Joined pals @BryanTing, and birthday lady @theRunetarian yesterday for the first ~16 miles of her 30 on the Skyline to Sea trail run. My first time on this trail, by the time we reached Big Basin, I felt both physically spent (on only 4hrs of sleep), and mentally exhausted from nearly five hours of navigating a new-to-me somewhat technical nearly all single-track trail. Learning from practice, finding limits from experience.

Bryan drove us down from San Francisco before dawn, to quite a dramatic sunrise and low fog on 280(2). We started ~8:15 under thick clouds and ambient white light in a quiet forest(1 📷 @theRunetarian #selfie). Two miles in we emerged onto a ridge (where there was a convenient bathroom), the mottled white gray clouds stretching out overhead to the ocean, contrasted by the fresh green grass from recent rains(3).

The scenery was beautiful the entire way, the trails narrow, the trees tall(4). Sometimes the trail would cut through a small clearing(5 📷 @BryanTing). Occassionally we’d see an odd or interesting site, like abandoned old cars from the road above, or old burned out  tree trunks, cut-off and covered in green moss like giant chairs(6).

The trees got larger, thicker, as we approached and finally reached Big Basin park, surrounded by redwoods(7 📷 @BryanTing).

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