The G Running Diary

No Fear or Loathing: 12/15/03

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When we reached North Beach, we saw our group again, stopping at Cafe Trieste. Some would go on, but for others that was too tempting a place to end. We considered getting a latte, but the lines were kind of long. So we went on to the tourist scene of Fisherman's Warf. That was nuts. Lots of people just standing on the sidewalk looking around them made it difficult to run through. I suppose if I were trying to go through fast, I would get frustrated. But I was amused this time, and couldn't believe all the stuff out there. How much was new? I couldn't tell. Lots of it was the same old stuff you could find in any city, the Rain Forest Cafe, In N Out Burger. The road course then turns up the roads and back out to the Marina, or you could take the alternate of continuing along the waterfront on a path. We took a short detour up on the roads, so we saw Ghirardelli Square, then back out to the path that goes to the Marina. Maybe that was the best of both routes. Here was one of our roving aid stations provided out of the trunk of a car, courtesy of Stan. And there was a new discovery for me--croissants on the run. That seemed like ideal ultra food because of the carbohydrates and fat. Don and I ended up splitting three of them over the course of the run.

We went past the Palace of Fine Arts and then around into the Presidio. This is where you get the great views of the Golden Gate Bridge. The Presidio seems like an odd jumble of buildings old and new, some in use for business and others for residence. It's hard to tell what is being used and what is just historical. After the Presidio is the fancy Sea Cliff area where vans and tour buses are not allowed, and if they knew about ultra runs, they would probably disallow that too. We are a strange looking bunch. Our aid station with Hank found us in that neighborhood. You have to wonder how much those houses are worth...

Next, we continued on to Golden Gate Park. That meant we were nearing the end. The 50K course simply goes through the park and out the other side. The 50 milers do some looping around in there and go out to the ocean and back. We ran into Sarah and Aaron, who were crewing for Wendell. Then we ran into Wendell, on his way back through the park after all the looping around. He ended up finishing 50 miles before we finished 50K!

We headed out towards Twin Peaks, back to where we came from. Hollis yelled to us at the place where we were crossing the road to turn off. He had some odd items to offer, including the last of some Jolt cola, but I declined that in favor of the regular Coke that I was used to. We only had to go up the hill to the finish at that point.

On the way up I realized why the Ridge Trail route did not go up to the top of Twin Peaks--there is no sidewalk or path, and not much of a shoulder. I hadn't thought about that before. So the Ridge Trail turns off and goes around Twin Peaks on roads with sidewalks. Anyway, we made it to the top, and were greeted by more race volunteers, including Errol who had stopped running at some point and taken on the official time keeper job. We had a good laugh, started to freeze, and headed home. Don and I were a little sad to be leaving the City because we had seen good places to eat, drink, and shop, but the most prominent thing on my mind was a hot shower. The City would be there for another day. And yes, it was perfect running weather. Not a drop of rain. Oh yeah, and we got cool t-shirts.