Running Hill Repeats on Vulcan Stairway

This morning I dragged Earl out of bed to come “explore the neighborhood” and also lend me moral support while I ran hill repeats on the Vulcan Staircase. He brought a book, and Linus, and they cheered me on while I huffed my way up and down the stairs five times.

Now that I’m back here at the comfort of my desk, five times doesn’t sound like all that much, but by the time I had ascended my fifth trip, man those quads were burning!

The Vulcan Stairs are one of those unique-to-San-Francisco types of neighborhood gems.  There are lots of little hidden streets and alleys in the city, and the ones on Vulcan Stairway have no street access.   This means the people who live there must trudge all of their stuff up and down the stairs every day. Now, I’m not sure why this amazes me so much, particularly because I’ve lived on the top of a fifth floor walkup in Manhattan for three years, but still. Shesh.

After I finished my running we spent the afternoon- as my parents would say- “bopping around the neighborhood” which consisted of exploring, taking photos, holding hands, and of course letting Linus make friends with every single dog we passed.

Some photos from today:

Earl and Linus coming down the Vulcan Staircase

This photo does NOT give the Vulcan Stairs justice. They are quite a bit longer than this and actually turn, split, and have many other landings proceeding out of the bottom of this photo.

View from the top looking down

Who can resist a cheesy celebratory “Vulcan” pose on top of the Vulcan Staircase after running repeats? Not me!

Please pardon the sweat and fatigue shown here.

Celebratory "vulcan" shot

Eagle-eyed Earl spotted this striking blue bird hiding in one of the gardens off the stairs. I wonder what kind it is? We were amazed that Linus didn’t scare it away.

what kind of bird is this?

Whereas the Vulcan stairs are surrounded by private gardens and have a bit of a secretive, enclosed feeling, the nearby Saturn Stairs afford expansive views. I guess you could say I really ran 5.5 lengths of the stairs, because when we finished the Vulcan stairs, we walked around the corner and spotted the Saturn Stairs down the street, and I decided to run up them just for fun and to check out what was at the top. The Saturn Stairs aren’t as long as Vulcan- only 1 block compared to 2, but they did boast this lovely view of the Castro and out to the bay:

view from the Saturn Street Stairs

Done with stair-mania, we refueled with some scrumptious fresh-squeezed juices from here. Earl had mango/apple and I had watermelon. As the moniker justly implies, they were stupendous

love the name

Earl loves the look and styling of this yellow home on Lower Terrace. And check out their view!

cool house

We came across this monument in the middle of the turn-around on Upper Terrace.  The monument wasn’t labled as to what it represents, however when we got home I googled and learned it represents the exact geographic midpoint of San Francisco. This conflicts what I had previously been told- that Buena Vista Park was the exact center of the city. However, venture that fancy official-looking monument trumps zen-like park when it comes to official midpoints.

Monument on Upper Terrace

Here’s a cool plant from the corner of Ord Court. What kind is it? Some sort of aloe vera?

what kind of plant is this?

Speaking of cool plants, how neat is this lemon tree? Must be because I am from New England, but I am just flabbergasted that it’s warm enough to grow a LEMON TREE on the sidewalk out front of your house here. By the way, it was 67* out today and gorgeous.

test

Take down your Christmas decorations, people! Here were some crazy ones in the Castro district:

crazy christmas decorations

We made a stop at the Seward Street Slides. How fun! There were little kids playing, so we grabbed some cardboard and just did ONE quick slide, as not to interrupt them. It was super fast and we even saw some of the kids getting air off the dips. Amazing how these slides still exist in today’s litigious world.

the Seward Street Slides

We grabbed lunch at Ike’s Place. It was disgustingly crowded, even at 3:30 in the afternoon. The place was packed to the gill with people pouring out onto the sidewalk and even eating sitting on the ground outside because there were no tables. Fortunately we snagged two seats and Earl enjoyed a #5 while I feasted on a #25. Yu-hum. We will be back!

Finally, we let Linus run around and play in Duboce Park. He held his own with the big dogs.

Duboce Park

But he was pretty tuckered (so was I at this point) when it came to that last final climb back over Buena Vista Hill to our apartment.

tuckered out on Duboce Ave