Pooches to 5K

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Another day out.

While I haven't left the neighborhood -- my township environs -- for a week I still get out and about within my patch.

Today I was seaside while the tide was in.

With less land  to choose from I had to keep my running to the  beach sand on offer. 

Weaving between the mangrove tree trunks  and splashing through the water when I had to get past some of the larger dead tree trunks that litter the beach. 

It was another Pooches to 5K  run: pack running. In fact we -- my dogs and I -- briefly were joined by the local  pack -- a dog walker exercises  maybe ten dogs at my running route. 

Mixing it with pack that size  is  all joi de vivre and comradeship...for dogs. What with all the barking and all the anal sniffing to be had -- for those who partake, you wouldn't be dead for quids. 

Deception Bay doing its bay thing.

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My cartooned life: Chasing the Tide

Well, I've created my first comic book and I'm now a comic book character.

No Super Hero but I  have a presence in the story.

I thought I'd find something to say but talk balloons  seemed superfluous  after I had played around with the photographs -- sketched them , recoloured them  and sort of turned them  into watercolours.

All I did was go out on my low tide run today and while out and about I took a few photographs of the activity.

I later tweaked them with PhotoSketcher and used the images to fule my comic with Comic Life 2. 

It was a lot of fun and turned out to be more artistic than I thought it would be.

While the world I ran in is a lot more exotic cartoonized than it is, telling the story of my run has a certain logic to it that allowed me to experiment with pitch. 

Like directing a film. 

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A Low Low Tide

Although my 'condition' kicked in on my return -- I ran, walked and waded knee deep over the 5 km course of my current running route. Clear waters. Low tide just at the change. The cohort of the dogs and I had a great time on the sea shore. Today's low tide was extremely low -- 0.3 metres -- so by the time we'd traversed the sand flats and headed due east seaward we met the tide maybe all of a kilometre from the shoreline. 

From where I stood looking out to sea I could see more shoals further out at places I had not seen such shallowness before.  Deception Bay deserves its name as shoals are notorious deceivers.

This was indeed a low Low Tide.

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I'm a poster boy for self help.

At the river mouth

As my strength and endurance improves I'm getting to love this running biziness. After years walking the dogs in various guises I'm now running with the pack -- well, at least,  our rather minimalist micro pack.

When you consider that I started walking the dogs with walking/trekking poles back then and used to walk about town with a cane (back then)... you get some idea how far the old bod has marched in the space of a few years.

Years? Five or six years of land based focused exercise after several more of pool work.

Now I'm running 5 kilometres three to four  times per week: no sweat ... as well as doing intense interval training strength sessions (HIIT) every other day and kickbiking 14 km as impulse takes me. 

Not a bad regimen after years of experimentation.

On top of that everyday (when mobile) I do at least 45-60 minutes of Soul (line)  Dancing because I love it ... and now share the choreographies.

I'm a poster boy for self help.

But for now, the option to everyday touch the sea and be nautical is such that I'm sure I'll be trying to run every day ASAP. I may walk the dogs when I don't run them but running the shoreline and tidal flats, chasing the low tide around the clock, mixing it with the wind and weather, ploughing through tidal pools and shell beds, side stepping soldier crabs and watching the weather patterns over Moreton Island 30 km away, accompanied by Sea Eagles overhead ... is magic.

If you'd asked me 6 months back if I'd be running today I would have been self-depreciating.

I'd have said," not possible."

But there you have it: by dint of logic and circumstance after putting one newly shod foot in front of the other I'm running.

So kickbiker turns runner but stays kickbiker and runs as he kickbikes.

So kettlebell lifter turns Intense Interval exerciser but still lifts dem bells.

Serendipity.

  A later post will consider other physiological changes that are upon me. As a point of information, I began  this blog in July 2007 with this comment.

Daily Step Log: July 2007

The very low figures are days I could hardly walk

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Run. Run. Run.

It may be just under 4 kilometres in length but I'm beginning to love  my sand runs.

With the tide in, I'm sentenced to a land adventure so instead of running on the flats with its much longer route option, and fording the occasional tidal pool up to 500 metres 'from shore', I run the shoreline and weave between the mangroves and dead tree trunks.

