New Golden Gate Dozen Trail!

#391 - The Park Conservancy, the group that works with the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, created a great trail or course on the west side of San Francisco recently. It's about 12 miles long, so I thought I'd check it out. This episode is all about that trail. It goes through several park areas, both federal and city parks. It's really a great idea and you might like to try it out yourself! The link is below. 

https://www.parksconservancy.org/parks/golden-gate-dozen-trail-12-national-park-sites-one-epic-hike-or-bike-ride?utm_source=pev&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pev-july-2026

Transcript

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Hidden West share stories you might not hear anywhere else. Want to know why the last chance grade might be the most dangerous bit of highway in California? Why did the Japanese drop bombs on the western part of the U.S.? And where is the state of Jefferson? All these stories and more about what makes the Western U.S. so great are here. There's a new story published every week. Check out Hidden West on YouTube. Welcome to Martha Runs the World, a podcast with a new take on running, fitness, and all things health-oriented. I'm Martha Hughes, your host, and each week I present a new topic that is of interest to all runners. Hi, and welcome to episode 391 of Martha Runs the World. Thank you so much for joining me this week. I appreciate it. I always appreciate it each and every week. This week I'm going to talk about the new trail that the Park Conservancy of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area has designed. It's more a route. It's not really a trail. I would say it's maybe 70-30 road running and 30 trail running. It might be 65-35. I don't know the exact percentage, but there is some trail on uh dirt paths. I wouldn't say real dirt trails, but more gravelly dirt trails, and the rest is road running. So you can wear your trail shoes or you can wear your road shoes. It's whatever you want. I'm going to go over the trail. I'm not going to go over every little bit of the trail because that would be extremely tedious for both me and for you to listen to. So I'm not going to do that, but I'm going to tell you about each section and why you should really try it. I am not in my endurance to do it all at once, so I did it in a couple sections. And there are a couple parts that I didn't do because I've done them so many times. I'm quite familiar with all the areas that it does go through. Although there was one section that I have never done before, and I did because of this trail. So it's kind of cool. Alright, so I'm going to get started here. Now the course starts in the presidio, my favorite place in San Francisco. If you have never been to the presidio, if you've never visited San Francisco and you've never been to the presidio, you really need to go. It was once owned by the U.S. Army. It's a the whole square of San Francisco, like the Northwest Square is the Presidio. It's now run by the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. So that basically the uh U.S. Park Service runs it. But it used to be all owned by the Army, and it used to be all closed off. If you remember in Dirty Harry, I don't know if you ever saw that movie. It was closed off and run by the Army at that point. And uh there used to be a commissary where Sports Basemen is now, and that's where the uh the veterans and all the military people used to go and buy stuff pretty cheaply there. And I remember as a kid we used to make a trip up there once a month, and so that my mom could buy uh inexpensive things at the commissary. Because my dad was an airline mechanic at that point, he didn't make a lot of money, so anything that he could save was good. But also, my parents were very adventurous, especially my dad. If he was told he he couldn't go there, he wanted to go there. That's just how he was. Kind of like how I am now. But we could they could go to the they could show their ID at the gate and go to the commissary, but that's the only place they could go. Well, my father, being my father, would accidentally quote unquote make a wrong turn and say, Let's go check out this area. And so we'd be driving in in parts of the park army base, it wasn't a park, parts of the army base where we weren't allowed to go. And eventually we'd be stopped by an MP who'd ask us what we were doing there, and my dad would feign innocence, saying, Oh, we just took a wrong turn, sorry. And the MP would direct us out of the presidio, out of the base, and then we'd be on our way. So we never really got in trouble, we just had uh we just got caught and had to leave. So that was kind of interesting. But back then the presidio was wild and there was all kinds of areas where they weren't taken care of with all kinds of uh just weeds everywhere, just wild uh brush and everything like that. So it was a totally different place than it is today. Um but anyway, so back to sorry, I lost my place. So this is where the uh the trail starts, and it starts at the East Beach, which is a parking lot right next to the bay on the um northeast side of the presidio. And it's a good place to park. You will have to find a way back or take Uber back, or or if you want to have two cars and have one uh all the way at the Fort Funston if you're doing the whole route. But uh anyway, you start at East Beach and then you go down only as far as the lagoon, and in the lagoon there's a uh a wooden plank walk, and you go through the lagoon, and that kind of threw me off because I've never done that. I just go all the way just down the down the gravel uh walkway all the way down. That's what I usually do. So I didn't realize that oh yeah, we go through the lagoon here. So you go through the lagoon that takes you to Mason Street, and if you hear clicks, I'm clicking in between two different map maps and the recording, so I apologize for that. Also, they decided to pick up the the garbage late today, so I've got a garbage truck outside, if you hear that as well. So yay, I love all the sounds when I'm trying to record. Always