New Years Eve Hike!

Instead of the usual partying to ring in the new year, I spent my final day of 2010 being a little more active. My coworker, Crystal, invited me to come along on a hike in Marin with some of her friends followed by a homemade dinner and some live music. We headed to Mill Valley early that morning and after a winding drive up Mt. Tamalpais we all met up at the trailhead. We took off on the Matt Davis Trail, starting out on single track trails through grassy, rolling hills. The terrain quickly changed and soon we were under the cover of trees, surrounded by huge trees, leafy ferns, gurgling brooks, and moss-covered bridges. So gorgeous! The descent went by quickly with lots of conversation and picture taking on my part. I ended up doing a bit of a run/walk since I would stop to take pics and fall behind and then run to catch up! This trail would be great for trail running (the descent, at least). I brought along my new Camelbak for the first time and really liked it - I think it's going to work well for my upcoming trail running!

these steps would suck on the way back!

After 3 miles the trail spit us out at Stinson Beach where we stopped for lunch. It got quite chilly after we stopped moving so Crystal and I took off down the beach for a quick run to try and warm up. At one point we decided we'd warm up faster if we sprinted so we did some short bursts through the sand It's been a long time since I've ran that fast... I forgot how fun it can be! Much warmer, we headed back to the trail for the ascent. I don't know if I was just too distracted by the scenery or what, but I did not realize how steep parts of the trail were! The trek back up seriously kicked my butt. My calves, quads, and glutes were on fire! It actually didn't take us that much longer on the return trip than it did going down. When we got back to the grassy hills we stopped at a vista point and in the far off distance we could see San Francisco and the Golden Gate in one direction and the beach we'd just been at in the other. It took us a little more than 2 hours to cover the 6 mile hike and we were all pretty tired, hungry, and cold when we finished.

 Stinson Beach

 heading back up!

 group shot

 you can never outgrow climbing trees!

We headed back to Crystal's friend's place where we made a wonderful dinner of grilled and roasted veggies and meats. We relaxed for a while before heading out to a local bar for a bluegrass concert where we rang in the new year at midnight. I was exhausted from the early morning and the hike so there was no late night celebrating for me, but the evening was fun nonetheless. It ended up being a wonderful day, and I quite liked waking up hangover-free on January 1st : )

ringing in 2011!

** Happy New Year! **