As part of that, I decided to cut out a bunch of things on my "try this" list and jumped to what was on the top, which was kiteboarding. And that's been a blast so far. Sort of picking up where I left off windsurfing 10 years ago. At some point over the last couple weeks, accidentally swelling salt water went from a horrible experience to tolerable annoyance to not even noticing it. I'm learning how to get up on the board. An hour out yesterday (before the wind died) with the 14m kite (first time) got me up and going a lot better, but either 1) there wasn't enough wind or 2) I was too far back in stance to stay up on it. I did do a much better job of getting the front leg out further, which was a mistake the last couple times. And no face plants yesterday!
So I'm keeping this and running around. I signed up for the san francisco marathon and tough mudder in september. Together, these give the water fix, running high, and nature/forest fix. And it sure helps that there's awesome trails less than a mile from home. Kiting has me learning to swim better on the side too. But I don't think that's an end in itself.
