Little Miss Hardcore

It was a beautiful running weekend in the City by the Bay!

On Saturday, I went for a run in Gerbode Valley, where cool misty clouds followed me up impossibly steep ascents. Every few minutes, brown bunnies would dart across the path into the bushes and disappear in the fog. It was only supposed to be an 8-mile marathon pace run, but ended up being a hilly 10 miles (because I got lost, what else is new) with a wildly varying pace--slowing to a near-crawl uphill, sprinting madly like a bat outta hell downhill.

Getting lost was a little scary, especially after having watched two hours of Dateline NBC the night before, which never fails to freak me out. For a second I was terrified by the thought of being murdered and tossed down a cliff to be eaten by once-cute wild bunnies and never to be found. I picked up the pace right about then.

Luckily, my running buddy came to the rescue and gently pointed out that I had missed the path to the start of the trail by about two feet. But of course.

Sunday morning I ran from San Francisco to Sausalito and halfway to Tiburon, then back to Sausalito, with a new running buddy who also does triathlons. It was a beautiful, clear day and I actually saw three dolphins swimming and jumping by the Golden Gate Bridge! Just past the bridge, on my way to quaint Sausalito, I paused just in time to see three deer look straight at me before jumping over a fence.

After finishing my run, I took the ferry back to the city and felt a little guilty about taking the streetcar instead of pounding out another 3 miles to get home. Oh, well. I was only supposed to run 24 miles that weekend and was already at 26, so I didn't beat myself up over it. 26 miles is still pretty hardcore, right?

A few hours later, after a long shower and nap, Jeff and I were on our way to our favorite sushi restaurant. After all that running, I was looking forward to eating copious amounts of raw fish--ahem, protein... mmm. I gave myself permission to eat as many rolls as I wanted (I was full after 1.5, bummer). This was my toughest training weekend so far and I had made it! So hardcore! Woohoo! I logged onto Facebook, itching to brag a little, and the first thing I saw was that my running buddy from that day had decided that 20 miles was not enough. So he went out and ran another 8.5 miles, just for fun, most likely while Little Miss Hardcore over here was napping. Oh, well, it was enough for me!