Welcome to this newsletter. My name is Rosalie, and I’m a journalist based in San Francisco. Running is one of my lifelong passions, and I wanted to share about how amazing running in San Francisco is. It’s a big city full of green space, parks, and hidden gem trails, and the city has easy access to national and state parks to hike in. I’m writing this newsletter because I wanted to share some of the top trails I’ve explored in San Francisco. I also hope to share some general running and fitness tips I’ve learned along the way.

I joined cross country in middle school. Even though I felt like puking after my first practice, I eventually realized running can actually be fun! I fell out of love with running in high school because public school P.E. really takes the joy out of running. But in college, I started running by the lake at the nighttime as a way to destress. Since then, running has become one of my biggest joys in life. You can read more about my running journey in The Half Marathoner, one of my favorite running newsletters!

So I wanted to train for a marathon. Unfortunately, running the marathon in San Francisco costs over $300, and I did not want to pay that much to run 26.2 miles.

That got me looking into other marathons in the area, and that’s how I learned about trail running. The good news is that they are indeed significantly cheaper. The bad news is, they can be a lot more difficult to train for. The first marathon I did involved running up 4,000 feet in total elevation. After running that, I swore never to do a mountain trail marathon again.

Except I fell in love with trail running. I loved how running on a trail grounded me, allowing myself to ruminate while enjoying the beauty of nature and disconnecting from the stresses of work. I loved how dirt trails felt softer on my joints and how the challenge of running uphill strengthened my leg muscles. I loved the amazing views I got on top of the mountains, and I loved finding adventure in everyday runs. And I loved how while it was a more difficult run, it was a slower pace.

I feel fortunate to live in San Francisco, which has easy access to parks and trails right in the city. One drawback of trail running is that it can be less accessible than road running if you don’t live near any trails, which means you may have to drive to a park to go running. In SF, you can just jog to a park from where you live - no driving needed. And many trails are easily accessible via public transit.

The fact that I can go trail running is one of my favorite things about living in SF, so I wanted to showcase some of my favorite trails through this newsletter series. I also want to write about this as a counter to all those doom and gloom articles about how SF is a failing city…I could not disagree more, and I want to highlight the beautiful trails and parks SF has to offer.

Glen Park Canyon is one of San Francisco’s hidden gems. Yes, we have a canyon right in the middle of San Francisco, and its trails are unbelievably underrated! This park is located in Glen Park, a quiet neighborhood in southern and inland San Francisco, and it was recently named by Time Out as one of the world’s coolest neighborhoods.

I’m not going to comment on whether I agree with whether Glen Park, which I used to live near, is in fact one of the world’s coolest neighborhoods. However, I will say that the fact that there’s a canyon park right there does indeed make it a very cool neighborhood.

One of my favorite things about living in San Francisco is how accessible its trails are. It’s not like you have to drive for hours to get to a cloud forest, mountain, or beach. It has many of these parks right in the city, and you can get there without a car. Glen Canyon is accessible via 7 MUNI bus lines, the Glen Park BART station, the J-Church light rail, and if you’re driving, it’s right off of Highway 280.

Glen Canyon has multiple trails you can run or jog. If you want a simple jog, you can just jog through the bottom of the canyon, which is roughly 1 mile. The bottom of the canyon has two trails along a creek: Gum Tree Girls Trail and Islais Creek Trail (fun fact: Islais Creek is one of SF’s last, free-flowing creeks).

If you want more of a challenge, you can climb up the stairs to the cliffs on the side of the canyon on Coyote Crags Trail. AllTrails has a great suggestion for a 2-mile hiking loop which takes you through the bottom of the canyon and up the side of it.

Glen Canyon is my favorite place to run for a short jog. If I’m up for a challenge, I also will combine it with Twin Peaks for the Creeks to Peaks trail (I’ll write more on this in my next issue!)

Glen Canyon also has a playground, baseball/soccer field, and a rec center where kids frequently have summer camps and other programs! I always see some kind of birthday picnic every weekend, showing how Glen Canyon is such a treasured park in the community and a gathering place for families.

Lots of dog walkers, barefoot runners, bird watchers, people playing frisbee, soccer, or baseball. I frequently see meetups of bird watchers armed with binoculars on the lookout for rare birds.

The bottom trail of the canyon can be pretty muddy after it rains as it’s close to streams. There are frequent coyote sightings here. Also, be careful about tripping over a tree root or branch if you’re running through the bottom of the canyon. I often have to slow down a bit to duck under a tree branch or carefully step over a tree root.

Reading: I’m making my way through some pretty long books, so this section might not change for a while. I’m switching between reading Patrick Radden Keefe’s “Say Nothing” (about Northern Ireland’s Troubles), Eiji Yoshikawa’s samurai epic “Musashi” (I’ve been reading this for months), and Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “The Idiot.”

Listening: I’m a big fan of audiobooks for nonfiction, and I’ve been listening to Karen Hao’s “Empire of AI.” I also love to watch movies and listen to the podcast “The Filmcast.” I enjoyed their recent episode on “Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair.”

Watching: I watched “Say Nothing” on Hulu, which is based on the book I mentioned above. It is amazing and really takes you through the highs and lows and dramas of Northern Ireland’s IRA group in Belfast. The best and most harrowing episode was the one on the Price sisters’ hunger fast in prison. Besides that, I’m watching “Battlestar Galactica,” an early 2000s sci-fi TV show from the Bush era (I note this due to the show’s focus on the military). We checked out the DVDs from the library, and it’s a great watch as our society grapples with the impact of AI and as AI increasingly seems to form a consciousness of its own. I also recently watched “Project Hail Mary” with Ryan Gosling, and I loved it! Gosling is great, and it’s wonderful to see a wholesome, optimistic sci-fi movie that’s not all doom and gloom. We used to be excited about the future - what happened?

Cooking: I cooked a recipe from Bay Area cookbook author Samin Nosrat: her one-pot recipe for lemon-y roast chicken, although I used basmati rice rather than quinoa. I am also in the process of preserving lemons. Both recipes are from her latest “Good Things” cookbook. I also recently cooked the beef, root vegetable, and medjool date stew recipe from Adeena Sussman’s cookbook “Sababa” - this recipe is in my regular rotation! It’s not too hard, but it does take time to slowly simmer.

Baking: I don’t usually bake a ton, but recently I was trying to get rid of some flour and cornmeal. I baked two NYT recipes: Cranberry corn muffins (yes, the recipe is for blueberry muffins but I substituted craisins. Also I drastically reduced the amount of sugar to just a quarter-cup. As an Asian, I value a “not-too-sweet” dessert), and skillet Irish soda bread with craisins and fennel seeds.

And that’s all! Thanks for reading! Next issues is Twin Peaks. What other trails do you want me to write about? Let me know.