Life's a beach

Distance: 10.22km/6.35 miles

Time:       53:27 secs

Calories:  791

It's the second day of my holiday in Florida, it's Easter morning and I'm heading out for a 10km run with my brother-in-law Andy. Interestingly, the last time that I ran with Andy was on Christmas morning. It would seem that we only run together on religious holidays - I better check my diary to book in some runs for Hannukah, Ramadan and Diwali so as to better reflect the multicultural society in which we live.

As with the previous run we're running on the beach, mainly on the more compacted sand where the waves have been crashing. This is far easier to run on than the loose sand further up the beach, but it is quite different to road running as there is some 'give' in the surface which means you need to put in more effort when taking each stride. At least, I think that's the case and it - along with the heat - might help to explain why I'm finding it harder to run over here than in the UK.

Another difference compared with running in the UK is that running on the beach over here presents an interesting obstacle in the form of the Portuguese Man O' Wars which are washed up on the beach.

A Portuguese Man o' War washed
up on the beach.

I reckon there were something like five of these littering the route. Apparently, a sting from one of these wee beauties can result in death (although this is only in rare cases) it's best to give them a wide berth.

Temperature, running surface and tropical obstacles aside I was pleased to have managed a 10km run and despite trailing Andy by some distance I completed it at a fairly decent pace. Run Keeper has recorded my average pace as 8:25 mins/mile - that's just a little longer than the average pace required for a marathon time of 3:40 mins.