Still Running

A couple of evenings ago, flashes of lightning lit the distant ocean as I headed out for my evening jog along the beach. It's an almost 2-mile stretch bounded on each side by rocks at high tide; at low tide you can go around the rocks to further beaches beyond. Our cottage is situated about two-thirds of the way to the sunset. I do a loop from end to end, usually starting with the shorter leg first, so I can watch the sunset for a longer stretch as I run back.

The sky above me was blue as I set out, and as I turned at the western bound of rocks I focused on the watching the lighthouse as I ran. Flash...flash...flash...eight flashes meant a minute, which was my current goal - one minute run, one minute walk. (As an aside, I'd met up with one of my best friends from childhood over the weekend, and discovered that she too had taken up running, and, kindred spirits still, we both loathed it - she called it "the dreadful running". Her husband had pointed me in the direction of the Couch-to-5K program, which seemed like a good framework to go by).

As I turned toward sunset and home, this is what I saw:

My pulse quickened. I was still over a mile from the cottage, I was already tired, and the panic that was setting in as I envisioned myself becoming one with a fulgurite did nothing to help my pacing. (Another aside: those clear glass statues in Sweet Home Alabama? Pure fiction).

Obviously I made it home to blog the tale, and even with enough time to run back out to the dunes with the camera and take a picture of the beach facing the lighthouse (top) and facing the storm (bottom). Then the downpour came, but I was safe inside. I do like a good storm when I'm safe indoors.

So a couple more lessons learned in the running log. Don't turn your back on a storm for too long. And panicking is the worst possible thing to do: I made my worst time ever, running back. Huh. Who knew running took mental as well as physical effort.

I'm still running. I think I'm improving, though by no stretch of the imagination am I any good at it. But I keep at it because I get to see sunsets like this,




and because I want to be healthy for this,






and once in a while, the ocean rewards me with an offering of a perfect sand dollar in my path.







I wonder what I can find to keep me motivated back home. I'll still have my family, but no vista to speak of, and the sidewalk isn't likely to offer me anything but armadillo bones.