The $75 5K That Wasn’t

This week I am at conference in San Diego, staying at a resort hotel that extorts me at every turn. ($4.75 for a cup of Diet Coke? No thanks. $4.25 for a tall Starbucks brewed coffee? Yes, please!)  Knowing that I would have to squeeze some work in between conference sessions, the only “acitivty” I signed up for was the 5K. The $75 entry fee is above my price point for a 5K, but it is for a good cause and my law firm will cover it.

I attended this same conference last year and actually “won” the 5K, but this year I had to take a different approach. My physical therapist doesn’t want me running at all, but I couldn’t resist the temptation of a run on the beach on a cool, overcast morning. I decided to treat it like an easy run, and had no goals for a finish time.

I was pretty impressed that the hotel had its own branded race bibs, but that didn’t make the course measurement any more accurate than last year’s course. (In all fairness, since we had a wide swath of flat, hard sand to run on, it’s possible that we didn’t follow the route that was measured.)

I reached the “finish” in under 25 minutes, so I kept running for an extra out-and-back segment to make sure that I ran at least 5K. (If I was going to break my physical therapist’s rules, I wanted it to be worth it!) I ended up covering about 3.6 miles in 33:30 (about a 9 min/mile pace). Even though we ran on packed sand, my shoes managed to get full of dry sand from the short walk to and from the shoreline.

Maybe next year I’ll remember to bring old shoes to use on the beach.

I have to confess that my SI joint has been bothering me since this run, but I can’t say that it wasn’t worth it, or that I wouldn’t make the same choice again.

Do you like to run on the beach?

Have you ever violated “doctor’s orders” about exercise restrictions?