Picking up from last time –
I’ve been up to San Fran a few times (for the races and also to visit one of my best friends in the world). The last time I went up for 10 days, I tried to explore a whole bunch. And I kinda actually knew what was going on around me.
I looked to the left and saw, “Oh, that’s Coit Tower!” And when we were coming up on the Presidio, I felt familiar with that. When people were cheering outside of Sports Basement, I remembered having shopped there.
I just feel like I have a generally better sense of the layout of San Francisco than I even do my own town.
I don’t know if that’s because I’m more adventurous in SF than LA, or if it’s because it’s more exciting to be out of town and that helps memory, or if it’s because SF is small and surrounded by water. So it’s not a hard to know what goes around the edges of a circular thing as opposed to some amorphous shape (like LA).
Anyway, it’s not really important. But it’s just weird ’cause I am so horrendous with landmarks and directions that to think “I’ve been on this trail” or “I know the general way to get to the Golden Gate Bridge from here…” It just feels like “Whoa, what?! My hypothalamus is actually working?” Crazy.
Although I will say, the Golden Gate Bridge did keep feeling like it was supposed to be closer. Yeah, I get this water is pretty and fun and stuff, but… Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?
Eventually, we did indeed get there.
I called my dad while on the bridge, ’cause I saw that I was going faster than expected. It was so funny ’cause I opened panting while running with “Daddy, I don’t have time to really talk, but are you by a computer?” And he leapt into action. He sounded so intense when he said, “Yes I am!”
I told him I needed to know my time from the New Year’s Run, ’cause judging by how things were going, I think I could beat it.
He looked it up and texted me the time (2:54:18.8). I knew I had to beat it. And when I heard my running app hit an hour and a half at 7 miles in, I felt strong!
And this is where I’ll pick up next time.