Toe-Shoes Tina: My Toe Shoes Go Swimming

Distance:  5.57 miles

Pace:  9:59/mile (there is a good reason that I was slower than normal, keep reading)

Wine:  two glasses of my new favorite zin, Four Hands “Sophisticate,” and a nightcap of random merlot

We just got back from vacation.  After years of taking my family to totally un-fun places like Paris, and San Francisco, I finally caved and took the girls to Disney Land.  This blog is about running, so I won’t rant about how I rank rampant Disney princess culture right up there with factory farming  (I’m largely organic vegetarian, but that’s a different post).  Suffice to say, I was not happy about going to Disney, let alone spending all the money it takes to go to Disney.  To make the trip more palatable, we tacked on an extra day and a half in Laguna Beach before Disney.  Now this is a vacation I can get behind.  Not only is it breathtaking, it is where I got married.  My plan was to run at Laguna and at Disney.  I did not run either day at Disney and am very disappointed in myself for it.  We stayed on the property, so we got to enter the park an hour early each day for “Magic Morning.”  Magic Morning started at 7:00 am, which did not leave me enough daylight to run beforehand.  And the hotel gym did not open until 6:00 am, so I couldn’t run on the treadmill.  A real runner would have run later in the day while the kids were napping.  But I’m not a real runner, so I just ate a churro and drank wine instead.  Anyway, enough with the negativity (all things considered, I did enjoy Disney and my daughters’ reactions made it worthwhile).  I will write about my Laguna run, because it was pretty sweet.

The temperature was mid-60s and I started on a road along the cliffs overlooking the beach.  As soon as I began, I questioned my decision to run.  I’d had a very difficult boot camp the day before during which we did weights and approximately 5 million pushups.  My pecs were so sore that the normal jiggling involved in running (I was not wearing my super-strength sport bra) actually hurt my pecs.  Well that’s something guys probably don’t have to worry about!  I sucked it up and soldiered on.  Two minutes into my run, I had another problem.  I had been playing with the “coaching” function on MapMyRun and set it for a target heart rate of 150.  The app was supposed to let me know how my heart rate compared to my goal every 2 minutes.  Except that I forgot to bring my heart rate monitor to California.  So 2 minutes into my run, I heard “heart rate, zero, you are not meeting your goal, speed up!”  Um, no crap I’m not meeting my goal, according to my heart rate, I’m dead!  Nonetheless, MapMyRun continues to notify me every two minutes that I have no heart rate and need to speed up.  A smart coach would either realize I had no HR monitor and modify accordingly or dial 9-1-1 (the app is on my phone, after all).  I couldn’t’ figure out how to change it mid-run, so after 6  minutes, I just started a new workout on the app, this time setting my coaching to a goal of 9:00 miles and notifications every 5 minutes.  Okay . . . resume. 

(My totally lame workout report from the first part of my run.  I was dead this whole time, according to my HR)

One of the things I love about Laguna is the beach sits below steep cliffs with stunning views.  It makes the beaches feel more secluded.  To access the beach, there several public stairways.   I found one and ran down it.  In Phoenix, I do not get the opportunity to run on the beach.  And my toe shoes are actually perfect for running in water because they don’t get water logged (could have done without the toe socks, though).   So I ran along the water line.  It was awesome.  I saw all kinds of neat people:  the guy with the metal detector, the elderly lady power walking barefoot in nothing but a hotel robe and swim suit, surfers, paddle boarders, swimmers (clearly people who do not watch Shark Week as much as I do).

(This was my totally amazing run.  I ran the beach all the way to that outcropping in the distance.)

I ran along the water line as far as I could (until I hit a rocky point).  It was not a straight shot.  Because I was trying to stay about ankle-deep in the water, and the water moves, I did a lot of lateral running.  I occasionally had to go bounding up the sandy slope to dodge the odd big wave.  While this was fun, it was murder for my pace.  My coach kept informing me I needed to “speed up.”  Again, the stupid coach should have accounted for the fact I was running a zig-zag pattern in wet sand.  Since I was already behind on my pace, I took some inspiration from Slo Jo and decided to run stairs to prepare for our upcoming stair run.  So every time I saw a public staircase leading to the road, I ran up it.  They were steep.  I’m sure people wondered what the hell I was doing.  In particular, there was one older gentleman who was running on the beach a little ahead of me.  I passed him.  Then I ran up the stairs and back down and ended up behind him.  I passed him again.  This happened about 5 times.  He was nice about it and simply ignored me. 

(Two of the many stair cases I ran.  I decided to take pictures from the top.  It was only a coincidence that I was able to catch my breath while doing so.)

When I got back to my original beach entry point, I ran back up the stairs and took the street back to the hotel.  The street running rehabilitated my pace somewhat.  My “coach” actually told me to slow down a couple times because I was going faster than my goal pace.  I have to admit that was pretty good for the ego.  I will focus on those beautiful words – slow down – instead of beating myself up for not running at the House of Mouse.   

(Alas, this is still not me running on the beach.  *sigh*)