Boca Raton Beach Run with Speedster Chuck

GPS - Details

I met Speedster Chuck at the east end of Palmetto Park Road in Boca Raton this past Saturday for a run on the beach. When I pulled into a parking space at 6:45 AM there were so many runners, walkers and cyclists out and about I thought maybe a special event was going on. I spoke to the fella that pulled up in the car behind me and he said he thought it was just the normal crowd. Chuck arrived like clockwork at 7 AM but by then parking was scarce. He ended up parking on the west side of the waterway and walking back.

I have to admit it was my idea to run on the beach which just might fall into the "what was I thinking" category. I think the 1st image that came to mind was the effortless looking runners in Chariots of Fire with feet barely touching the top of the sand. The 2nd image was me running on hard packed sand near the water and Chuck to my left in the soft sand.:) Well mother nature never provided the equalizer that I was expecting, when I moved to my right for the traction of the hard packed sand, my feet quickly sank a couple inches because of the amount of water under the sand. We both ended up running in the tracks of the tractor that combs the beach for debris. Thankfully, the Speedster let me set the pace.

When you click the link for the GPS details, be sure to change the map to Aerial view for a better view of where we were running. At the north end, where we cut west to Spanish River Park, we actually go through a tunnel under the road. I was happy to see that I didn't lose the GPS satellite signal through this short tunnel.

This was a good training run for me. I got to watch the sun rise over the ocean at the east end of Palmetto Park Rd. while an early morning beach yoga class was wrapping up and I pushed myself a little harder than normal. Since I had invited Chuck, I couldn't wimp out and not run. Near the end of this run, as we were heading south on the bike path, we picked up the pace to pass a female runner also heading south. I looked over as we went flying past and saw this tall lean woman whose long legs covered almost an entire block with every stride. It was about this time that I blinked to get the sand out of my eyes and when I looked again I realized it was just an average middle aged woman getting a great start on her Saturday in the same way we were.