How I Accidentally Ran 6 Miles This Morning...

...and barely lived to tell about it. Seriously.



So this weekend, a friend of ours invited me to join a running group in prep for a half-marathon. I am planning to do the La Jolla Half Marathon in April with Lindsay and Jon plus my very first Bay to Breakers in May, so a running group would seemingly be a good idea to gain motivation. So before I could commit to the running group, I wanted to warm up my very rusty legs with a 3-mile run (aka find out if I am going to make a complete ass of myself or just a partial ass) and also familiarize myself a little more with our neighborhood. We live in Pacific Heights which leads to Cow Hollow, then to the Marina. All of these three neighborhoods can be covered in approximately 10 blocks, so we're not talking about a large area.

I got up around 7am and ran north to the Marina in about 5 minutes (figuring 1/2 mile since I'm a speed-demon 10-minute-mile-gal myself), so I headed west and found myself looking at the Golden Gate Bridge in the not-so-far distance (or so I thought). A mile or two passed and I was feeling good (this portion of the city is entirely FLAT along the water, so it's a nice, easy run...if running is ever actually considered easy). As I'm cruising along, the GG Bridge looks closer and closer in the distance. I start to think, "I can do this! If I just go another mile, I'm sure I'll reach the bridge." Umm, yeah. That was a runner's mirage. I kept going and going and the bridge was like a straggly stuffed animal in front of a greyhound going around the track (yes, I did just compare myself to a greyhound...more like a Clydesdale). Finally, I made it to the bridge. Then I realized I had to actually run BACK from there. Oy! If I had a cell phone with me, I would have called Dave to pick my sad butt up on the side of the road. I did indeed make it back to the apartment (I can only imagine how sad and ridiculous I looked at the end of the run, practically crawling up the hill to our apartment) and was extremely proud of myself for the run. Just think, with those 6 miles, I'm already halfway to the half-marathon distance of 13.1!

On the positive side, the views were great throughout the entire run. From water views to the GG Bridge to the city skyline to Alcatraz. I stared at Alcatraz almost the entire way home and kept thinking how close it looks ("I can swim that!"), but quickly reminded myself that if nothing else, I should learn from my Golden Gate Bridge experience...objects are not always as close as they appear. There is the Alcatraz Swim (do I really want to enter myself in a competition whose tag line is "Swim or Die"???), but I do have to save some fun for NEXT year in San Fran as well. Future visitors, start training now so you can join me next time!!

PS: Random shout-out to WalkJogRun.net which allows you to measure your running routes so you can know how far you are going anywhere Google Maps exists!