6.39 miles, 53:51
Today was the first time that I have run over the Golden Gate Bridge. I found out too late that there was a trial run of sorts of the first half of the upcoming marathon course this morning. So instead of sulking I decided to run over the bridge on my own. Unfortunately, I forgot that the weather at 7AM is significantly different in July from the weather at 4PM. There is a reason that many of our fireworks displays are completely fogged in. It is officially summertime.
The bridge is longer than I thought and thus my total mileage ended up a bit higher than I wanted. It is difficult to get around folks on the bridge but it seems that most of the foot traffic spans from the SF side to the half-way point. My leg was uncooperative after the longer than expected layoff. Work has been constraining my free time so this was the first run in 4 days. I avoided the coastal trail of Mt. Tam in an attempt to avoid the significant climb and opted to run down a fire road. I was hoping that I could run up a trail and pop out somewhere new but, the fire road just dead-ended at a tiny campsite. So I ended up running straight down and back up a hill which was exactly what I was trying to avoid.
Despite that the views from Mt. Tam were incredible as always. It still amazes me that one can feel so distant from the city grind in just a few short miles. The traffic getting there was grinding everyone down. But once you reach the Presidio it is easy to feel as though you’ve escaped if just for a short while. I’m going to have to take another few days off to the let the I. band settle down but it was worth it.