November 14, 2020

Weekend Recap: French Wine Tasting and Impromptu Stapleton Half Marathon

My Friday night kicked off with lots of my favorite people: J and I had a Zoom double date with my friends Heather and Kirk, and then we watched Great British Bake-Off with my mom! It was a great mix of “social time” (at home) and time cozied up on the couch (though mom has her own couch across the room, to keep a bit more distance). It’s funny how much “socializing” has changed in the wake of COVID.

To elaborate on the Zoom double date: each couple ordered a set of three bottles of wine from Wine.com, and then we watched a video of a tasting seminar with sommeliers and winemakers. Since we chose the French wine country tasting, I got really in the spirit and donned a beret, set out a cheese board, made cassoulet, and used a French flag as a tablecloth. I really miss throwing theme parties, so this was a nice little COVID version!

French_Wine_Cheese_Tasting
Festive!

And I really enjoyed the three wines we got, too. My favorite was the Joseph Drouhin chorey-le-beaune, but I was really excited that J liked the Sparr pinot blanc (where normally he doesn’t like white wines). His favorite, though, was the Chateau Marseau bordeaux. So, all three wines were a hit!

Consulting_Wine_Tasting
The white was the biggest winner of them all though!

This was a really fun evening, but it is a bit on the pricey side – at least with only two people rather than a bigger group. It would be a lot better if you could split this with three or four people, since three bottles is a lot of wine; we really only had about one glass of each (so had to put the rest in the fridge). Fortunately, the wine itself was actually pretty reasonably priced (only about $20 a bottle); it was the shipping that made it expensive. Both couples ordered two different tasting sets each, and then I used a $30 off coupon a friend sent me, so that helped offset the cost; the total with shipping then ended up being $150. (If you’d like to do the same, you can use my referral link and then we both get $30 off our next order.) I was a little iffy on ordering two tasting sets without knowing how it would go, but we had a lot of fun, and I guess $75 for a wine tasting night for two (with tons of extra wine) isn’t too bad.

Zoom_Annotation
Pro tip: use the annotation feature on Zoom to write back and forth during the tasting 😉

The next morning, I woke up much earlier than expected, and stayed in bed for a while catching up on blog reading on my iPad. Then, I headed down to my gym for a 20 minute core class with Olivia, followed by a bike bootcamp class I had made plans with Peloton Reddit friends to take. I inadvertently went in under the new “Sessions” feature (where it holds people in a lobby so you all start at exactly the same time), and didn’t realize that would preclude me from seeing anyone who didn’t do Sessions – that’s a big bummer! I was invited to provide feedback on Sessions, and that was one thing I emphasized – you should be able to go back and forth between Sessions and the regular leaderboard. Fortunately, a bunch of Reddit Pelotoners had done Sessions as well, so I was able to high five them at least! And the workout itself was a good one – definitely recommend this 60 minute class from 11/7.

After I finished my class, J and I made waffles for breakfast, and then I took a quick shower and headed to Costco. I don’t have a Costco membership, so I thought it would be great to go with J and pick up a few things; however, it completely didn’t occur to me that Costco on a Saturday morning was a really bad idea, COVID-wise.

At first, it was okay – there were a bunch of people in the store, but everyone was being pretty good about keeping their distance, and everyone was wearing their masks. Then I saw one guy who had a mask on but with his nose exposed… I hate that! I feel weird saying something, because clearly they’re trying by wearing a mask, but… that doesn’t do any good if your nose isn’t covered. I moved away pretty quickly and we kept shopping.

Unfortunately, a few minutes later in a different part of the store, we came upon a woman who had her mask all the way down around her neck, not covering her face at all. She had a phone in her hand, so perhaps she pulled her mask off to be more clearly heard, but… still not okay. I didn’t have the nerve to do anything but walk away, but then I spent the next few minutes kicking myself for not being brave enough to say something. So when we saw her again a few minutes later, this time approaching a poor masked employee with a question and still with no mask on, I was more prepared. I walked over and tried to be as sweet and polite as possible in saying, “excuse me, could you please put your mask on, to keep everyone else safe?” She looked a little surprised, but pulled her mask up, and I said “thank you” and walked away. However, while I knew it was the right thing to do, I felt so guilty about it. Why was I the only one who spoke up, when clearly she had been walking around the store without a mask for a while? (Note that masks are required in stores where I live.) Once again, I felt like a goody two shoes rule follower, and like I was being overly cautious and everyone thought I was crazy… and it sucked.

