I had class in Berkeley yesterday, so I decided to make a day of it. I went over in the morning and was able to get a tour of the Clif Bar office. It was awesome. They have a barber shop, a performance theater (plays, speakers, etc.) and a fitness center where they have everything from yoga classes to spin classes to personal training to massage. There were bikes all over the place, and the type of work enthusiasm that I thrive on. Definitely a company I would want to work for. I’m really happy to have connected with Clif for my nutrition needs.
After the Clif tour I went to my three hour MCAT prep class, which was a great way to motivate me for a run. (I can’t stand sitting in a lecture for that long.) I met up for a run with my friend Brandon who majored in Mechanical Engineering with me at Columbia University. He is now studying for his PhD in ME at Berkeley (which means he’s really really smart). Brandon said he had a great run for me that would be around 50 minutes and would have us at the top of a hill in time to see the sunset. Then he added that the lookout is known to be a great make-out spot, "and no Ben, I will not make out with you". Thanks Brandon. The view was awesome from 375 meters above Berkeley. The trail looks out over the San Francisco Bay, and under the purple red and pink clouds we could see the Bay Bridge, the Richmond Bridge and the Golden Gate. We could even see back to Tiburon where I’m staying with Loren. The last time I ran with Brandon it was in Central Park, and he spent most of the run trying to figure out why I wanted to move away from New York. Now I want to know why Brandon would ever move back. (Central Park vs easy access to nature mountains and trail runs… Makes me never want to see the Central Park water reservoir again.)
Brandon was teasing me about wearing my 305, saying I should be more in touch with my 
surroundings and less dependent on gadgets. I agree with him on principal, but without gadgets I wouldn’t be able to show this elevation profile (click to enlarge). I also wouldn’t have been able to see the map of where we ran (below), or know that my heart rate averaged 20 beats higher on the way up than on the way down (though I probably could have assumed.).
First of all, awesome picture, makes me miss home even more. Second, you ran right past my brother’s apartment. I agree why run around a silly city park when you have the whole pacific coast in your backyard?
I didn’t actually have a camera with me, I just did a google image search and found a pic that looked pretty close to what I saw. Where does your brother live?
Right at the end of Ellsworth street, it runs directly into Bancroft Way (if you zoom in you can see that).
I find it hard to believe that a PhD in ME would know even what a make out spot is, let alone know where the good ones are. Regardless, it’s a distraction from training and I think the whole thing was just to distract you from training so that you’d falter and have to go back into the workforce designing toys for breakfast cereals.
The last time I ran with Ben things were definitely different. For one, Ben was not in better running shape than me, and we were in Central Park–possibly my most favorite place to run in the world. I would take it over the Berkeley hills any day. Ben, you can insert your whiny impression voice of me here, professing my love for NYC over the west coast.
I wasnt knocking your Dick Tracy watch that much, I just find it funny that you can get it to spit out a graph of elevation yet it takes about 10 button-pushes to find out what time it is. Be sure to post something about the 405 or 705 though when you get them. I might be convinced to upgrade to a 405 if it actually looks like a normal watch.
Thanks for that observation Loren, I only know about that spot because I read about it on my favorite tech blog what-you-would-do-if-you-had-a-social-life.com.