Training Log - Wednesday, May 18, 2011 (Captiva, Florida)

Being at the beach, even if it is for work, and not going for a run is a sin. That's why I made sure to go for a run while at the beautiful South Seas Island Resort in Captiva, Florida. As the name suggests, this resort is on an island off the coast right outside Ft. Myers on the Florida panhandle. I managed to get up at 6AM and head out, not really having done the research to know where I'm going. I knew to head towards the "North Pointe" of the island and back, but I didn't know how much distance that would give me. I headed down a quite road, the only road really, as there was either the coast line on one side of the road and expensive beach mansions with direct beach access on the other side of the road. This was most definitely the  most narrow populated island or section of island I had ever been on.

Training Log - Thursday, November 18, 2010 (San Francisco, California)

What a fantastic afternoon for a training run. No cloud in the sky and just the right temps not to get hot during the run. I had the opportunity to squeeze in a great run during my business trip. I managed to convince Gerry and Mike, two colleauges from Ireland, to accompany me for part of this great run. I ended up running from Fisherman's Wharf to and across the Golden Gate Bridge and back for a total of close to 12 miles. It took close to two hours, but it was well worth it. Considering the many times I stopped to take pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge, the 10 minute pace was acceptable to me. Thank goodness to the hotel concierge, who was certain it was only a mere 2.5 miles to the bridge. If Mike had known the real distance (close to 4.5 miles) he would probably have told me to "buzz off" and to go by myself. However, he did come along and made it to the bottom of the bridge, after a nice climb through Fort Mason and a beautiful run along the beach of San Francisco. Until today, I didn't even know that there were beaches along the bay (see below).

The run literally had a little bit of everything, roads, trails, climbs, stairs, tunnels, and a magnificent bridge section, of course. I managed to get some great shots of the different San Francisco landmarks along the way. Running through Fort Mason National Park (see below), the different marinas, the Presidio, and Fort Point (by accident) was a lot of fun and gave me a lot of different views of the city and its sights.

Aparently, it helps to pay attention so you dont miss a turn. As a result, we ended up at Fort Point, where a nice police officer informed us to turn around to get to the trailhead leading up to the Golden Gate Bridge. Otherwise, we would be arrested for trespassing a secured area and who wants that, right? Anyway, after this little half mile detour, we finally found the trailhead leading up to the bridge. At this point, Mike decided he had had enough "fun" for the day and turned around to head back to the hotel. I proceeded up some wooden stairs, which induced a brief Laurel Valley flashback, followed by some nice uphill trail that snaked its way up the hillside. At one point, I actually had to duck to run through a short tunnel before arriving at the South end of the bridge (see below).

After taking in the sight for a moment (see below, Fort Point is in the bottom left corner of the picture), I proceeded to run across the bridge for a 3.5 mile out and back section that was both breathtaking and a little scary at the same time.

Half way across the bridge, Gerry was crossing my paths as he was on his way back to the South end. He had opted not to trust the hotel concierge and instead hailed a cab that took him to the bridge, allowing him to have all the fun with half the effort;-) Just kidding, well done Gerry. Around this time, I also noticed a plaque with an interesting inscription describing the history and people involved in building this magnificent bridge (see below).

While I am not really scared of heights, running along the edge of the bridge with the water hundreds of feet below was imposing to say the least. I kept thinking about the engineering effort it took to build this bridge and the maintenance required to keep it safe. I'm gonna have to do some reading on Wikipedia to brush up on my GG Bridge history.

On the way back, I decided to really put it in cruise control and just take a break when needed to take pictures (The image below shows one of the beautiful ships docked at one of the marinas in San Francisco. Alcatraz is in the pictured in the background).

While pictures are a great way to remember the sights you've seen and to share this with others, they don't replace the actual opportunity to be there and take it in first hand. If you ever get to do this run, I strongly suggest you bring your camera. Otherwise, you"ll have to copy my pictures and what fun is that;-)

Training Log - Sunday, September 12, 2010 (Destin, Florida)

Today, I chose to run the other direction (West) and back along Miramar Beach in Destin, Florida, again along the course of the Destin 50 Beach Ultra scheduled for next February, that I first scouted on yesterday's run. I also chose to go running earlier in the day, 8 AM to be exact. Opting to run in my VFFs, I had planned for another 6 miler that would be my longest run to date in my Vibram FiveFinger KSOs.

Today's run was a little easier and a little more entertaining. The tide had not yet covered much of the firm sections of the beach right along water's edge, so I was able to avoid much of the soft sections that I had to run through during yesterday's adventure. I had also had significantly more sleep prior to this run. I ended running with two of the guys that stayed at the condo with us, Tilo visiting for our friend's wedding from Germany and Ivan from Huntsville, Alabama via Mexico. Since all of us had varying backgrounds in running, we opted for a slow (10 min) pace that would keep everyone happy. Running West, we had the sun on our backs for the outbound leg of the run. That meant that the sun would be straight in our faces on our inbound leg. It makes a huge difference to be able to keep the sun out of your face since sunscreen will run straight into your eyes once you start sweating. Next time, a hat is a must have item on these runs. This run felt much easier than yesterday's, largely due to our ability to select firm terrain along the edge of the water for most of the run.

Having had the opportunity to run about 6 miles of the race course for the Destin 50, I am not so sure I am "up for the challenge". It is definitely a tough ultra. But who knows, I change my mind all the time.

Training Log - Saturday, September 11, 2010 (Destin, Florida)

Today, I experienced my first beach run at Miramar Beach in Destin, Florida. I also chose to go at the hottest time of the day, noon. I opted to run in my road running shoes instead of barefoot or VFFs. This run presented quite a number of challenges. First, temperatures were in the 90s and the sun was beating down on me with little to no breeze to speak of. Second, the terrain wasn't as consistent as I had hoped. I guess the tide had a lot to do with it, as there was very little firm ground to speak of. The water was rather high up on the beack and a lot of the firm sand sections were covered by algae. Which brings me to my third challenge, algae. Not only was a too slippery to run on the sections that were covered by it, the smell of algae baking in the hot midday sun was also quite bothersome. However, I did not witness any oil/tar balls at the beach at all.

After finding one of the firmer sections right at the edge of the water, I started my run slowly heading east along the course of next year's Destin 50 Beach Ultra. This was to be my first reconnaissance run to see if I really wanted to accept this challenge next February and what the most appropriate footwear would be. Because I only had little sleep the night before, I cut my run short, from 10 to 6 miles so I didn't quite make it to Topsail State Park and its dunes. Nevertheless, I did learn quite a bit on this section. Namely, this is going to be one hell of a challenge for anyone attempting the ultra next year. The terrain cannot be described as easy. Whenever you had to run on soft sand sections, it immediately felt like you were running one step forward and two steps back. Quicksand would be another word to describe the feeling. Actually, some of the beach sand was so fine and granular that running on it and sinking into the sand made the same squeaky noise you get when running on a gym floor.

However, the scenery was beautiful. While running along the beach was very tiring, it was rewarding as well. I ran a very slow 10 minute per mile pace, trying to pay attention to all the details of the course conditions. To sum it all up, I did not have any blisters form, but that was probably just due to the short distance of my run as there was plenty of sand inside my shoes and socks. The terrain is very challenging and running 50 miles here will require paying great attention to the details and possibly learning how to recognize and distinguish between the different surfaces as you are running to try to stay on the firmest sections of the beach. However, sometimes all a runner will have is the soft beach sand we all look for when we are just looking to lay at the beach.

Tomorrow, I will run West towards the start of the Destin 50 Beach Ultra race start location and give my VFFs a try on this terrain.