If you wanna walk, baby let's walk

December 1st got here in a hurry and the three of us were set to walk at Miramar Lake in San Diego. The Lake is only 5 miles, so we planned to go around twice to get all of our miles in for the day. It's a quiet, fairly flat circuit with bike access and fishing docks.
We finished the first lap feeling good and stopped for snacks, a little stiff but ready for the second go around. About halfway through the second lap things started feeling a little more difficult. We could feel where our blisters were getting started and for me my hips were started to protest. The end of our 10 miles was so welcome, and we stopped at the end for a photo and to talk about lunch because of course.

We headed over to Mira Mesa and stopped at Pacific Poke to grab something to eat after all of the walking and it was great! Definitely stop by if you're a poke fan. From there we went home to get some rest and get ready for 10 more miles Sunday. 

The next morning came early, especially since it came with a drive up to Dana Point. Our walk started in the Suburban area of the Lantern District and wound through neighborhoods until we reached Laguna Niguel and a series of trails and tunnels. 

We made our way back down to the coast and hugged the coastline for a few miles until it was time to head back up into the Lantern District of Dana Point.  

Heading back up sounds like no big deal, but by the time we were on the beach I was struggling a little. I had some blisters from Saturday that I had taped when we stopped for our snack break at the halfway point that were making themselves known, and my hips had started swelling a little. More than anything it's what gets into your head, you get tired, you get sore, and you start to think about what it would feel like to stop and sit down. I just started saying "keep going" over and over in my head and by the time that we were going up the last set of stairs to get up to the street level I was whispering it out loud and laughing with my friends about how many more hills we had to go. 

At the end it was hard but so satisfying. We made it those first 20 miles, and celebrated with lunch at the same restaurant that we went to on our planning day. La Columbiana is definitely going to show up here more than once. 

The day ended in laughter and shared blister prevention plans.