But as I wrote last weekend, when I see people being irresponsible, it not only makes me mad at them, it also makes me anxious about my own safety. How many other people had been unmasked in the store, potentially breathing all over the things we were buying or leaving droplets in the air we were walking through? When I started thinking about that, it made me hypersensitive to the other people walking down the aisles – so where initially it hadn’t bothered me if someone breached the six foot barrier to quickly pass, now I started getting freaked out when anyone came remotely near me. J sweetly noticed my discomfort and suggested we leave immediately, but while he was trying to help, it made me feel worse – like I was a crazy toddler throwing a tantrum and needed to be taken home. Ugh, COVID anxiety is the worst!

Fortunately, the rest of the day and night ended up being both safe and low-key, and I was able to mellow out and relax. I went home for a little while to spend time with my mom and get some chores done, then headed down to J’s house for the rest of the evening. We ordered Chinese takeout, watched some TV, and just bummed around for a lovely night in together. It was great!

With all that leisure time the night before, though, I woke up at 4am and couldn’t get back to sleep. Oops! I read in bed till 6:30am, then got up and dressed to hopefully go for a run. In spite of the Chinese food the night before, I woke up really hungry, so I had some sugar to try to get some quick energy, and then since I still wasn’t feeling it, hopped into a 10 minute core class to try to get my blood flowing. It worked a little bit – I felt more like working out after doing that, and then was able to drag myself out for a run. I still wasn’t thrilled with the idea, especially since the day before I had it in my head that I’d do a long run on Sunday, but I told myself that I could just do a 1.5 mile out-and-back, and then maybe go running again in the afternoon to make it 6 miles for the day.

As I headed toward my 1.5 mile turnaround, though, I started enjoying my run more and more – and realized it was shaping up to be a beautiful day! About a mile in, I came across some chalk on the sidewalk that said, “Go Laura!” I have no idea what Laura it was meant for, but it sure inspired me!

Go_Laura_Sidewalk_Sign
Thank you, random stranger!

I ended up staying out for a full 13.1 miles (a half marathon!) and finished just under two hours, getting progressively faster as I went. I was so proud of that! Great reminder to me that once I get started, I love to run for days 🙂

Progression_Run_Half_Marathon
#Proof… particularly to combat the fact that while my Garmin counted my run properly, it didn’t register any of the steps toward my total for the day. So I finished the run and had 300 steps for the day 😛

Post-run, J and I went to Rosenberg’s to pick up bagel sandwiches, and then watched TV a bit together before I headed home.

Rosenbergs_Bagel_Sandwich
I was craving a bagel the whole run, so when J suggested this, it was like he read my mind!

My afternoon was rather quiet – the short sleep (and my long run) were getting to me, and I ended up kind of moping around not getting as much done as I wanted. But the evening picked up a bit – Mom and I put a movie on, and I managed to completely assemble my new treadmill! I got the Horizon Studio 7.0AT, which has a top speed of 12mph (2mph faster than my old one) and an incline that goes up to 15% (and down to 0%, unlike my old treadmill that wouldn’t go below 1.5%, lol). I am pretty excited about it… and also excited to sell my old treadmill and see how much I can get for it on Facebook Marketplace in this post-COVID world where gym equipment is like gold 😉

SHARE:

1 thought on “Weekend Recap: French Wine Tasting and Impromptu Stapleton Half Marathon”

Leave a Reply to Joanne Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Join the List

Subscribe for instant email notification of new posts.

Join the List

Subscribe for instant email notification of new posts.

© 2023 by 50by25. All rights reserved. Actions taken from the hyperlinks on this blog may yield commissions for 50by25. View my FTC disclaimer.

Scroll to Top