At my feet, soft dry sand,  now-and-then shell beds that go crunch  and a slant seaward.

It's  a 'trail run' with vegetation and a lot of surprises  that has to end at the tributary that feeds and drains the swamp from the Caboolture River.

Running on sand , soft sand, means you have to really work your ankles to drive yourself  forward and so, soon enough, sand demands good form.

In fact, running on sand and up sandhills must be a superb training aide -- as Percy Cerutty so often insisted. On the flat, it is hard for the feet to secure an anchorage in soft sand so your traction is weak and the soles of your feet slip back as you work from your ankles to push yourself forward. So your upper body is pitched forward. With the same physics impacting on running up the sand on sandhills, the effect is further enhanced by the fact you have to lean into the climb against gravity. Running in water, on the other hand, really works the thighs as you have to lift your legs through the water and drive them forward through the knees. So running against resistance is the main game -- and makes for excitement and challenge...and better form. And sand while resisting is also very forgiving. A comfort sets in despite the maneuvering you have to do along the beach because your toes will sink into the surface.

And the dogs prefer to be land based because there is more sniffs to the metre.

(And I gotta think of the dogs). 

Eagle

Fish

En route were the charms of a dead  fish -- with a mean set of choppers (species unknown?) and the joy of being shadowed by  the  Sea Eagle that patrols the area. 

I now run with a bag to carry my supplies --such as a camera and the dog lead  -- so I'm self sufficient for my outing.

If only this route was longer....but I can;t go into the swamp and if the tide is in, there is no great sand flat to be had 'out to sea'. 

Nonetheless, there is much excitement to  be had from running this route I have so often walked. Since my norm is to combine it with an 'out to sea' sand bank option I can still do the distances I'm after.  But the charms of  having all that stuff around you -- trees, grasses, dead wood -- is very different from the undulating patterns in the sand and cool pools away from the shoreline.

Destination


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Reaching my stride

The route back home among Mangroves

I had mapped myself out a nice little route that ran to a distance of 5 km.

It ran that far -- the idea being that I would soon enough follow.

Half of it was on the sand flats at low tide -- it was a 'low tide run' -- and the other half , the return, along the shoreline that skirts, what I call,  the southern swamp.

And yes, this was designed as Pooch to 5k running program as it was conceived with the dogs in mind. The route also fell within the local very generous off-leash area that does indeed extend several kilometres along the shore to the mouth of the Caboolture River.

Heading out was so so. I was  trying to tweak my technique as I ploughed over the sand flats and forded the tidal pools. Once I reached the river, I took a breather and walked the sand bar that parallels the river like a levee towards the shoreline before stepping up the pace as I ran though the muddier flats to join the beach near a stand of SheOaks. 

Turning north, the route is all soft dry sand that banks up sharply in places . Here and there are Mangroves, dead tree trunks and sea grass mounds. So running you need to skirt these obstacles and manoevre between the build up of cellulose. 

Obstacles: dead tree trunks

I guess it was the rise in the  track under my feet as well as the weaving that was forced upon me but I started to really push off from my ankles and for the first time since I started back running I was hitting 'form'.

It was a great feeling to run like I meant it.

It surprised me. I woulda thought there was more lessons  on the tidal flats ' out to sea'. 

Nonetheless at low tide you can check your footprints to see how you are hitting the ground. It gives you something to do when you retrace your footsteps.

In case you get lost: like Hansel and Gretel.

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Dancing,Kickbiking, Running: oh the chi of it.

Twenty years ago I was a Tai Chi Chuan practitioner -- Yang style.

Yang family-style (Chinese: 楊氏; pinyin: yángshì) t'ai chi ch'uan (taijiquan)

This wasn't my first foray into Tai Chi but at the time I  mastered the form and even help teach it.

There is a lot  to be said for tai chi-ing the decrepit bod. It racks up good consequence and I miss the ready centre-ing that being tai chi aware gives you.

Contrary to its supposed health benefits I was disappointed in its impact and over time got tardy and ceased to practice the form.

