I Run Like A Girl

SUPER duper beat from the weekend: active during the day + late hangouts at night was a recipe for little sleep but lots of fun :).

Saturday: Mission Peak + Scott’s birthday

One of my friends from work, Grace, invited me to hike Mission Peak on Saturday. Grace and I go way back to my intern days in the New York office. She has always been a mentor to me, and I followed her lead transferring to the SF office! I was so happy to spend some quality time with her.

Grace picked me up around noon and we drove an hour Fremont where the trail head was. Leave it up to me to navigate us to the wrong spot, and we ended up being 20 minutes behind the rest of the group (Grace’s boyfriend organized a group together). But we finally made it and opted to run to catch up to the group…which lasted approximately 100 meters.

Mission Peak is the highest point in the Bay area – you can see all of South Bay, East Bay and the Peninsula from the top. But to get there…it’s quite a trek: straight up 1 mile in 3 miles (if that makes sense). No rolling hills or flat portions, literally just straight up. My calves were a-burnin’!

We did finally catch up to the rest of them and hiked the short rest of the trail to the top. Views from the top.

Me and Grace 🙂

Spotted some snakes!

I will say, for such a popular hike in the area, it was not my favorite. It was completely exposed trail and frankly just a lot of dead grass. The difficulty did not outweigh the scenery. Nevertheless, I was happy to get in a solid workout for the day and spend some quality time with Grace 🙂

Afterwards, the rest of the group went to dinner and I hopped on the BART back to the city to get ready for Scott’s birthday night.

One of Scott’s good friends organized a surprise party for him. We met at Cockscomb, an upscale new American restaurant in the Mission, and surprised Scottie. It was such a great time eating too much and chatting away with this awesome group of people. I’m so happy to be getting integrated with them 🙂

Afterwards, we headed back to Scott’s apartment for some drinking and continuing the fun. Some other friends joined us and it turned out to be a pretty fun late night.

Sunday: Land’s End + reunited with Alex!

Sunday started off on the slow end. Spent the morning sleeping in and chilling at a new coffee shop nearby.

I caught up with Michelle for a bit over breakfast. We have been in constant communication since I moved here via voice memos. It’s so convenient to update each other on our own time, and so nice to here her voice!

The afternoon continued with some errands before it was time to meet up with my old college suite-mate from Columbia, Alex. I was beyond excited to know that Alex was also in San Francisco – (he’s a med student at UCSF). Most of the people I’ve met here so far have been newly introduced from other friends, so it was beyond refreshing to hang out with an old pal.

We decided to hit up Lands End, a super scenic, chill, easy, coastal hike right here in SF. Complete opposite of Mission Peak from the previous day.

Alex and I took our time strolling along and chatting away about the past TWO years (we hadn’t seen each other since gradation). So much to catch up on! Alex was the perfect hiking partner – so easy to talk to and always down to take some pictures 😉

The famous Lands End labyrinth.

Super windy day. Being near water is an instant recipe for happiness.

It was so refreshing being around Alex. Even though we’ve known each other since college, it honestly felt like I was meeting a whole new person. Being on the west coast has really been really great for him, and seeing how much he’s changed in a positive way makes me so excited to be here and start my west coast journey :).

After our hike, Alex drove us up to Pacific Heights to check out a brand new ice cream shop called Salt & Straw. This spot was originally based in Portland and came over to SF. The line went out the door but SO worth the wait. I got the blondie sundae…YUM!

And that wraps up another awesome weekend in the books :). This week I’m hoping to catch up on sleep, get in some more workouts (I may have only ran twice this past week…oops), and keep getting to know this awesome city. These past two weeks, I tried  to say yes to everything and fit in as much as possible into each day. But one piece of advice Alex gave to me was to ~slow down~. I will try everything eventually, and it’s all about taking a deep breath and enjoying the ride.

Hope you all have a good one!!