Preliminary Run in San Diego Saturday April 16th and Sunday April 17th ~20 Miles and ~9 Miles

I left the motel at 06:22 headed west. I figured that if I got lucky I'd be able to find a small series of streets that would take me down to the beach without too much of a headache. I instead found a mellow bike trail that ran parallel to a freeway straight to Ocean Beach.

A Welcoming Start

A Nice View at the End

After I reached the beach I walked and cruised around a bit taking it in.

Gnarly Waves

Gnarly Hill

After I saw that hill in the above photo I was pretty sure I wanted to change my course as that picture doesn't do it any kind of justice; it was steep. I consulted the map I had taken from the yellow pages in my motel room. I was pretty sure that I could make it to the conference at UCSD from where I was without too much issue and keep near the beach while doing so. I set off north.

After crossing a bridge I ended up near SeaWorld and a bit unsure as to where to go next. I found a bus stop and looked at the map on it. Unlike Sacramento the maps posted on bus stops in San Diego have these nifty "You Are Here" stickers affixed to them making my job much easier. I found the next bridge I was to cross and set out. It was a bit more steep than I had thought it was going to be on the way down but, fuck it, I bombed it.

Bomb - a term skateboarders use for that means going down a hill for some reason.

At the bottom a guy on a recumbent bike passed me and said, "You sure handled that well". I gave him a smile and nod and kept going. Then I skated passed a roller coaster; you know, the usual.

The Usual

I soon found myself in a little town full of small shops on a peninsula. It was a bit surreal to be skating down the street and see the ocean on either side of me when I got to intersections, which more often than not were also roundabouts, but I rolled with it.

I was starting to get hungry. I was thinking to myself that it would be really rad if I came across a grocery store soon as I didn't feel like spending $10 at some diner. Less than a minute later I was passing a Ralph's. I was able to get a couple of bananas and some doughnuts for the low low price of $1.44. It was awesome.

A little while later I came to a touristy section of road full of people parking on the side headed to the beach. It was a bit congested with people, but the cars were moving slow and it was full of sections of mild downhill and had a nice view.

I spent a bit of time inland skating down some streets full of blind intersects and some pretty intense downhill which forced me off my board and into walking. It was killing the stoke. After a while I came upon a sign labeled UCSD and was sure I was getting close. I cruised passed a large hotel to a section of beach I had seen from the picture above. I could tell it was the same section as it was unnaturally full of palm trees; there were literally dozens of them in close proximity.

This section of beach was straight out of a movie. It went beach, small sea wall, wide sidewalk, then huge park. It was full of people kayaking and surfing, but it was only about 08:30 at the time so it was still quite empty.

For comparisons sake I came back a bit later at about 17:00 and it looked like this.

I had never seen a beach this full outside of a movie before.

I skated down the beach and soon came upon part of UCSD.

I figured where I was headed on the main campus was near by and boy was I wrong. I ended up walking up a large hill into another section of the school that was under construction to consult another bus map. I learned that I was indeed in UCSD and that I was also going the right way but that the main campus was at the top of the hill and that I was only about a third of the way up it. It was a major bummer. Ultimately the only positive thing to come out of my approximately 20 minute walk up this hill was that this tree looked pretty neat.

Neat Looking Tree

There was also a half marathon going on at the same time that involved the hill I was walking up, but they were headed down it; lucky bastards.

I ended up on the campus and at the conference about 10 minutes before it started. I had wanted to get onto the campus earlier to skate around, but I hadn't factored in all the huge hills I'd be forced to walk up and down. It had taken me about three hours to get there and it was worth it. I wish I had new beautiful areas like this to skate all the time instead of the same lame ones that I have available to me in Sacramento.

The next mourning the weather was lame. It was overcast and hazy. I also didn't know when everyone else was going to get up or when we were going to leave to I decided on a short trip to the beach and back. When I got to the beach it was closed on account of a beach volleyball tournament happening later in the day; no big deal I should probably get back to the motel in case they want to leave early. They didn't. I ended up walking and skating around the motel area for the next few hours. The most interesting things that happened in this time was when I was walking on the dirt trail near the bike trail and saw a rabbit and a field of flowers.

Rabbit

Field of Flowers

Ultimately I am not sure if the format I chose to write this post in is either interesting or compelling. I didn't really know what to write about or how to write it. I figured that filling the post with pictures, albeit shitty ones, would help break up the monotony of sentences like "then I skated" and "then I skated some more". If anyone reads this and has any suggestions as to what they'd rather see or hear on this blog feel free to leave a comment as I'd welcome it.