Sunday, September 03, 2006

Running During Tropical Storm Ernesto

It was still raining and blowing fairly hard this morning in Ventnor, where we are visiting. I went for a run fairly late, about 10:15 AM, on the Ventnor boardwalk into Atlantic City. This was an out-and-back run, first half going north. I was running into the wind. Sometimes the wind was about 50 MPH. It was more concentrated around the bigger buildings. It slowed my running down and I felt like a kite ready to take off. The wind drove the raindrops and sometimes sand hard enough to hurt.

I ran a few blocks on the beach itself. The ocean was wild and rough. The surf was big breakers from far out. Foam blew across the beach from the waves.

One great thing about this run was I could run right down the middle of the boardwalk in AC. Normally I would have to be running around people and avoiding ones walking towards me at this time. It was also cool to see the few runners besides me who were gutting out the conditions. And some of the people on the boardwalk were surprised to see me run by.

It took me about 43 minutes to get to the Taj boardwalk overpass. Then after the turnaround with the wind at my back I was able to run much faster. It was effortless flying for a while! Amazingly, after some of the heaviest rain intervals, the wind stopped as if Someone flicked an off switch. For the final 20 minutes or so, the weather turned calm. Still, it took me only 36 minutes to get back.

This was a good workout for my head. It is days like this that make me think I am getting ahead of others who might skip a workout.

1 comment:

Sean Dietrich said...

I've enjoyed your blog!
I run barefoot as well! There aren't many of us. Thanks for the good blogging, keep it up!

-Sean