Running the Beach

First the really, really big news. Well, not so much, but...today is the one year anniversary of my first post, my blogiversary!

After a week of relative non-running, I knew I would be back at it on Saturday. My wife was away at a scrapbooking weekend with seven other women. Can you imagine. The only honey do list she left me was to make sure that Bryan vacuumed the rugs. I think I can handle that. So I really had no excuse for not running this weekend.

I haven't been running much lately with the CA Cruisers since I've been trying to maximize my trail miles. The Cruisers aren't all the whacked out about trails and that's OK. My schedule called for 15. I've got a nice rolling road route, Brian's Loop, that I thought I might do. In the meantime I got word from the Cruisers that they were planning a run at Crystal Cove. It involved some beach running. I wasn't sure about the mileage but couldn't pass up the opportunity to try something new with my old pals.

We met in Corona Del Mar. CDM is a great little beach we used to take the boys to a lot when they were younger. The Cruisers were represented by me, Dr. John and Dorothy, that's all. I'm not really sure what happened to the rest. A pretty decent group of 6:42 runners joined in.

We ran towards the beach on city streets and crossed a really neat little pedestrian bridge at Goldenrod to get down to Ocean Blvd. Ocean Blvd is on a bluff with wonderful views of the Pacific. The ocean that morning was amazingly calm and serene. After a quick jaunt down Pacific Coast Hwy we headed onto the bike path at Crystal Cove State Beach. We followed a boardwalk and trail down the to the water. The lead pack was Randy, Jim, Dave and I. We ran on the sand along the water line dodging the waves. It was a perfect sunny day, with the calm Pacific on our right and the bluffs on our left. Because the tide was on the high side we were forced to run in softer sand than we might have liked. It was quite the workout and I didn't miss all the waves. We went out about 2.5 miles on the sand until we reached a cliff that juts out into the ocean blocking further progress. We were at about 5.5 miles at that point and headed back. The return trip was easier as the tide had subsided some so we could run on harder packed sand. Once we reached the Crystal Cove Cottages, about 1.5 miles of sand running, we headed back onto the bike path. The total run was just over 11 miles in 1:49, nearly 10:00 pace, I attribute to the sand. We hung out afterward at Bruegger's Bagels. This was way more fun that running the asphalt alone. I put my vote in for making this one a regular addition to our repertoire of routes.

Later that afternoon, Tyler showed up from San Diego. I wasn't expecting him until Tuesday. He doesn't have class Thursday or Friday (obviously) and his teachers cancelled his Wednesday and Saturday classes. He decided to skip his Monday class, in favor of spending a full 10 days at home. I wish he hadn't skipped class, but can understand.

Sunday morning dawned sunny and 60° degrees. Wonderful running weather. Of course I headed over to Bonelli. Since I had been rather lacking in miles this week I decided to put together a couple of my shorter runs. I ended up running most of the perimeter of the park for some good hills and 9 miles. I had forgotten my watch, but figure I was gone about 1:45. So it was a fairly slow one but I felt good and enjoyed every step.

Final tally for the week: 24 miles
2006 tally: 1499.9 miles

Almost makes me want to go run a tenth just to get there. I surpassed my previous highest mileage year (2006 at 1456) last week.