Oh Hi There, Promenade
Just before Sunrise, it begins.
A glimpse of pink, purple hues flash reflecting off the side mirror of a biker as they say, “Passing on the left” - the breeze off the wheel momentarily distracting me from the ache from between my ribs.
2.5 miles in, and in the 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. The kind of breathing that’s not just physically, but emotionally filled. My stride was methodical, gazelle-like—at least that’s what I imagined when I allowed myself to dream from the inside out.
In contrast, my arms and elbows never quite found the right angle. They sawed the air too wide, bent too sharply, cutting against whatever aerodynamics I thought I had. 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 themselves just a little further might open something up. A portal to possibility, maybe. Or just the satisfaction of finishing.
At that age, I didn’t yet know the difference between strength and control. I chased both. And when I crossed the finish line, there wasn’t a medal waiting. 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 because of scheduling. Or because I was focused on 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.
And this morning, just past the pier, I passed someone running the same 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. A kind of proof. Not of success, but 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. Like the place had folded in around me, not because I never left—but because I chose to come back. And my choice feels like my reward.
Growth doesn’t always erupt. Sometimes, it’s trucked in slowly. Sand by sand. Decision by decision.
The new dunes along the promenade opposite the fair grounds didn’t just appear. They were sculpted—deliberately, over time. Sand imported from elsewhere, not to replace what was lost, but to shore it up. To make space for more people, more play, more surf, more memories in the future to look back on.
And maybe that’s what this part of life feels like.
Growth, now, is less about the urgency to arrive and more about the tenderness of returning. It’s choosing to build soft places on top of hard-won lessons. Choosing a steadier rhythm. Less sprint, more glide.
There are wooden slated pallets packed together to chart new paths—no longer requiring individuals to wander through the brush, but instead inviting everyone to find their way to the shoreline and rolling waves.
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. And in that layered choreography—of strangers overlapping without colliding—I see it:
Growth isn’t always taller or louder. Sometimes it’s just more room. More sand. More driftwood gathered into makeshift seating. More chances to linger. More ways to stay.
The Next Lap
One day, I imagine we’ll be here again.
Me with a coffee in hand, maybe something stronger tucked in a thermos. My partner beside me, dog curled at our feet, sun slipping upward in the sky like a second chance.
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, arms stretching wide before the plunge.
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 just as much as the ones we do.
Then I’ll watch as he steps forward.
Maybe not today. Maybe not even this summer.
But one day—because this place, the Ventura Promenade, holds room for both the bold and the becoming.
And when he swims around that pier,
we’ll be here—waiting with towels, with cheers,
with the kind of pride that doesn’t need to shout.
Because that’s the gift of coming back.
You don’t just return to a place.
You become a part of what’s possible there.
If you’ve ever needed a place to start again—
Or simply to breathe—
Venture to Ventura,
Nate Bonsignore
