Take That Beach 6/17/10

I've always loved the thought of running on a beach. The tide laps at your feet. The ocean breeze lightly blows your hair away from your eyes. Music from "Chariots of Fire" plays as you bound effortlessly along in slow motion. As I found out in Crescent City, California on our recent trip, though, t'aint always so.

First, the lapping tide. Mostly it lapped over the eviscerated shells of crabs that had been picked over by various sea birds. Alfred Hitchcock would have been proud of them. All that remained were the sharpest, least edible crab parts. Dodging them added at least a half-mile to my run.

Second: the cold. Granted, we were in far northernest Cali, not San Diego, so what did I expect, right? Even though the sun was on full display, it was no more than fifty degrees, and the wind- Holy Chicken of the Sea, Batman!, it was an icy Mamma Jamma. Not only did it blow the hair out of my eyes, it blew the hairs out of my eyelids. I flossed sandsicles out of my teeth for days. And, if movie music had been playing, I wouldn't have been able to hear it, since my ear drums were beaten by Mother Nature the way the rest of me was beaten by Ron Smith in eighth grade.

On the other hand, I should say that running into that wind did create a sort of slow motion effect. Kind of like a mime going over the top on that "Man Walking into The Wind" routine.

So, I was nearly hacked to bleeding bits by dead crustaceans, blasted by freezing sand, and slowed to a pace that banana slugs would laugh at. I wasn't just going to sit in the motel and watch the waves roll up on the shore. Not running would have been out of the question in such a situation. We don't have beaches in Kansas, and who knows when I'll get back out to the coast.

Alright, cue the music- da-da-da-da-daah. Da-da-da-da-daah...

Thanks for reading.