San Francisco Day 4

Today started waking to a 06:45 alarm, with sun shining through the windows and the excitement of bouncing out of bed to go for a run. It’s been literally months since we last ran, as we’ve had to keep cardiovascular exercise to a minimum in order to put the weight on and bulk up with eating and gym work. But today was the first day with Tony (our shore support) joining us, so we ignored our strength and conditioning coach’s advice and went for a run – it was gorgeous! However, running when I was 58kgs certainly felt a lot easier than being at 70kg’s!!

So Ems and I joined Tony for a 5 mile jog down to the water and along to the bridge. San Fran is seriously a great lifestyle and place to live. There were loads of people out running – a 10km race was about to start, a sea swim race was starting where everyone was donning their wetsuits and there were even some gig boat rowers out in front of Alcatraz – absolutely beautiful view!

Back at the apartment we whipped up an avocado, bacon and eggs breakie to get the calories up after running. Then it was en route with the team to Svendsen’s boat yard to start the day of packing our snack packs! Ems had carefully worked out calories and amounts so that in total we will have 2,000 calories in our snack packs once our protein shake and bar is added from Maximuscle.

I left the team to get cracking whilst I went out to buy the outstanding snacks. $450 later I had finished our shop and realised the hire car needed a top up of petrol. Thinking this would be a simple process, I trundled off to a Shell garage and came across the first hurdle …. ‘Gasoline’ only – no option for diesel or petrol! I’m driving a massive SUV so I assumed it was diesel, but there were no options! Second hiccup, how to pay! ….. I tried to pay at the pump then it asked for a zip code (clearly a UK post code doesn’t work!). Then it blocked me from using the pump and I had to ask a nearby American how to use it! Highly amusing and it reminded me how everyday is an adventure and a learning curve….

When I got back to Svendsen’s, the production line was in full swing. We made 220 snack packs. Dried fruit, nuts, biscuits and beef jerky were divided up into small bags and added to each snack pack along with cereal bars, crackers, chocolate, tea bags, boiled sweets and mints and hot chocolate sachets. We have also set aside some items to eat in the first few days that we think we will be able to tolerate when we’re feeling really seasick. I loved the organization and the team was working really efficiently. Seeing everything go into the bags made me feel really excited that we were finally packing, although I felt slightly sick at the amount of stuff that we will be eating!