Double Cross

Why

Why all the embarrassment

about being happy?

Sometimes I’m as happy 

as a sleeping dog, 

and for the same reasons,

and for others.

Wendell Berry

Recently I’ve been obsessed with watching ultra runners on YouTube. My favorite being Michael Versteeg, who appeals to me for his monastic nature and his religious perspective on running. So I decided to run again. I ran 5 miles after not running for a whole year. Prior to this attempt I tried and tried and couldn’t break the 3 mile barrier, but then something clicked. It is difficult but that’s what makes it beautiful. It feels like I must learn the same lesson a million times, but maybe this time I do. This relates to my 25 mile walk because my recent desire to run has made me curious about what moving for a long time does to you, and partly in preparation to run a marathon eventually. So I asked Alex to accompany me on this “cross town trail” ish route on Sunday. I was super curious and honestly overly confident about walking that far. I thought it would be kinda easy. It was not.

Alex and I left at about 7AM to walk to the “starting line” at Fort Funston. As with many things Alex and I do we had a really rough estimate for time and actual distances so we thought the fort was about 3 miles from our house. It was not. We ended up walking 6 miles to our starting line which was pretty fine because at this point I was still feeling pretty excited. We encountered a lot of funny graffiti and were accompanied by the classic SF gloomy weather.

After we reached the top of Fort Funston we walked through this golf course around Lake Merced (ugly) and then walked to my favorite part of the trek, Pine Lake Park.

Guys seriously I had no clue this park existed and if you take anything from reading this it should be to go to this park. It kinda made me feel like I was out of the city and on the east coast for some reason…

Alex here. This was definitely one of my highlights too. I lived in the outer sunset for many years and literally never once went to this park, though I have a vague memory from long ago during which my cousin may have gotten married nearby? But it’s a beautiful park and looks super bike friendly. Will need to report back on that aspect…

Eventually we got to west portal where we decided to take our first official break. This is the part I stared feeling really sick and we decided to get some band aids for our blistering feet. I was starving too so we got bahn mi but I wasn’t even able to eat half of it due to nausea. We went on.

We continued through a segment I’ve never been to before again, called Edgehill Heights, which looked to be a super-affluent neighborhood between Twin Peaks and the upper edge of the West Portal. The climb up was admittedly gorgeous. It lead us down through a dirt trail between neighborhoods, where sarah munched her sandwich.

Appetite restored.

We started our trek up to Twin Peaks. On the way there we walked past 3 different churches which we enjoyed. I really wanted to see a nun but no luck.

We reached the top of twin peaks and quickly left because the wind was stupid. Alex popped a blister mid way down and I was able to eat the other half of the half of my sandwich. On we go.

Twin Peaks was cool to ascend on foot, up through all the staircases. It was nice to see the community went ahead and and tore down the chainlink fences preventing people from enjoying the view from the east side.

We finally reach Hayes and decide to treat ourselves to some Kopē House which literally transforms me for an hour. Jared gave us a s’mores cookie which still gives me goosebumps thinking about and we continued on our way. This side of the city is blazing by the way. After hours in the fog we are toasting. At this point I’m kinda spacing out. I must have just been walking with my head down but all the rest I remember is we make it to Chinatown and we get rice rolls.

My stomach is really uncomfortable after those and we run out of water. We reach a park to try to fill up our water bottles because we refuse to buy water but a man is bathing himself in the fountain so we move along. We reach Washington Square Park in North Beach where there is a long line for the boys bathroom but not the girls. I go pee but Alex opts out because he says the vibes in the bathroom are weird. Then we start our walk up to Coit Tower, which I accurately identify and on which Alex rudely questions me. He googles and it is what I say it is. We reach the top and I’m so thirsty I just lay down under some trees wile Alex goes to the bathroom and looks for water.

Somewhere along the way we see this NO SKATEBOARDING mosaic which makes me laugh

We see the green parrots at Telegraph Hill and they’re loud but so beautiful. We walk and walk and finally reach the pier. Basically that concludes the hike from one side to the other.

We finished but have to make it to the bus stop further on downtown. We’re basically limping to the 38R Geary stop on 3rd. On it I want desperately to fall asleep.

There was a Pokemon convention and the bus is full with fans in costumes and goodie bags. It’s awesome. Finally we make it home and I’m disappointed at first that we didn’t fully make it the marathon distance but then I remember I did this because moving is beautiful. There is something really human about just moving for hours and hours. This is when I feel the most joy: when I get to walk, run, or bike all day. My happiness is abundant.