The Wet and the Dry
Twas the day before Christmas and...I'll just stop there with the cliched cleverness.  We wanted to show off the Golden Gate Bridge to my brother's girlfriend from Czech.  I took this as another great barefoot walking opportunity.

We parked at the Sports Basement there in Crissy Field.  It looked like a longer walk than I'd done barefoot and, in an act of cowardice, I brought my shoes along "just in case".  As it turned out, I could have gotten away without them.

I was thinking I'd have mostly gravel trails and pavement to deal with.  I'd forgotten about the grassy parts of the field and the sandy bits of the beach.  We only walked, but I feel the mole-churned field and beach gave me a pretty good ankle workout.  I'll be back for a real run here.

Past the Warming Hut, the trail narrows and I had to choose between gravel on blacktop or the slippery ocean-sprayed concrete.  I chose concrete.  I had great footing, but the wetness seemed to make my feet ultra-sensitive to every bump.  I'd read a tip on runbare.com that running on the wet stuff could soften foot pads and rub them off like "pencil erasers" so I gave in to my cowardice and pulled my shoes on.

What a shock!  I went from feeling sure-footed and agile to having moments of panic where my foot would slip and my body would straighten up and freeze to right itself.  Without the insulation of the shoes I could read the pavement's slickness much more easily and make corrections without the drama.

I took the shoes off again after the wet stuff.  My feet felt refreshed and excited to be bare again after their brief shodding. Google Maps tells me the total trip was around 2.6 miles.

View Crissy Field barefoot trail in a larger map