I guess I was too demanding (says he, 20 years later). My pain and stiffness staid very painful and very stiff.

Nonetheless, at the time I was studying various movement awareness regimes and was using and teaching some simple Feldenkrais exercises as well as doing Tai Chi.

I had also trained as a massage therapist and was earning a sort of at-home income from my interventions.

My front gate had a sign: Dave Riley , Massage Therapist.

Aside from the occasional request for 'hand relief' the professional excursion was instructive of what bodies can get up to.

So the years roll on by...and of late  I have moved back to an interest in movement studies.

Dancing did that.

Ironically, I have harnessed greater benefit from the dancing than  these other investigations.

My ruling is clear: dancing and learning choreography to music is more beneficial for me than doing Tai Chi.  

But dance too is 'movement awareness'. Being conscious of what you are doing when you are moving it/doing it can be achieved  via many different routes and while I greatly respect Tai Chi I think it is overrated and obscurantised by all its chi-energy mysticism.

You have to put up with a lot of yin and yang malarky when you do Tai Chi. 

If you want to believe in 'chi' energy go for it, but spare me the lecture. I used to study body sciences with chiropractors  and I know physiological spin when it is being spun.

Nonetheless, regardless of 'theory' what works is gonna keep on working despite the handicap of its  explanation.

In this regard I have been reading Danny Dreyer's book, ChiRunning -- and it is an useful movement awareness manual.

It's a brand of course but after delivering oodles of workshops and training so many runners, Dreyer has honed his method into a very useful DIY that transcends its Tai Chi Chuan origins. It is a quick way to get to the Tai Chi good oil without having to spend years learning the form.

I have referred here before to similar methods offered by Esther Gokhale: glidewalking.

Many roads can lead to Rome I guess....but what interests me is that the quest to develop a  method  for the way you move is very useful for controlling pain and stiffness ; and ameliorating muscle fatigue.

It's about being aware -- conscious of what you are doing when you are doing it.

Previously I had discussed how I thought kickbiking contributed to the way I walked or ran. In light of this 'chi' study I came back to those considerations and think there is indeed a point to them. A very similar approach to Dreyer is offered by Nate Fagan with his Tai Chi Running franchise. To me, the Fagan approach makes a bit more sense...

...More sense, that is, from the POV of a kickbiker (such as moi).

• kickbikers lean into the kick
• kickbikers crouch to kick
• kickbikers kick from the gut/abdominals
• kickbikers stamp light on the earth
• kickbikers stamp the souls of their feet  flat on the earth
• kickbikers kick square with their feet shoulder length apart
• kickbikers kick with a regular cadence and speed up by extending the length/reach of their kick

That's my ruling, anyway. All I have to do now is transpose what I know about kicking to running. So I have to be more aware while kickbiking and think how I can adapt what I do on two wheels to what I do on two feet alone.

There's also another relevance, one that affirms the Tai Chi perspective.

The exercising I do now is very slow. There's no explosion, no grunt. The lift and return of either my body or a weight is synchronous with the pace of a Tai Chi move.It may take me up to 10 seconds to slowly and consciously lift a weight (kettlebell or dumbbell) and a similar period to bring it back down again. But unlike Tai Chi I'm trying to reach muscle fatigue so I am seeking burn at some stage during the repetitions and the slowness of the exertion serves to hasten the onset of burn and fatigue. 

Tai Chi is performed without weights -- in fact weighted Tai Chi would upset the 'balance' of the form. Nonetheless, using weights and lifting them slowly has been proven to be much more effective exercise that  lifts a la the explosive clean and jerk.

Aside from these considerations, doing it slow and with utmost movement awareness isn't the nub of the business. At stake is harnessing core driven  impetus, core control. 

While we may think of dancing as so many arms and legs moving in time with music  I find myself addressing the irony that my dancing challenge isn't so much where I put my feet but where the music  begins inside of me. 

This is something of a revelation. At a time when I am stepping into more intricate footwork I find myself obsessed with the Southern Two Step -- a basic  step that can be counted as One and Two - Three and  Four. In Zydeco it can be as simple as a slide two steps one way and two steps return.

