Race Report: WFYRC Beach Series- Race 4 (Clearwater Beach, Florida)

This past Friday was the final race in the summer beach race series I did. This one was very different from the other two races in the series that I did, thanks to a late June tropical storm that resulted in record levels of beach erosion that really resculpted the look of Clearwater Beach. This time, the race was a bit of an obstacle course- there were easily a half dozen times where the runners had to cross up to ankle deep trenches of water where the surf had encroached on the beach for many, many more feet than it used to. My shoes and socks were soaked by the time I finished! There was also a huge amount of seaweed carpeting the beach, it made for a wet, slippery, uneven running surface. I wore my new "Sweat Pink" tank, check out the link to the right of this blog entry for more information about the Sweat Pink movement to get women active. My son fixed my headphones so they stayed in place this time, but my Nike+ GPS program didn't work at all so the headphones didn't really serve their purpose for this race. I'm afraid my iPhone is almost ready to give up the ghost, lots of things are getting wonky on it. I finished in 36:50, which is a few seconds faster than my time in race #1- but that didn't involve all the water obstacles, so I'm calling this one an even better time. :) My next race is my first official 10K, the Morton Plant Hospital Prostate Cancer Awareness 5K and 10K race. That race is special to me because it was my very first race, two years ago (with a 5K time of 49 minutes, which I've now dropped down to 33 to 35 minutes for road races) and my Dad is a prostate cancer survivor of over 10 years so I enjoy doing a run that supports that cause. The race is just over a month away, I'm excited to conquer a new distance!