I am still trying to extend my running distance across the tidal flats. Ill health this week has set me back.
Being abed is not quite the same as running in sandals across wet sand and through the salty waters.
Breathing hard.
I can manage 3 kilometres well enough non stop. Tack on another two after a breather...So I'm approaching the 5 kilometres prospect.
I'm not impatient. I'll make the distance....in my own good time.
I have worked out that the foreshore here at low tide offers, at a stretch, 10 km of sand flats hugging the coast along a north south axis.
The Shoreline
Click on map to enlarge view.
I'm thinking: what a resource!
So I'm gonna run that soon enough. That's my trail. My low tide route.
Chasing the tide is easy as it runs to schedule and despite the volume of the in and out of it, there's no holding back the tide.
And tides being what they are -- they keep appointments and are predictable both in the time they change and the depth of their rise and fall.
While running a wee segment of this course it occurred to me that I could engineer a regular weekly time whence locals other than myself could join me in true harrier mode: a social run, say on a weekend, for all comers. Walkers welcome too.
It'd be something the town could relate to.
Furthermore, a grouping such as this could indulge in some jolly comradeship and in the bonding process package their sweaty and aerobic selves as the Beachmere Stingrays.
Estuary Stingrays being the main creature that invades the flats when the tide comes in.
Stick up a few notices around the neighborhood. Get the backing of a couple of the shopkeepers. All that is needed after 'the launch' is a ready means to notify the other Stingrays when the next run is scheduled.
Easy.
Then maybe...following on with the theme, maybe an annual 'fin/fit/fun run' is a possibility? A bit of bunting on the flats . A couple of drink stations.
Since I've never attended a fun run I don't know how these work. But I can see the hook already: the tidal flats. Superb vistas. Wet and dry transit. Wading, walking or running. Throw in a few local horses for ambience. Maybe a flyover or two from the local airport miscellany of planes. Microlite aircraft would be fun. Even Tiger Moths above the heads of the masses...
But first: I gotta notch up the ks...