Easy right? Anyone can do that. But then this is where Soul meets Tai Chi Chuan. Taking two steps to the right or four steps to the right is going to be a move with many possibilities. If you think it is simple about keeping up with the beat you'd sentence yourself to  facile dancing.

Like Chi running, like kickbiking or Tai Chi Chuan your Two Stepping should start in your gut: its inner to outer. In Opelousas, Lousiaina, the local Creole community  passes on the Zydeco culture by drilling the youth in Two Step-ology: two steps to the right/two steps to the left/two steps to the right/two steps to the left/two steps to the right/two steps to the left/...it is an obsession insisted upon until the youngsters get so fed up with it they improvise how they get from a to b within the space offered by two steps.

Something so simple can be so crucial to  the whole caboodle. I watch videos of this two stepping business and am amazed how significant a simple  One and Two - Three and  Four can be. That may underline how creative the simple Rhythm and Blues form can be, but at its heart -- its  soul -- is the very same principles that animate the chi-ness in the running, exercising or kickbiking I've been describing.

So in a sense there aren't x number of studies  to pursue but the one focus.

Addendum: In my later life -- after Tai Chi -- I still used elements of the form and always taught a few simple exercises as preliminary to other stuff I offered. For instance I taught kids Theatre Improv for a time and would begin each workshop by utilizing the basic set-up moves for Tai Chi -- the initial descent and shift  of the pelvis and the formation of the ball in the arms followed by a left and right turn -- with concentration on the breathing cadence. It got  the children settled and quiet while encouraging them to focus on what was to follow. I've got half a mind to introduce the same introduction to my dance classes....

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'The Stingrays' -- tidal flat running and walking

 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... 

Since I used to run the Banjee Festival for the Banyo/Nudgee community I knows me festival options. And I knows that this has  got legs.

But first: I gotta notch up the ks...

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HIIT,HillFit, Hardware: the exercise 3 H's rule

I suspect that I have made a turning along the three meals-a-day yellow brick road of life.

A turning such that I have quickened my pace.

But I need to add, my turning isn't a shortcut nor  detour, nor a high or low road...

Henceforth, to celebrate,  I shall refer to myself as  'Dorothy' and wear  red shoes when in the company of Munchkins. 

 Becoming Dorothy

Auntie Em: Help us out today and find yourself a place where you won't get into any trouble!

Dorothy: A place where there isn't any trouble. Do you suppose there is such a place, Toto? There must be. It's not a place you can get to by a boat or a train. It's far, far away. Behind the moon, beyond the rain...

[begins to sing "Over the Rainbow"] 

HIIT

After years of deploying many exercise regimes, experimenting with a range of approaches, I have now settled upon a creative mix that seems to have more impact upon my person than of yore.

The key element is to defer to the principles of High Intensity Interval Training 

HIIT exercise strategy alternating periods of short intense anaerobic exercise with less-intense recovery periods. HIIT is an effective form of cardiovascular exercise. Usual HIIT sessions may vary from 9–20 minutes. These short, intense workouts provide improved athletic capacity and condition, improved glucose metabolism, and improved fat burning.

For me the baseline was/is the Tabata Method

20 seconds of ultra-intense exercise (at an intensity of about 170% of VO2max) followed by 10 seconds of rest, repeated continuously for 4 minutes (8 cycles)

That set off bells in my head. Gave me a comprehension of what I was missing (and missing out of in way of pain!).

I doubt that  my Tabata-ing reaches 170% of VO2max but it's the thought that counts.

HillFit

I guess the  h's rule!

HillFit is a little ebook put together of Chris Highcock.

It's a simple set of only four (that's right, only four) exercises packaged in a thoughtful essay on exercise.

HillFitting anchored me and more so than related literature gave me a comprehension of the why and the how. I mean my routine was no longer routine. It had meaning. 

HillFit also bought me back to the importance of technique: it is not about repetition or 'grunt'. Easy does it, slow as you go. 

It's Tai Chi without Mr Yin and Ms Yang. High Intensity Interval-ing for the sake of an exercise Zen.

HillFit and related inputs also changed my attitude toward frequency and duration.

