Running in Florida

Just about every year, we go to Florida on vacation for a week or so. It's a nice break because we don't really care for the cold, snowy conditions in the Northeast each winter. So this April we headed down to Fort Myers Beach for a little R&R. We arrived in Florida via Detroit in the early afternoon of April 16th. The temperature was around 85 degrees and it was sunny. Sounds good, right?

Running in Florida for me has been a bit of a challenge. With the high humidity and temperature, it seems that each mile down there is almost like twice the distance up north. Don't get me wrong. I like going to Florida. But I've found that certain things are important for me to do when running in Florida. First, I put on suntan lotion to prevent overexposure. Then I run earlier in the morning to avoid the hotter conditions. I always drink water before running, but I carry water with me on every run down there. I know some people have difficulties drinking or eating on the run, but my energy gets so zapped if I don't sip some water during these tropical runs. I also don't feel the need to stretch as much before running in Florida because the "fluid" conditions.

One of the best things about running in Florida are the views though. When I run on the beach, it's not unusual to see numerous types of birds.  Pelicans, terns, gulls and sandpipers fly back and forth in the wind. Dolphins sometimes show up and chase schools of fish along the shore. Of course, there are people mulling around the beach too. This April I was particularly impressed with this very old woman who religiously ran by our condo in the early morning on multiple days and returned about 45 minutes later going the other direction, unfazed by the conditions. She wasn't moving fast, in fact, she was barely crawling, but she was doing her thing. It was obvious to me that running played a very important role in her life and I can relate to that. I hope when I get to that age I'm able to do the same.

 

Calling All Lurkers!

I know that my posts on this blog are few and far between, but I'm trying to change things. One of the interesting aspects of maintaining a blog is that you can see where your audience hail from and what method they used to find your blog. I've had a number of visitors from Russia and Sweden, but unfortunately no comments. I get very few comments.

This is an all out appeal. If you stop by, feel free to just say hello or leave a note, even if it's not in English. I really appreciate them! Perhaps we can actually help each other in some small way, whether it's related to running or something else.

Thanks,

Ken 

Boston Marathon Bombings

In the early afternoon on marathon day, I was sitting in Burger King, of all places, watching a big screen TV when I first heard about the bombings. I had spent ninety minutes or so watching the marathon on-line earlier that day before going out to lunch. The whole terrible incident left me feeling sick to my stomach.

While driving home, I couldn't stop thinking about a number of bloggers that I occasionally converse with. They were running Boston. I immediately went home and tried to find out if they were okay. I've never actually met these fellow runners, but feel connected to them after reading posts about their running exploits and lives. Over the next several days, I learned that Laura at "On Your Left Please...",  Nicole at "Amazon At Another Level", and  Katherine at "Neon Blonde Runner" all finished before the explosions and luckily weren't physically hurt. But incidents like this can obviously affect you emotionally and the signs aren't so evident.

I've always felt comfort in difficult times in the company of family, but even more so with people who have experienced the same incident or similar things. Only they truly know what you're going through. That's why I'm suggesting that people at the race reach out to each other through blogging or whatever means they can. It can really help in my opinion. You don't have to be a runner to do this either. 

The Boston Marathon has been on my bucket list for a while. Unfortunately, my left knee issues have kept me from training  for a marathon lately. I've run three Hartford Marathons, each one slower than the last, back in 1997, 1998, and 1999, and have lacked motivation.  Do I have it in me to qualify for Boston? I don't know. It makes me so mad when I think about what happened. I haven't run longer than 8 miles in three years so it's a lofty goal.  It would be great to be able to pull it off. I'm older now, but  the qualifying standards recently got tougher.

Anyway, I'm betting next year's Boston Marathon will be one of the best!