Day 2 - Muir Beach to Mtn. Home Inn

The start of Day 2. Looks innocent enough, right? Well, as you might imagine, the legs moved a little slower today. And the hills were much harder.







We started at Muir Beach and went through Muir Woods National Monument (a stand of Coastal Redwoods). They actually charged us to "enter Muir Woods". Mark was aghast when the guy at the entrance stopped us and said, "you go through those gates, you pay". So, pay we did because we had a course to run. $10 total. I think Mark's still mad because it came up again at dinner with a scowl.








Here we look like a couple of sightseeing tourists posing inside a giant redwood. In reviewing the pictures from today, I noticed more than a fair share were taken inside the woods.

I'm not sure if we were trying to get out money's worth or were simply trying to postpone the inevitable - that our legs would soon be on fire as we climbed the 1600 feet out of the woods. I don't think our legs have ever burned like that before. But "words" were only exchanged once all day and it following much climbing. Grace is good.





Here I am suffering up the climb out of the woods.











As we ran along today, we came up with "The 10 Things to Keep in Mind When Trail Running" long distances:

1. King sized beds are good.
2. Lactic Acid is not good.
3. Poison Oak is not good.
4. Technu is good (at least so far).
   
5. Map Guy (aka GPS Guy) is good to have along. He's also really cute.
6. What goes up, must come down and the opposite is also true. When heading for a peak, if you go up, you must do everything you can to stay there because if the trail wants to wander downward, you have get back up there somehow. You might also glare at Map Guy.
   
7. Don't call Map Guy an a@$hole. It's just not nice even if he deserves it.
8. Twittering at mile 12 of 14 makes Map Guy very irritable. If you're going to stop to Twitter, do it early in the day.
9. Post-run hamburgers are good.
10. The ice bath will be worth it tomorrow. Brrrr.

The view close to the top. I should note here, that I thought this was our top for today. But, in fact Mark "had to summit", so off we went another 200 feet to the East Peak. I'm sure Peter, Jenny, Dave and Heike, et al understand this need. And it was worth it.






Mark at THE EAST PEAK. Picture was taken from the below the Fire Lookout here. San Quentin and West/East Marin Islands in the background.









This is the path on the way back down. We ended up 1000 feet above the Mountain Home Inn, so down we went. Lots of rocks and slow going. But, down and slow were both appreciated at this point.











Mecca. Back at the Mountain Home Inn 15. No, the irony of Handicap Parking sign was not lost on me.