A spontaneous Monday vacation run on Seaside’s beach, dodging a forecasted storm, mixing sand and streets, and pausing Ready Player Two to enjoy the sound of the ocean.

This run was never in the original plan. Because we were on a road trip up the coast to Seattle, I wasn’t aiming for any specific route – just seeing where each day would take us. When we decided to spend the night in Seaside, Oregon, Paula and I thought it would be special to run on that famous stretch of Oregon coastline, with the sea stacks that always remind people of Haystack Rock and the nearby Needles further south in Cannon Beach. The northern Oregon coast has wide, runnable beaches and often moody weather, which makes it a great place for this kind of “vacation experiment” run.

The original idea was to rent a fat‑tire bike so Paula could ride alongside me on the sand. However, when we arrived at the bike shop late Sunday afternoon, the owner warned us that a strong storm was forecast for Monday morning, that the shop would be closed, and that biking on the beach in those conditions would be a bad idea. With no bike and a wet forecast, the plan shifted to a solo run, starting right from the hotel and heading to the beach on foot. The Seaside section of the coast offers about two miles of broad beach plus a small town grid, which makes it easy to mix sand and street without worrying too much about traffic.

I started the run listening to Ready Player Two, the sci‑fi sequel by Ernest Cline that continues Wade Watts’ adventures in the OASIS with a new high‑stakes virtual quest. The narration kept me company under the gray sky for a while, but eventually the sound of the Pacific took over: the steady crash of waves on the wide Oregon beach can be incredibly calming, and I decided to pause the audiobook and run just with that natural soundtrack. Studies have found that listening to ocean waves and other water sounds can reduce stress and create a strong sense of calm, which matched exactly how that stretch of the run felt.

The sand was mostly firm closer to the waterline, which is typical for the Oregon coast and makes beach running much more comfortable, but near the north end of the beach the sand turned noticeably softer and more challenging. That mix of harder wet sand, softer sections, and some paved streets created a varied, almost playful route – a nice change from my usual Bay Area trails. Running alone by the ocean, knowing this outing had almost been canceled by the forecast, made the whole experience feel like a small win snatched from the storm that never really arrived.