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Icon Run: Chrissy Field

Whatever else you might want to say about former President Clinton, he did know what to do with a well endowed military (wink wink).   His decision to transfer large portions of Army land to the National Park Service gave San Francisco access to an incredible stretch of land with a drop dead iconic view for our collective pleasure.   San Francisco runners have been happily scampering back and forth through the Eucalyptus filled Presidio ever since.

No matter what the weather (and we have had more than our share of gloomy rain this year.  Wait, this isn’t Portland, is it?) Chrissy Field always is cheerful spot to reassure the recession weary resident just why we are so lucky as to live in San Francisco.  It’s hard to go wrong here.  Start at Marina Green and you can get 4 miles of flat and fast with a soft surface by running out to the base of the Golden Gate Bridge (the hands).  If you want some hills, just start to climb, either up to cross over the Golden Gate Bridge, or up into the winding streets that criss-cross through the Presidio.

There is a restored headlands area by the beach where herons walk calmly past runners and sailboats and bikers and babies as if living together, the natural world and the man made one, was the ideal state.  Here is a fun fact for you:  The green suburban lawn looking grass on the hill by Chrissy Field is actually a native grass that needs no water selected under the advisement of the California Native Grass Association.  How great is that?

San Francisco Road Runners, like so many other running clubs in the Bay Area meets at the Marina Green more often than not for the obvious reason that there is so many miles of uninterrupted running in close proximity.   SFRR is a great way to get your miles in early on a Saturday morning, finished and having a nice cup of coffee in the Marina by 11AM.  The miles just fly by, (well OK maybe fly isn’t the word for the last miles of a 20 plus run) when chatting with super nice people and not paying any attention whatsoever to exactly where you are going because the leader does that for you.  Theoretically, you should download the directions but if you don’t, they won’t send you home.

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