3.1 miles in the Outer Sunset

I did it! After an 18-month hiatus, I flew back to San Francisco last week, laced up my sneakers and hit the pavement for a three mile walk in the Outer Sunset.  This hood is notoriously boring, but not this time.  Nope.  Here are four ways I made the walk tons o' fun:

1.  BRING FRIENDS.

I invited some friends to join me on the walk to keep me motivated and the walk entertaining. Because I had my second baby a few months ago, this is the longest walk I've taken in over a year and wasn't sure if I could push through all three miles.  But I did.  Like a boss.  Yay for peer pressure from a group of marathon runners!

2. WALK THIS HOOD AROUND HOLIDAYS

The walk was just after Halloween so all the glorious decorations were swinging in the breeze, making ordinarily blah yards hilariously exciting. 

  3.  SPOT THE HOUSE MURALS.  THERE ARE SEVERAL. 

Forget sidewalk stencils, garage door murals are where it's at.
This one is pretty rad.

 4. END THE WALK WITH DRINKS.

We ended this fine walk at The Riptide on Taraval and 47th Avenue.  

It's kind of a locals dive, but friendly enough to want to stay for a bit.

And so we did.

 

Not to totally obsess over the numbers, but adding this 3.1 miles to my total, I have now walked 592.1 miles of San Francisco streets. My goal is to hit a nice even 600 miles by the end of the year.  I'll be back in a few weeks to do just that. Watch out!