Oh Hi There, Promenade
Just before sunrise, it begins.
A glimpse of pink and purple flashing off the side mirror of a biker as they say, “Passing on the left” — the breeze off the wheel distracting me, for a second, from the ache between my ribs.
2.5 miles in. Home stretch.
This isn’t the moment to slow down. It’s the moment to pour out what’s left — mind, muscle, memory, all of it.
This was my 5K. This was my proving ground. This was Ventura.
I was 15, long-limbed and still learning how to breathe like a runner. My stride was methodical, gazelle-like — at least that’s what I imagined when I let myself dream from the inside out. My arms never found the angle. They sawed the air too wide, bent too sharply. My posture collapsed as my core gave out, hips sagging with every mile. It wasn’t pretty. But it was earnest.
The Ventura Promenade 5K meant threading yourself through salt-slicked air and a path shared by walkers, rollerbladers, tourists with oversized cameras, and runners like me — kids hoping that pushing a little further might open something up. When I crossed the finish line, there wasn’t a medal. There was a folding table with water, a volunteer clapping, and the feeling that, for a moment, my body had kept its promise.
But there were other promises I couldn’t bring myself to make.
I didn’t swim around the pier that year. I told people it was scheduling. Or cross-country. But the truth was simpler: I was scared. Scared of the cold, scared of the current, scared of being seen shirtless next to bodies I didn’t want to compare myself to.
Now I’m 34.
This morning, just past the pier, I passed someone running the route I once did — long-limbed, elbows flailing, breath jagged but determined. Fifteen, maybe sixteen. A version of me I’ve carried like a memory, but there they were, alive and striding. I wanted to tell them something. I didn’t. I just said, “On your left,” and kept going.
The air was the same — salty, cool, just sweet enough to invite you in before the sun fully rises. But everything else had shifted. I wasn’t on foot anymore. I was clipped into a Trek road bike, humming beneath me like a secret. A gift to myself. Not proof of success — proof of return.
I’d moved away. Built things. Left things behind. Tried to outrun things. But this morning, with my partner beside me and the ocean to our right, it felt like I was riding not toward something, but with something. Not because I never left — because I chose to come back.
The new dunes along the promenade, across from the fairgrounds, didn’t just appear. They trucked in the sand a load at a time. Not to replace the beach — to make more of it. More room to linger. That tracked.
I ride with my partner beside me, wind on our backs, past families dragging wagons, teens pretending not to look at each other, elders tucked in canvas chairs with dogs at their feet. Strangers overlapping without colliding.
The Next Lap
One day, I imagine we’ll be here again.
Me with a coffee, maybe something stronger in a thermos. My partner beside me, dog curled at our feet. And him — our son — kicking off his sneakers by the edge of the dunes. The sand still cool, the water just beginning to glimmer. Maybe he’s pacing, psyching himself up. Maybe he’s already knee-deep.
He’ll look to the pier.
He’ll ask if I ever swam it.
And this time, I’ll tell the whole truth. That I was scared. That I waited. That sometimes the things we don’t do teach us as much as the ones we do.
Then I’ll watch him step forward. Maybe not today. Maybe not even this summer. But one day he’ll swim around that pier — and we’ll be right there, with towels and cheers and a coffee going cold in my hand.
Venture to Ventura,
Nate Bonsignore
