I ran every day last week. First time maybe ever that I have done that. Granted… the weekday runs were short and at lunch at work… but hey… it is better than nothing.
The weekend runs were much more interesting than the lunch time ones. Saturday we were at the coast so I decided to run *one the beach* for the first time. For the most part Oregon beaches are pretty nice to run on. Long relatively level beaches leave and nice wet shoreline to run on. If you run too close to the water it gets mushy… and too much in the dry sand and you can’t get pushoff… but there is a nice line you can run on that is quite comfortable.
Usually the is wind blowing one way or another. Saturday is was blowing straight north along the beach… which is where I headed out. The wind pushing at my back… plus the beautiful pacific ocean made it very pleasant. At one point down the beach a full rainbow rose from the ocean and connected with the shore. Yes… the coast is a pot of gold.
When I turned around the wind was right in my face… and the dry sand was blowing hard enough to sting my legs. The roar of the wind (and it was a roar) and the fact it was blowing the water right out of my eyes made it a tough go. There was a particularly large amount of foam on the beach… and the wind was so strong it was bombarding me as I ran. Every once in awhile a large chunk of foam was too heavy to take flight and just skimmed down the beach like a white hovercraft. It was a wonderful run… but I don’t like running into the wind much.
Sunday I headed up the my running heaven. For the first time I was determined to run all the way up the hill at the start… and I did. I zig-zagged up it to make the incline less. .. and even run down without breaking out of a jog.
My legs are a bit tired today… but overall it was a great running week.
