I awoke to a man walking his dog and hurriedly gathered my things. Only a few miles down the road I stopped in at a beachside coffee shop where a woman recognized me from my Uber dropoff at the border the day before! I enjoyed a San Diegan acai bowl and large soy latte while charging my devices.
Heading out, I ran though San Diego, passing places I often ran with my running friends -- the West Coast Road Runners and Trail Crashers when I lived in San Diego, during graduate school. I still miss this running regularly with the Trail Crashers, we shared so many miles, and so much pain together. Now that I live in Riverside it's been harder to make the 6am runs 3 hours away from me. I still join them occasionally and think of them often. They are part of my inspiration for running. I love that group. Robert was there for me on many long runs when I went through a hard breakup in graduate school. I asked him if he wanted to run the San Diego 50 with me, my first 50 mile race, we trained together -- my training fell off with school -- and both completed the race! Now we've both graduated to 100s, Robert to 200s. Gloria gave me the backpack I used during this trek, years ago. I thought of her often during the run. She cheered for me the whole way through and prayed for me every day.
I ran through the bay, the harbor, through Torrey Pines, Black's Beach (a nude beach where a nude man grabbed my calf!), and Solana Beach. I knew there would be ample water via drinking fountains, and food along my miles today. It was nostalgic. Today was also eclipse day, I tried to take a photo with my phone but was unsuccessful.
I made it to San Elijo State Beach, which had a designated camping area. I was late getting in and all the regular sites were full, but there was still room for hikers and bikers! The hiker/biker sites were also only $10, as opposed to the regular $35. The woman at the window looked skeptical that I had run from Mexico, but took my word :) She let me charge all of my devices in her office until it closed.
My site was right next to another man's site, who offered me a tortilla with beans cooked over a fire. I obliged. It turned out he was homeless and lived at various campsites with just a tent and a few belongings. He had just gotten a job at the gas station across the street. He rushed out to get me toilet paper to clean my hands with, and maps from the ranger station. And then he told me about how it could be difficult to get through Camp Pendleton. We did some mental math concerning my running and arrived at the same answer about the same time, he was bright, kind, and somehow still homeless. He did say he liked surfing, that was his passion.
I had trouble sleeping that night and got up early to start running again. The homeless man had warned me about ants near my site but I didn't want to sleep on the hard picnic table as he had suggested. I awoke to ants crawling all over me, and my gear. Over the next two days I would continue to find ants crawling along the brim of my visor as I ran. I left the man my shower tokens.
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