Running at the beach sucks

I don't have much to expand on the title. It's just been my experience, when vacationing at the beach (any beach), the running is terrible. I am currently on a two week vacation in Emerald Isle, NC. To understand why things are so bad for my running right now, you need to know a little bit about Emerald Isle.

Emerald Isle is a beautiful strip of land south of North Carolina's Outer Banks. I've read literature that considers Emerald Isle the southern-most part of the Outer Banks, but I've never heard anyone say that they were going to the Outer Banks and mean that Emerald Isle is their destination. What is somewhat unique about this strip of land is that it faces directly South. So if you are facing the ocean, the sun rises to your left and sets to your right. Or, more relevant to this story, if you are running at 7:00 AM, you are running directly into the sun or away from it.

The first week of my vacation, I almost felt like I had some physical ailment. All I could muster was a 3 mile run (or shuffle depending on your perspective). I'm not in great shape, but I've been capable of running much further before this vacation. I had hoped to put in a decent number of miles while on vacation, since I didn't really have anything else planned for the entire two weeks. I just needed to do a morning run, then play with the kids the rest of the day. No other responsibilities.

The first week of my stay is in a fog of stumbling through slow 3 mile runs. I tried to track my misery this second week. Sunday the sun was exceptionally blazing for my four miler. I decided to run into the sun for the first mile, then two miles away from the sun, and finish the last mile running back toward the sun. I am sort of stuck just running straight out and back because the island is less than a quarter of a mile wide at the place I'm staying. At least breaking up the run like this gives me an extra 180 degree turn to break up the monotony of running in a straight line.

This seemed like a good plan until I turned around at the mile mark. Although I was running into the sun, I was also running into a breeze. Once I turned around, I lost the cooling effect of the breeze. I basically set up my run to have the longest segment in a sauna of heat and humidity, with the sun beating down on my back.

The next day, I was only going to run 3 miles. Feeling like I learned my lesson from the day before, I ran away from the sun for the first half. When I turned around, I realized that I had been running into a slight breeze. So I had to make my way back to the house running into the sun and with no cooling effect from a wind.

Another issue I have with running at the beach is that I've never stayed at a beach that had drinkable tap water. Being hydrated is nearly impossible. When I'm at a beach, I definitely enjoy consuming a decent bit of alcohol or ice cream (more ice cream these days than alcohol) neither of which is very good for your hydration. Bottled water doesn't come cheap when you're staying on an island. If I drank enough water to be hydrated for running, I would nearly double the expense of my trip.

So there you go: boredom, heat, humidity, and dehydration. A perfect formula for terrible running.