Running at the Beach!

My running shoes are introduced to the beach!

Last weekend my family took a vacation to Longbeach, WA for 6 days- so of course I had to get some running in while I was there!  We rented a small 2 bedroom cabin with a kitchen and back deck about 1/3 of a mile from the beach.  I will post some vacation pictures in a day or two, but for now here is how my 2 runs went! 

This is the direction I was heading- the kites are in the distance.  And apparently my thumb is in
the top corner and I am too lazy to fix it.

On Friday I had convinced my daughter to go run with me on the beach, but the second she found out that the boys were hitting the pool while we were out she ditched me!  Can you believe it?  Haha, I couldn't blame her- she is like a little fish in the water- so I ended up running alone.  I set out for the beach, and headed out through the dunes into the soft sand.  Which is really hard to run in by the way.  I actually think my walking pace and running pace were about the same until I got down onto the harder packed sand! 

The beautiful ocean

But the sun was out and the waves were crashing and there were kites from the kite festival in the distance so I just went to my happy running place and set off down the beach.  I saw tons of birds, lots of dead crabs, some jelly fish, kites and a couple of other runners on my adventure.  After 2 miles I turned around and headed back, and by mile 3 my legs were pretty tired and I was realizing that running 10 miles on the beach was not going to happen the next day!  But my 4 mile run out there was really satisfying and I enjoyed every second of it- even dumping out 2 cups of sand from my shoes at the end! 

I really enjoyed running out there on the beach!

Not that I wouldn't have LOVED to do a long run out there, but the way the sand was slightly sloped was irritating my hamstring and honestly I didn't think my legs could handle running on sand for that long!  So I needed a new plan, and while we were out and about that afternoon I saw a pathway called the Discovery Trail along the boardwalk downtown.  I googled it (of course) and found out that it is an 8.5 mile paved trail that goes from Ilwaco to North Long Beach -perfect!  There is even a half marathon there on September 15th- I may need to add that to my calendar for next year because that path was amazing!



So on Saturday morning I got up and headed out to the highway- I ran 1.5 miles along the side of the road into town to the trail head, then followed the Discovery Trail for 3.5 miles all the was to Seaview, then turned around and headed back.  I stopped about 15 times to take photos and enjoy the views of the kite festival.  I should also mention that I forgot to bring my handheld water bottle and any sort of energy gel with me so I was carrying a plastic water bottle and had brought a pack of Skittles along.  Whatever, I was "roughing" it on this long run lol! 

I saw lots of bikers on the path, and several runners as well

I did stop in the bathroom around mile 4 really quick, and there was a lady in there washing out a shirt in the sink.  She looked at me and said "don't ask.  I dropped my shirt in the honeybucket outside and it's my marathon shirt so I had to save it".  The water was REALLY really blue and I looked at the shirt and it was a half fanatic shirt!  So I asked her if that was what it was and she said yes and we chatted for a little while -turns out she is from Bremerton and we had done a few of the same races.  I don't know if I could have fished a shirt out of a honeybucket, no matter how "clean" it was, rinsed it out and then finished running 2 more miles carrying it though.  What would you have done?

A bronze sculpture of Captain William Clark and a 10 foot long sturgeon

A gray whale skeleton

Overall, that 10 mile run was probably one of my favorite of all time.  The scenery, the sounds, the smells, the weather and I got to eat skittles and not feel guilty about it.  It was awesome.  The only part I didn't like too much was how much my skirt slid down for the first mile, until I got sweaty enough for it to stick to me I guess.  Maybe it is time for some new (smaller?) running skirts!  Hint, hint...my birthday isn't too far away!

Those kites were so cool!