This was a Wow! moment.

Instead of forcing myself to keep to an unrelenting routine of obligations I simply  'exercised' every second day. 

And these every-second-day sessions are no longer than 5-10 minutes.

Hardware

Another 'h': hardware. 

I've been a long term kettlebell user. And I love my kickbiking. I also box and own gloves and a heavy bag. In the present mix I make use of these resources. I've recovered an old cheap rusty set of dumbbells and put a sandbag in a torn old back pack. I got myself some cheap sandals I can run the tidal flats in...

So I put all this stuff to work.

1. Every Second Day: I keep to a every second day schedule of focused exercise. One day I do HillFit. Two days later I do Kettlebells. And two days after that I do a dumbbell session. We're talking 9-12 minutes each time...with Tabata finishers (either Tabata boxing or squats: all of 4 minutes). If I'm a bit challenged that day -- ie: ill -- I skip a day or only do Tabata boxing if only for the pump up 'high'.
2. Other times: Kickbike + Running.  Elsewhere in my week I take off on the kickbike as has been my long term norm and instead of simply going for a walk when I reach my destination, I run -- I run the tidal flats. Strictly speaking this isn't supposed to be exercise . It's supposed to be 'fun'. At least it will be once my running improves. I don't have a schedule for this, I simply do what I feel like doing, when I feel like doing it.
3. Spontaneity: Running Stairs. Since I live on flat terrain and can only yearn about the elevations in the far off distance, I've taken up the impulse to run up things -- usually stair cases -- when the opportunity presents itself. I'm working on a few stair running routes to tackle when I'm in the vicinity. But every train journey is going to offer me a chance to run stairs at most railway stations. I am also much taken with Jacobs Ladder here in Brisbane town. If I have an ambition -- a goal -- then 'running stairs' or sandhills or mountains is it. 

So far so good. My body is now ordering weight reduction  after plateauing for 12 months. I expect my bood sugar will also roll back a bit. I've done some dietary tweaking which I'll explore in a later post. I feel the best I've felt in a long time -- despite my ready penchant to be relapsing hither and yon. (Can't do much about that unfortunately esp in the current weather conditions: wet and humid). I also do urban soul line dancing but that is fun and more a mental challenge.

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Stair Climb from Anzac Square to the top of Jacobs Ladder: the only way is up.

One of the many banes of my life is the relentless fact that when I have tried to go somewhere I get so far and no further. It is the most frustrating thing that while I may still be able to drag one foot in front of the other while  ill, when I reach an incline -- like a steep hill or ramp -- I'm unable to climb the thing in front of me. Often I have no option but to return home:defeated. For years the 35 degree ramp that led to the local railway station sent me back home so often that its power and towering arrogance has dogged  me. Believe me: when you stand at the base of these slopes while in this condition -- slopes that only yesterday you paid no mind to -- they can present as tall and as daunting as Mount Everest. So  stair climbing/stair running has this inordinate attraction for me as a magnificent challenge. To be able to run up stairs when I am so often defeated by steep inclines is exciting for one such as I. Stair running is another affirmation (like running) of how far I've come and where I could remain if I wasn't burdened by Fibromyalgia.

View from atop Jacobs Ladder in the Olden Days. Arrows mark extent of the climb
(but not actual route)

I've been trying to get a contour profile on this 'event' as it is up hill all the way.

Starting in Anzac Square Brisbane you enter the tunnel that leads to the escalator for Central Railway Station. But you don't take the easy route. No way! You veer right and start running up the stairs.

These stairs will take you first to the Anne Street footpath and then by turning right again into the stairwell-- to the Central Railway Station Concourse. No stopping allowed.

Keep heading across the opening in front of you and scoot up a couple of stairs and cross Turbott Street to King Edward Park.

Now the fun really begins: clamber up Jacobs Ladder with all those snazzy red steps underneath your feet.

At the top look back way way down into the valley at the Adelaide Street /Anzac Square level where you came from.

Don't wait too long taking in the view -- either go around the IBM building in front of you via Upper Edward Street; or return down the steps you just climbed;or take the winding path among the sculptural pieces back down through King Edward Park...and race up Jacob's ladder again.. and again...and...