happens, doesn't it? Anyway, so you're on Mason Street, and then there's a brand new uh children's playground that they want you to go through, and it's really, really cool. If you have kids, they have to use this playground. This playground is massive. There's all kinds of toys and things just to play with, all kinds of adventures they can get in, and it's just really, really neat area. And uh next to the playground is there is a bathroom and public little restrooms and water, and there is a uh field station if you want to check out some stuff, and they want you to go through that and then up to the tunnel tops, and then you can go back down to Mason Street, is what they want you to do. So you go Mason Street and then you go back to the gravel path, and then that takes you all the way out to Fort Point. And if you've done that before, you know it's pretty easy. It's it's stall flat, you get beautiful views of the bridge if it's a nice day. If not, you'll see lots of fog and wind, and it won't be so nice. But it's really, really cool way to go. There will be probably crowds if you don't go out early enough, and go all the way out to Fort Point and clap on Hopper's hands. You have to do that for good luck, and then you do that, and then you turn around and come back and go up the stairs to to the Golden Gate Bridge. There are stairs in this in this walk as well, or this run, I should say, walk run. There are lots of stairs. So you're up at the bridge, and now you're not gonna walk on the bridge at all. You're gonna always stay on this side of the Golden Gate Bridge, but you're gonna go under the bridge on this side, and you're going to um, if you want to use the facilities at the top there in the square where all the tourists are, there are bathrooms there and there is water there. There's a gift shop and all that stuff, and there's food and stuff available if you want to do that. If you want to skip it and just keep walking, you go under the bridge. We do not go on the bridge at all, but you go under the bridge, and then you're on the um on the west side of the bridge, and then you want to stay on the coastal trail, and that will take you down. You stay on the coastal trail all the way down. This is one of my favorite places to run because it's all downhill, and it's a really and it's uh and it is a real trail. Unlike the other side, it is a single track trail, and you follow the the Lincoln Boulevard there, and it's it's really neat. I like doing it. It's fun to run on there, um, and um it's a really nice place to run. You can make you can follow the the complete coastal trail and go down towards the batteries there, um, which are the the lookouts that they built in the 1800s, but you don't have to. It's really up to you what you want to do. If you want to make it really tough and do the batteries to bluffs trail, you can, although that's that's optional, you don't have to do that. It does add another mile and a half to your to your run. Uh, you can do that if you like. All right. Now, let's see. Um let me get here. Where am I? Okay. Now you're um you're finishing up with the Presidio. Now, now you want to stay on the coastal trail, and you don't want to you want to get off Lincoln Boulevard. So the coastal trail is going to turn down towards uh Baker Beach. You want to go down towards Baker Beach, and there is a a big parking lot down there, there is a restroom down there, and there's a water that sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. So it may or may not work. So if if you're lucky, you'll get water. There is a bathroom there though. Uh so you use the restroom there, and then you go through uh Seacliff, and if you follow the map, I'm not going to give you the exact directions, you just follow the map, and I'll have a link to the map on on the um in the show notes. And you go through Seacliff, which is the most expensive neighborhood in San Francisco, and you go through Seacliff and you go out to Land's End and you follow the trail on Land's End, and that's a really fun trail. This is where your trail shoes come in handy. There's lots of steps and usually lots of people unless it's really early. Even on a weekday, there's lots of people. You'll get beautiful views of the ocean and the bay and of the headlands if the weather is nice. If not, it's still it's still nice. That's a really, really nice uh trail to take. And the really cool part that I had not done before is that when you get towards the end, you go past um you go past the Citro Bath uh ruins, and this trail does not go down to the Citro Bath, so you can go down there and check them out if you've never seen them before, but this does not do that. At the end of it, when you get towards the end, when you get to Point Lobos Avenue, there is a restroom there and facilities and water and a visitor's center if you want to check it out. And you want to cross Point Lobos Avenue and go to the Citro Heights, which is the ruins of Adolf Citro's mansion. Adolf Citro was very important to the San Francisco and the in the 1800s. He was an extremely he was a really cool guy. He did a lot of things for San Francisco. He was really, really, really neat. If you want to check out my YouTube channel on Hidden West, I have a whole uh video about him if you want to see that. Alright. Now, you're gonna go through the the Citro Heights, and it tells you to go uh keep going south through Citroë Heights. And this is a tricky part that they don't tell you about, is that the way they want you to go is that there's a trail, a dirt trail that's covered with wood shavings, and you want to take the wood shavings trail. That's the only way that I could tell it and it goes down. So you you're all the way to the end, and you don't think there's a way to go down, but then you see on your right there's a a wood shaving, uh trail with wood shavings all on it. It looks pretty pristine, it looks pretty manicured. You want to take that and follow that down, and that goes down, and then you'll find some steps that are along this uh wood, the these wood board, these boarded areas that have been um have graffiti on them, and that's what you want