superior beach run

Yesterday: rainy, windy, 2-ish mile jog with the dog while a fishing boat slowly swept the ocean in the distance.  There was nobody else out.

Today: sunny, cold, but no wind and the lowest tide I've seen here so far.  The beach was especially wide and flat and firm, and the suitable path was generous.  It depends on the time and on the beach, but sometimes it's tricky finding the right vein to run on, the delicate point between wet and dry, new and old, spongy and flaky, where the sand retains just the right amount of moisture to stick together and support footfalls soundly.  Sometimes the right vein zigzags around small water-sculpted mounds and dips, or disappears altogether.  Sometimes the right vein stretches straight for miles and miles of pool-table texture, soft but unyielding.  I've never actually run on a pool-table; I imagine it to feel like stiff velvet.

We had miles, or at least three.  My half-hour run turned into an hour thanks to the superior sand conditions.  Shortly after realizing the rarity of the footing available, I noticed something bright pink in the distance.  It looked like faded fluorescent pink, like something left over from another decade.   Was it a person, sign, or house?  Distance had distorted it; I couldn't tell how large it was nor where it sat in relation to the equally blurred and stretched objects around it.  We'd have to get closer to see.  Might as well run for an hour--or at least, run out for a half-hour and see how close I got to it.

Extending a run from 30 to 60 minutes, especially after a lazy spell, seems radical but it's actually sensible for me.  Runs that are between 30 and 60 minutes are usually unsatisfying.  They're long enough to feel fatiguing, but too short for sufficient endorphin release.   ~8 miles is usually the best distance for me, but since I'm still sort of out of shape (and possibly still lung-gunked, although I feel that things have cleared up a LOT), I stuck to a half-hour, confirmed that the bright light pink object was a house, and turned back. 


It has been a while since I've had such an easy hour-long run.