Stair Climb/Jacobs Ladder Brisbane CBD

0.1 miles / 0.1609344 km

Created 03.21.12 by ratbagradio

A hefty climb from Anzac Square up to the top of Jacobs Ladder

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Once upon a time runner...

Foreshore: Port Philip Bay
Sandringham

I took up running when I was 15 years of age. My school always held an annual cross country along the shoreline of Port Philip Bay and I took to that, loved it and kept on running.

We had an amateur athletics club and would compete variously at the local athletics track or tour to run at other venues.

I was sentenced to the 880 yards and one mile events.

Once I was forced to do the walk and hated it. I kept being disqualified.

Unfortunately while we may have had a team there was no organised training. That was supposedly something you worked out for yourself. The advantage with that was that I ran as an option.

Just ran.

Methinks I'm channeling Forrest Gump but my momma never said, "Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get." She said nothing like that ever....

I'd take off and run the foreshore of Port Philip Bay. I could run the sandy beaches where they existed or take to the path through the  tea tree scrub where that clung to the ridges. For variety I'd sprint up and down the steep paths that ran down to the beach.

Note:Click on images for enlarged view.

That was my version of sand hill running.

I ran these shores

Often I'd run with my dog.

I was enamored enough to get into running lore and read all of Percy Cerutty and Herb Elliot's  memoir, The Golden Mile. At the time it was during Australia's distance running ascendancy  with Ron Clarke setting the bar. My habits and studies formatted a certain Spartan idealism that kept me on two running legs for several years.

Arthurs Seat

But when I left school the running ceased and I wasn't to take it up again until 1978 -- 10 years later.

This was in the throws of the jogging boom and I ran for most of the next seven years. I'd run all over Melbourne, especially Royal Park skirting the zoo,  and later across the Mornington Peninsula -- up Arthur's Seat and to Cape Schanck and  back. I'd also run to and from my shifts at work or to football fields where I was serving as a team trainer, patching up the jocks when they got too macho and hurt themselves out on the field.

Arthurs Seat and Cape Schanck : Mornington Peninsula.
(Click on image to enlarge view)

I never competed. Never had a desire to.

During this time I was doing a lot of bush walking -- trekking -- and took up canoeing --  especially in the Victorian Alps.

Favorite mountain: Mt Howitt

My last burst of run run running was in early 1985 in Sydney where I'd take off every day in the Middle West suburbs and run to Balmain or into the CBD.

I then fell ill that year with Fibromyalgia and my world changed... It, as they say, took a turn for the worst. 

So there. The circle turns. And I never though it would: I'm back running: 27 years down the track. Twenty kilograms heavier. Crippled. Aged and grey haired. And running on sandals.

But I'm running the beaches, again.

I'm not so fit that I'm running 'for fun' ... not yet anyway. But after today's decent 5 kms I am confident that I can make a go of this, again. 


Wow. I am mightily impressed with the possibility. I never thought I'd be doing this especially when you consider that seven  years ago I was walking with a cane and I still spend a good too many days in bed.

Running, more than anything else, registers how far I have come, despite ... despite everything that is wrong with me.

I must be doing somethings right.

That I have taken up running on impulse without any thought to the engineering required is strange given my penchant to plan my , what we used to call, activities of daily living -- ADL. The clincher was a simple convergence: a $19.99 pair of plastic sandals (remainders) which enabled my feet on sand and in sea water. 

No blisters. No lacerations. No stubbed toes.

Only wet feet.

After two years of footwear experiments and forays into this and that , seeking a shoe I could comfortably walk the tidal flats in,  I finally get shod to suit.

Makes me want to embrace a new hobby: shoe fetishism.

There's a sweet irony in the fact that the next dance I'm  teaching 'my' Urban Soul Line Dance Class will be Cupid's Do it With Your Boots On. In typical Zydeco fashion you gotta run with risque, double meaning, lyrics. and 'do it' -- dance that is. Maybe run....

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After 25 years absence : back running

Running Track

Who woulda thought? 

Not I.

