More Fun in the Sun

I’ve run on the beach pretty much every day this week. One day long, the next day short (after a bike ride). The great thing about beach running is that it’s not hard on the joints. I think it’s harder on the muscles, as my legs are feeling very sore today. Come to think of it, I’m feeling sore all over after today…read on:

I ran long today, again heading north toward the Rodanthe Pier. Beyond the pier, I did 10 strides, 20 seconds each, with a 90 second recovery. I did the strides on the soft dry sand, trying very hard to lift my feet instead of pushing off with my toes. That’s really hard to do in soft sand. I also tried to think about leaning, and not being afraid to fall. What better place to not be afraid to fall, than on the soft sand of the beach?

After the strides, I ran farther north. It wasn’t long before I came to the spot where I first thought of the Sandpiper Plyometrics idea. The terrain of the beach was perfect here – the water rushed very fast up the steep slope of the beach, making it quite a challenge to dodge the crashing waves. So, I did this drill for about 10 minutes again today. It was alot of fun, and alot of hard work!

As I ran back to our rental house in Waves, Nc, I passed my two nieces: Annie and Lizz out for a morning beachwalk. Lizz had a camera and took a picture of me standing in the surf.

Then I asked her to take a shot of me dodging the waves, as in the Sandpiper plyomtrics drill…

Later in the day, I took my daughters, and their cousins – six teenagers in all, to rent jetskis. My job in the excursion was to pay the bill. Oh joy. I told them they darn well better have alot of fun for what this is costing me!

My hidden agenda was to swim in the sound while the kids zoomed about on SkiDoos. I asked the jetski rental guys if it was okay for me to swim in the cove. They said the water is only about knee deep for along way out, but I was welcome to try.

So, I did try. I waded out for along way. Still knee deep. Guess those guys know the lay of the land pretty well. I decided to try swimming in the knee deep water…good incentive for high elbows, right? Even with my elbows as high as possible, my fingertips still dragged the bottom. So, I did fist drill. That seemed to work okay, with my fist just barely skimming the bottom. I hoped that I didn’t disturb a horseshoe crab hiding under the sand.

There seemed to be one area that was deeper than the rest, about the length of a swimming pool. So, I swam doing fist drill with high elbows, back and forth, as if doing laps, for about 40 minutes. The direction out into “deeper” water felt alot harder than the way back in. Besides high elbows, I focused on hiding my head, and a good scissors kick with power coming from the hips. The effort was not very challenging or satisfying, but better than no swimming at all.

After the jetski adventure was over (and yes, the kids did have tons of fun!), I headed out to the beach, feeling unsatisfied with my earlier swim. I sat on my towel observing the pure power of the waves, longing to swim, but fearing the ocean. I am not bothered so much by waves or deep water or murkiness. I am completely comfortable swimming in lakes, even if it’s choppy. But the ocean is different. There are sharks. There are riptides. There’s an infinite expanse of water out there. And did I mention sharks? I am terrified of them.

I can’t bring myself to swim way out beyond all the breakers to swim in the ocean. It’s just too far out into shark territory. So, I decided to swim between the two sets of breakers. I swam southward for about 5 minutes. I stopped to tread water to check my position. I had reached my landmark, so turned around. Whoa, it was much harder to swim back. When swimming hard, I always breathe to my right, which put my face toward the deep water. I tried breathing to the left, thinking of this is an opportunity to improve my weaker side. But, I could not see the shore past the big waves anyway, and that freaked me out! So, I breathed to the right, stopping every so often to do breast stroke, so I could check my location. After about 10 minutes, I felt panic wash over me because it appeared that I was much farther from the shore than I should be. I decided to swim in.

After a few strokes, it looked like I wasn’t making progress. Oh no, maybe I’m in a riptide!!! I started to swim a few more strokes in toward shore before trying to swim parallel to it (which is what you are supposed to do when caught in a riptide). Just then a HUGE wave picked me up, carried me into shore, and slammed me onto the beach. OUCH. Guess it wasn’t a riptide…it must have been my mind playing tricks on me. I’d had enough after that, so just went and relaxed in the warm sun.

Maybe someday I’ll get over this irrational fear of sharks. Until then, I’ll be sticking to races that have lake swims!

When I got home, I looked in a mirror and laughed at my messy, wind blown hair…I love the beach!