Balboa Park with Graddy

67 mins.
9 miles

That's right, folks, I ran 9 miles. And, more importantly, my leg felt pretty darn good once it got warmed up. I haven't run this far in quite some time, so I consider this to be a rather significant development. Perhaps most importantly, I had a lot of fun. Jordan's former Brown teammate Ryan Graddy drove down from his parents' place in Torrey Pines to meet us for a jaunt before he flies out tomorrow. We ran with Graddy last year on the now-infamous "Jordan forgot his shoes" run, and I had a surprise encounter with him most recently at the Stanford Invite early last spring. Needless to say, our group had lots to catch up on since then, most notably the stellar marathons both of these guys and their teammates have run in the interim. (You can find more details and more bragging by Jordan here.)

We started the run in Hillcrest just after 9am, and already the sun was shining brightly. I was excited to embark on my first long-ish run in Balboa Park since our arrival (though at the outset I didn't know how long it would end up being). However, within a few blocks of setting out, we were very rudely accosted by a (possibly deranged) female on a bicycle who nearly ran us over at a street corner. She dinged her bell angrily and yelled "Idiots!" at us as she passed. Since we were on the correct side of the road and doing nothing wrong, Jordan responded back with an artfully worded suggestion for what she might do. She responded by inexplicably yelling, "Make me, Grandma!" What a way to start the run. Fortunately our spirits were buoyed less than five minutes later when we ran past a Richard Simmons look-a-like power-walking in the park who shouted encouragingly, "Great job! Keep it up!"

From that point on we would have no more close encounters, and we were free to enjoy the beautiful day in the park. Midway through the run we accomplished one of my long-time goals of locating the Footlocker XC course, courtesy of Graddy. Since he'd run there several times in high school he was able to point us to the start and the basic loop. Turns out we'd run on or near the area several times before but never really known exactly where we were.


View of downtown San Diego from the Prado overpass in Balboa Park

The change of scenery made the time pass quickly, but before long I realized I would be in over my head if we didn't turn around soon. Fortunately, Graddy was on the same page, so we persuaded Jordan to turn back. Unfortunately, the quickest way back meant we had to climb the hill on Upas, which I'm ashamed to admit I've never crested without walking before. Whether it was shame or a newfound pep in my step I'm not sure, but at any rate I made it to the top without stopping this time (though you wouldn't have been able to tell by the snail-like pace I maintained). From there we had several miles to go before reaching home, but surprisingly my legs still felt light and fresh. I finished out the run feeling better than when I'd started, which is always the goal but rarely the reality. I'll attribute it to the beautiful weather and the great company. All in all this was a fantastic run and I'm hoping to replicate this feeling tomorrow.