previous blogpost a very uncool love of country music - and he is my hero) is playing in Sacramento in April.  It was especially exciting to see as I didn't think he was still alive (although it is around Easter time, so you never know....).  I then went and got a blow-dry (have another date tomorrow) while UF-A got a manicure.  My blow-out sucked (but at least was uber-cheap) while UF-A's manicure rocked.  Walking along K Street and H Street, we saw some fab old houses as well as a couple of bronze cougar statues that, for some reason, we felt the need to go say hello to.  That and a couple of very cute mini-Daschunds and it was a very pleasant stroll in the Saturday morning sunshine.

Cougars bonding

Awww... still smarter than Dylan...

UF-A and her big cat

Then, there's was nothing else left to do, but go back to the hotel, pick up our stuff and check out, before wending our way back to UF-A's undisclosed location and to home, sweet home, in San Francisco.  It wasn't perhaps the trip we'd originally planned, but it WAS a hell of a lot of fun!  Here's to the next fun adventure!!

* not entirely true