She Runs by the Seashore

With a Friday off work, I wanted to do a run in a different place, preferably somewhere I hadn’t featured on this blog yet. I have run in Ocean City, Maryland, before — and even somewhat recently on the beach — but this is the first time since I’ve started this blog that I have written about running there.

I needed to run 10 miles this weekend for my marathon training, and my weekend days this weekend were Friday and Saturday, because I’m working on Sunday. I figured Ocean City would be a fun place to get the run in, and then I would spend the rest of the morning and afternoon hanging out with my family at the beach.

I started at the free parking lot in West Ocean City, which is about a mile, or maybe a little less, away from the Boardwalk. After crossing the Route 50 drawbridge into Ocean City, I made my way up the Boardwalk and went north to the end before turning onto the sidewalk next to Baltimore Avenue and then the sidewalk next to Coastal Highway. I ran north until I reached five miles — 62nd Street — then turned around and retraced my steps to run 10 miles.

My watch died partway through, and I started using my Nike+ app, but I know the pace was slow. My watch logged an average of slightly under 11-minute miles for just under seven miles. I wasn’t too concerned about the pace; I brought a water bottle with me, but I drank all that and got water at the water fountains at three public bathrooms. (If you’re planning on running on the Ocean City boardwalk, that’s good to know — public bathrooms and water fountains are not hard to find!)

I started at about 8:30 a.m., and it was very hot. About two-and-a-half miles in, I decided to run in just my sports bra rather than the tech T-shirt I’d worn, which felt much better. It’s not my normal style to run in just a sports bra, but I was at the beach, and plenty of people wear less there.

I saw plenty of other runners on the Boardwalk and off, which was cool to see. The Boardwalk wasn’t packed, though, so it was not tough to run.

After my run, I drove up to 15th Street, where my family was, and got in the ocean almost right away before relaxing on the beach. I also made it to the 600-mile mark with this run, which is halfway to my goal of 1,200 miles for the year. More on that in the next post.