As I mentioned in a previous post, my gym for the summer is the beach.  Today I went down to the beach to do some sprinting (which for me means running as hard as I can but getting no where fast) in the soft sand.  I enjoy running in the sand because I can run hard without the compressive forces of running on pavement and I can go full-out on my sprints with the reduced chance of injury.  The reasoning is this: take a car that is traveling 30 MPH on a flat surface, now add an incline (resistance) but do not change the acceleration speed.  What happens is the car, as hard is the engine is pushing 30 MPH slows down due to the incline – this is what happens when running on a surface like sand – especially the soft, fluffy stuff.

Anyway, to make my running a bit safer, I purchased some Vibram 5 Fingers a couple of weeks ago from Eastern Mountain Sports in Eatontown (if you’re local, check out Martin – great guy and very helpful).  Yes, I know they are “weird”, but I almost cut my foot on a shell a month back and who needs that so I wear them to train in when I’m on the sand. 

So, my workout was as follows:  A light jog fora warm-up and then a series of Fartlek (a Swedish term for “speed play”) type sprinting session.  I did about 8-10 sprints and then enjoyed the majestic view of sea and sand for about 10 minutes.  Reality kicked back in and it was off to work to train clients. – Fred Fornicola