This blog post was written in 2013, right after Super Storm Sandy hit Long Beach, Long Island.
Throughout the entire month of April, I’ll be sharing some old blog posts. I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think. Thanks for reading!
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When I looked outside the window this morning, I noticed it was a beautiful sunny day. There were very few clouds in the sky and it didn’t look windy. I put on my outdoor workout gear, along with my Asics sneakers, and went for a short three mile run.
Running in Long Beach
I wasn’t sure where I would run. Since I live in Long Beach, NY, and our boardwalk was destroyed by Hurricane Sandy, there aren’t that many places to safely run in the town. Should I run along Broadway (which is parallel to the beach)? Should I stay in Lido Beach (which is closer to my home)?
Since it was windier then I expected, I decided to stay close to home. I ran down Regent Drive to the end and followed the road to Blackheath where I ran to the end, circled around, and ran back to Regent. Instead of veering right, I went left and noticed that the Middle School’s gate was broken.
I thought, “Why don’t I head over to the track and do a mile on the track?”
On the Track
I ran through the broken gate, across the baseball field, past the tennis courts, and ended up on the track, which was renovated nearly three years ago.
As I started to run around the track, I noticed that there were several different teams there, including the boy’s lacrosse team, the girl’s lacrosse team, the boy’s track team, and the girl’s track team.
I decided to run anyway thinking, “If someone wants me off the track, they will kick me off.” At first, I ran around the track with the Girl’s track team. Most of the girls seemed to run a quarter mile and be done. I went past the students once, twice, three, and then four times around. On my final lap, I noticed that the boy’s track team was right behind me. It was like a herd of cattle. They were running fast and quickly catching up.
I got a little nervous, so I cut across the field and went through another broken fence and ran toward the baseball team. I ran around the bases (I always wanted to do that) and ran toward the geese that were hanging out on the field. Surprisingly, they ran faster than me and didn’t fly away!
Saw my son
As I headed toward my home, I noticed that my son was riding his bike to the school. I waved. “Do you need a ride?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
I told him to ride his bike to the end of the block as I ran. Since I only had a quarter mile left to end my three mile run, I wanted to finished the run strong. After the run, I ran into the house, got the keys, and drove him to the high school. On our way, he asked me to pull over and pick up his friend, so I did. The friend got into the car and explained how he just came from track practice.
“I was just on the track running,” I said.
“Oh, that was you?” he said. “We were all wondering who this random woman was who was running….”
I looked at my son and he laughed.