to take. You want to take those steps down, and that'll lead you to Balboa Street, and then that'll get you to the Great Highway, and then you go on the uh along Ocean Beach for a while, and you keep going on Ocean Beach when you get all the way past Golgate Park, and there's a safe way there, there's uh if you want to stop and get some food or whatever, and you can do that, there's bathrooms, all that stuff. Now, the next part is you get to the newest park that is called Sunset Dunes. Now, Sunset Dunes is kind of controversial, uh, to say the least. I'm not gonna get into the politics, but some people like it, some people don't. The citizens in the area don't particularly like it. The people who don't visit a whole lot really love it. So there you go. There's the two sides. And that's all I'm gonna get into it. But this is about a two-mile, very long, very flat area, very straight and flat. Not a whole lot of diversity. You're just gonna go straight, flat down for about two miles. There are some bathrooms and there are some I think there's one water source until you get to Sloat. I think it is on Judah that there is water. There's a couple other places with restrooms. There are also coffee shops. There's coffee shops on um on Judah and Terravel. So there's those are two places you'll find good coffee places if you want to stop and get a coffee. And I suggest doing so because they're pretty nice. And then you go all the way to Sloat, and this is and Sloat has restrooms and uh water there. This is the part that kind of bugs me about this whole thing. I do like this course, but there is still a problem with it because a lot of money was spent on making this uh turning Sunset Dunes into a park. They didn't put any money into making this course or or making it safe for pedestrians to take to go down the Great Highway to um Lake Merced instead of going all the way around the zoo. I don't understand this. I really don't. You still have to go all the way up Sloat and then down Skyline Boulevard. It just seems to be such a waste of time. Why can't they make a pedestrian walk along the Great Highway and just make that easy for pedestrians? I don't get it. I I really don't. I don't understand it, I I never have, but they just don't make it easy for us. The only positive about going that direction is that that huge parking lot for the zoo is hardly ever filled or hardly ever has cars in it, so you can kind of skirt through that and save yourself some time. It certainly isn't a nice way to go through it. I mean, it is there's nothing picturesque about that part that part of the route. Okay. You hear me clicking. Alright, so now you're at Lake Merced, and Lake Merced is cleaned up a lot. It's a lot better than it used to be a couple years ago, let me tell you. You're gonna stay to the right on Lake Merced. You're gonna stay on the west side, and then you're gonna go down the west side, and you're gonna stay on the west side, and then you're gonna go far enough down to the parking area of the um of Fort Funston, and you're gonna cross the street and go up Fort Funston up to the top of the hill, and there you are. That's the route. So it's kind of cool. It's it's a neat uh route, it's it's an interesting way to go. The only part, like I said, I don't like about it is the course all the way around the zoo. I just think that's such a waste of time. I don't get it. I don't get why they they haven't changed it over the years. It just seems to me they could do so much better than that. But that's my opinion. Oh well. It is what it is. And it I like I said, I'm gonna have a link on the show notes so you can check it out and do it for yourself. All right. Now, um I mentioned first that my endurance is not up to snuff lately, and it really isn't. I'm getting better about it. I've had a couple reasons why I haven't been able to to to do the training that I wish I could. My last job made it really impossible to do training the way I wanted to. And with 12-hour days, it just you just get so tired that it it's really hard to go out and run afterwards or before work, especially when they switched our weekend hours to 12-hour days. So every other weekend I'd be working 12 hours on a Saturday and 12 hours on a Sunday, and no, I'm not gonna do anything after that because I'm just too exhausted. And those were really busy days. I was hardly ever not busy on the weekends. I just hated that. Oh my gosh, I really hated doing that. I hated those weekends so much. They were just very hard. And then now it's hard to get motivated when you're looking for work and you're trying to get everything together and you're trying not to spend money. But I've really found that I need my running. Yesterday I had a wonderful run through the presidio. I was doing some filming for my YouTube channel. I just had such a great time and I loved it, and I feel a lot more motivated, even though I still haven't found a job. I still feel good enough to keep going. I found it's really hard to and I'll probably do a whole episode on this. I found it's really hard, much harder I should say, to do things as I've gotten older. You don't bounce back necessarily. And if you've taken time off, it takes you a lot longer to get back into it. It really does. Even if you take like a week or two off, to get back into running, it takes twice as long. It's amazing how much harder it is. It really, really is. It's like good grief, this is really difficult. So it's been really, really a challenge. So I've been working on that, and hopefully I'll get into it. I I know I'm not gonna be doing any races for a while, so this is all stuff I'm gonna have to do on my own. And it's not as easy to um find motivation if you don't have a race. It isn't for me. So we'll see. We'll see how I do. I am enjoying it a little bit more, but uh we'll see how it goes. And that is today's show. It's a little shorter than normal, I know, but um I've got a few interviews going on for a job, so cross your fingers. Anyway, that is it, and thank you so much for joining me. I truly appreciate it, I always do, and until next week, let's tie up our shoelaces and go for running out.