Steve and I landed in San Diego Friday afternoon and headed straight to our hotel to drop our bags and head to packet pickup. We’re stayed at the Andaz Hotel in the Gaslamp District, a convenient location to most of the sites downtown.

Packet pickup at the convention center went quick, even with picking up some Nuun and snagging the California tank I’d had my eye on. (It has the California state flag bear in running shoes. How could I not want it?!)

Prior to our trip, Steve searched for a seafood place for Friday’s dinner. We went to Ironside Fish & Oyster, and it did not disappoint. We ate oysters and shared a lobster roll and clam chowder. Each was fantastic, and the atmosphere was great. The main image of this post is of the skeletons making up an installation on the wall behind me.

We decided to walk off our dinner and stretch our legs after the long flight. We found our way to Extraordinary Desserts. Our friends had raved about this place from their recent trip to San Diego. After nearly drooling on the glass, we selected a couple of goodies and continued our walk back to the hotel,

Once we’re settled in a city we’re running in, we always search for a place to stock up on water for the weekend and some bananas. We ducked into a CVS near our hotel and ran into two other Rock ‘n’ Roll Tourpass holders who were in town from Dallas to run the San Diego race. It’s fun to meet others on this journey. And, we’ll also see them in Chicago. 😉

Since we were running Saturday and Sunday, we needed to turn in early. However, if you’re gonna stay at the Andaz in the Gaslamp District and need to go to sleep early, make sure you have earplugs or a white noise app on your phone. The revelry gets loud as patrons are closing down the bars at 2 a.m. (I like the free version of Relax Melodies to drown out street noise when I travel.)

Saturday morning started with running the 5K to qualify for the San Diego Remix medal. The race started and ended at Balboa Park, a lovely area with a plethora of trails and museums in downtown. We were both pleasantly surprised with our times. We’d tried but had saved a lot of energy for the half marathon the next day. After the run, we grabbed an iced coffee from a food truck and walked around the park. We had just over an hour to kill before the world-famous San Diego Zoo opened.

We had a quick breakfast and started our adventure heading first to the koala bears and then the panda bears before the Saturday crowds set in. Score! The kolas were getting fed as were the pandas. They were active and adorable. I got close to a tiger, saw the best of friends and had a birds’ eye view of the zoo.

The Padres were in town too, and we decided to attend the game. They lost to the Rockies, but it was a nice park and afternoon.

We ended the day at Osetra, a restaurant with wine angels floating around a tower of wine to secure your exact bottle. And, we were lucky enough to watch the Predators beat the Penguins in Stanley Cup finals game. A fantastic end to our great San Diego day!