Casondra's Adventures

November 7, 2015: Asilomar State Beach, California with Alex, Ananya and Fereshtah

All images copyright Casondra Sobieralski. Use by permission.

Big Sur Half Marathon, which was actually in Monterey, was November 8. I was working my way back from a "slightly building disc" pinching my L4 nerve root from:

sitting too much at work and in wretched 3 hour, 10 mph traffic jams while breathing dragon flames of frustration from my nose
+ rushing while carrying my bike and heavy backpack stuffed with my lunch, dinner, homework, hard drives and sports gear (i.e. the contents of my car trunk) up/down long flights of steps to catch the train on days I couldn't face the traffic jams
+ a 14 hour plane ride and carrying too much video equipment all day for 3 weeks, then another 14 hour plane ride
+ and TONS O' STRESS...

... til OOOPS! There goes L4! Benched for 3 weeks, gentle slow cross training for another month-- it was quite frustrating. Commuter life in the Bay Area -- I managed to avoid it for 20 years. But the housing prices have become so over-the-top extreme, I've been pushed out to the soulless 'burbs til the next major earthquake scares off the latest wave of techies here for The Gold Rush, Episode III. --or until I leave the Bay Area, whichever comes first.

So unfortunately, I was not in racing shape yet. Instead I played Support Crew for my ol' friend (since 11th grade) and usual racing buddy Alex, and my new friends through Alex, Ananya and Fareshteh.

To relax (what's that?) the night before the race, we went to the monarch butterfly sanctuary in Pacific Grove (the bugs were too fast for me to photograph well) and then Asilomar State Beach to catch the early sunset. Ahhhh, Mother Ocean, soothe meeeee!

CLICK to view LARGE IMAGE / for soothing.

Architecture at Asilomar, designed by Julia Morgan. For those of you outside NoCal, she is one of our most famous architects from the Arts and Crafts movement of the early twentieth century, and one of the first well-known women architects. A student of Bernard Maybeck, she designed many buildings in Berkeley (where she earned her Civil Engineering degree), including our Beaux Arts swimming pool. Her crowning achievement, though, was William Randolph Hearst's castle in San Simeon. I still have not toured the castle! --though I stayed in the haunted guest house once. Hey Kevin, can we make this our next road trip? ;)