I registered for the first half of the San Francisco Marathon* today, which gave me the motivation to go for a long run after work. I've been putting this one off for a few days, and looking through my log I actually haven't run long since a 15.5 miler on April 1st. If it's not clear from the route, that only became a long run because Silas fell asleep around mile 6 and so I kept doing loops near the house to let him finish his nap.

Anyway, today was another solo run. The purpose was to run 100 minutes, and the goal was to see the sun set behind the Golden Gate Bridge. With that in mind, I headed west toward the bay and toward Cesar Chavez Park, near the Berkeley Marina. I had never been there, but it is a piece of land at the end of an isthmus (can't remember what that's called) with lots of trails and a ~1.5 mile loop that has quarter mile marks. When I got there, it became clear that the sun doesn't actually set behind the Golden Gate Bridge, but rather behind Marin County to the north; this doesn't make any sense to me - shouldn't the sun keep south of the Tropic of Capricorn where it belongs? In any event, I ran around the with some stiff tailwinds and wicked headwinds for a while. Notable features of the park included great views, even without the sunset; paved and dirt paths; and wild fennel growing on the north side that smelled awesome. The other feature was that it was a pretty boring place to try to run for 45 minutes, so I turned home early and picked up the slack by running around my neighborhood a bit before returning home. I clocked in at 1:40:02, and I'll call it 13 miles based on a few wind-assisted and wind-handicapped splits that I timed in the park.

In a bizarre follow up to Seebo's post earlier this week, I swear I saw two snails mating this morning. Didn't get a picture, though, but it wasn't nearly as hot as the leopard slugs. Did I just type that?


*if that's not clear, it's a half marathon that covers the first half of the course.