7 beautiful miles in San Fran, 3 of them out of necessity

Started out today planning on walking to the Golden Gate Park like I had done on Tursday, and then run 4 miles in the park. Thursday I was all over the place and had to back track a few times. So today I looked at a map and found a more direct route that would get me my 4 miles without stopping and starting.

Things were going well, I felt great, even after the long hike yesterday, the ground was moving smoothly under my feet. I was enjoying the sights as I was running. Out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimps of the Japanese Garden in the Park. I thought it might be cool to run by that on the way back. So when I made my return trip, I hung a right towards the Garden. I have been there before, but it was neat to see it again. As I ran by, I noticed that I couldn't exit that area in the direction I wanted to go. So I had to run along some fencing until I could get through.

Now I entered the park from the East, and I thought I was till traveling West back towards when I came from. Turn out I was going South, and when I exited the park, I didn't recornize where I was, but I figured I was just north of the street I came in on, so I hung a right, when sent me East, opposite of where I wanted to go. As I ran and ran, not seeing the street I came in on, I noticed that the streets were in the teens, and I knew that 17th street ran into Belvedere which is where I wanted to be. So I hung a left on that, which took me south again.

My reasoning was sound, but not knowing that I was on the wrong side of the park is what got me. So I kept running and running, and 17th was uphill, exactly what this picture looks like. Block after block of uphill running, I finally had to walk until I got to the top, and realized I was in trouble. Luckily, and nice young woman was able to give me directions back, after informing me that I was no where near where I wanted to be. So it was quite a run back, but I did notice that while I was running and not knowing where I was, it was nice, becasue I wasn't paying attention to the running, how tired I was, but just trying to figure out where I was. And I did get to see parts of the city I have never seen before.