Having started back running -- after 25 years absence -- only last week or so  I ran 5 km today (albeit with a half way respite).

I was cumbersome and heavy footed. But the conditions were on my side. Tide out with a very wide highway to scoot around on . I chose my shallows on impulse and waded deep only when I had to. But under foot it was 'just right'. 

Wind against me -- and maybe I was a so strained that I could not enjoy the ambience as I would have if I was just walking.

Today: jogging. 

Memores kept rushing back of jogs so long ago...

I had scooted to the Conservation park  and stepped out north bound from there along the tidal flats. 

Me, the sea, a few birds -- a huge sky -- and two horses and their riders.

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Bipedal, two wheeling bi-athleticisim on and off the (kick)bike with beach running.

From the Captain's log:

Scooted to Park then ran the flats.On foot, getting better/lasting longer. Tide in a bit too much -- I was three hours before low tide -- so I had to plunge into the waters more often than not. The tide moves around the clock faster than I'd like.

So I'm combining running with my kickbiking. That's the neewiest news. Tide willing, it seems to work.

Hop on the bike. Scoot off tra la. Hop off. Jog up the 'beach'. Jog back. On the bike. Homeward bound.

By Googling my options...

10 km along the Tidal Flats

...word has it that on the foreshore with the tide out I have on hand 10 kilometres of 'trail'running.

"Your mission Dave, should you decide to accept it is to run those 10 ks."

But this is a trail with no markers whatsoever except a generic 'run with the sea to one side and the land to the other' until you reach the river (southbound) or the seagrass beds (northbound). Between land and sea at low tide you have maybe a 400 metre wide highway.

Warning!Warning!

• Watch out for shell middens as they'll cut you up;  
• Don't trip in an unseen stingray hole (samples left/above);
• Don't enter a seagrass bed  as you'll damage it. 
• Give sea birds a wide birth as you may disturb them.

Under foot the surface varies depending on how much water has  been absorbed by the sand. The lower the tide, the dryer the sand and the firmer the surface -- depending on your route. Stingray holes come in clusters after each tide-in feed and you can place your footfall within a hole easily enough just so you know you are doing it.

So concentrate on where you put your tootsies...

Mapping ahead it is all a business of incorporating as much mounded sand as you can manage and avoiding  as many  pools as you can as some can be 15 cm deep where there is a lot of water  draining from the shore.

This morning I ran north with two sea eagles at my shoulder and plunging through the shallows was like wading through claret as the wetlands, due to all the rain, are offering up rich burgundy tannin stains to their run off.  Out to sea the rain clouds were clasping the sand hills of Moreton Island 30 kms away.

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Running the flats

The footwear.

I pulled up rather stiff after my initial tide chasing beach run. Different muscles had been asked to go harder where they had not gone before. But today with my eye on the tide chart I sneeked in another run on the mud/sand flats.

I surprized myself. I had to take pain killers before I went out  which should not have been a good omen, right? Getting out of bed was hard enough.

My 'style' was terrible and it was much harder to put one foot in front of the other. But despite that I ran farther in my intervals than I had done previously. At this rate I should be able to reach the river mouth and get back without having to stop for breath....sooner rather than later.

The running cohort

That's the great thing about running: it is so easy to measure 'progress' as distance never lies.

En route back I ran the sandy beach rather than the tidal flats. Dry sand in classic gold. Narrow pathway (such as it is) among uprooted mangroves and Sheoaks. Between seagrass mounds. Zig Zagging between tree roots and stumps. Fording the stream that drains one end of the swamp lagoon.

I suspect I may be onto something -- something at once thrilling, ambient, at one with the bigness of it all, and challenging. 

I can henceforth talk about the sand at my feet as an ongoing metaphor. 

But then, I needed the tootsie hardware to enable me: my sandals -- my $19 (from Anaconda) sandals . Of which I bought another three pairs yesterday. My feets are covered. They can now get wet and sand encrusted without crippling the wearer. These sandals seem to have a slim flexible aluminium plate embedded in the sole which keeps the sharp shells at bay.

And the are light with toggle tighteners /no laces.

Maybe it's going to take a few months to get up to speed... and groove to it. On the tidal flats there are no paths; the terrain keeps changing with the level of the tide, impact of the currents and the shift of sand. Yesterday's wade may be deep water today. A few minutes here and there day to day can make a surface difference as the tide shifts There are no above ground markers to chart by -- no lamp posts or street corners.

For variation the undulations in the damp sand will change according to wave pattern...

Once I've mastered my stretch to the river mouth and back (2-3 km) I can begin to head north and go as far on the tidal flats as the seagrass beds at Godwin Beach. That's about a 15 + km round trip. I'd be doing the kickbike thing but on sand and on foot -- 'out to sea' as it were, rather than on land/on asphalt.

It also struck me that if I can sustain myself running like this I could get a local gathering together of folk keen to run the tidal flats on a weekly basis: the Tidal Flat Runners -- social meet up at low tide on Sundays.

And maybe an annual 'fun run'? Who else runs the flats?

In Pomona they run the mountain, we'd be flat earth.

 Thrilling, ambient, at one with the bigness of it all, and challenging. 

Complaint: I have one dog, the smaller of the two, who prefers the land to the sea and sneaks off at every opportunity if I don't remind him to stay with the pack. He prefers the sniffs and urinations on offer among grasses and bushes; and protests at being sentenced to the flat salty terrain of the sand flats and water crossings. He is a saboteur and is being dealt with  as humanely as possible. The other dog is a certified limpet and runs at my heels.

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Chasing the tide.

Where  I live, outdoor life is ruled by the tide and when the tide goes out -- as is its daily want -- it goes out a long way.

Only when the tide falls do we get our beach back.

This extra landscape is a wonderful resource. I walk the dogs upon it almost every day, but today was the first time I ran upon it.

I'm not into running as I'm a kickbiker by preference -- but of late the prospect of maybe getting into trail running has sparked my interest in setting the pace. 

I had thought that I'm still carrying too much weight to pound the pavement -- but running on sand -- wet sand -- is really something else altogether.

Coincidentally I got myself a new pair of sandals which -- wonders of wonders -- stay on my feet no matter how much suction there is from water and sand . So I can run with footwear upon my footsies. I could run barefoot but the shells here are brutally sharp and will gather in hollows in midden numbers.  Its' like negotiating razor blades. Even today I could feel their sharp edges through my sole.... such that running barefoot would be lacerating.

That and the stingrays in the shallows....!

So now with my new shoes I can leg it and the dogs have to keep up.

I ran in intervals for maybe 3 kilometres. Each burst of speed I ran until I fatigued. I'd then walk to recover and then would jog off again. 

Strangely no one else does it. Of all my time out and about here the only runners I see pound the pavement. Low tide running is not de rigueur. 

But then I'm a low tide aficionado -- the dogs and I. We chase the ebb tide around the clock. High tide means no beach and King Tide means the Pacific Ocean comes ashore. Low tide moves the shoreline boundary another half a kilometre eastward -- towards Latin America.

Kickbike running

Since low tidal sand flats are such a great surface to run upon it is easy to monitor your technique. 

I wrote earlier about kickbike walking. Since that meditation I've been considering the ways and means I deploy to move myself forward. And it is remarkable how much better I walk when in 'kickbike mode' than if I let myself default to bad habits. 

I'm straighter. My head and shoulders are several inches back. My eyes are cast upwards more.  My chin is horizontal. My footprints in the sand tell a tale of efficiency and ... grace. The weight of my tread doesn't fall on the heel.

And when I run I get the same properties working for me. It's as though I'm barefoot because the sands don't lie. 

Running on sand -- wet sand which is a firmer surface than dry --  with the sea to one side and mangroves to the other -- is my  version of running a trail. Of course there are no pathways. I navigate my route by choosing which shallow pools  I am going to run through and which exposed shoals I am going to mount.

For now I'm thinking: stingrays -- so I need to make sure that the water depth is too shallow  for them as the water here can be turbid -- and there is nothing so exciting as having a big Estuary Stingray a metre across rise  up in a whirl of sand and silt at your feet.

Always, always: let them know you're coming.

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