796.42092: Toughest 10K Galveston Race Recap

This race report requires a little bit of history. When I was a kid, my parents took me to Galveston every year. We went enough where we had favorite restaurants, favorite attractions, favorite beaches. This was a once a year thing, and we didn't live near the beach, so Galveston was an exciting, magical place for me. I looked forward to those trips so much. As I got older, I added new layers of loving to Galveston. Mardi Gras with my best friends in college. P popped the question on the Seawall near 80th street. And Z just had her 2nd birthday down there. Galveston will *always* be a really special place for me.

If you've never been to Galveston before, it is an island connected to the mainland by a huge freaking causeway bridge. Big ass bridge. When I was a kid, I always asked my parents to wake me up for the bridge. I don't know why, but I always loved going over that monster, getting my first glimpse of the ocean. As I got older I'd roll down the windows on my Mustang and crank the music and just feel and smell the island.

All of this to get you into my headspace: I really love Galveston, and the causeway bridge holds a special symbolism in my mind and heart.

So when I read that there was a race that went over the causeway, I was in.

We had to get up at the butt-crack of dawn to get down there, unfortunately: it is a 90 minute drive. So got up, got ready, and hit the road. Set up the Z in the back with Honey Nut Cheerios, which we've decided she eats like a dog - she'll eat them until they are GONE despite any consequences to herself. We actually made great time due to light traffic and arrived near the race site at 6:15 to a clusterflock of traffic. After waiting about 15 minutes to turn onto the road that led to the parking lot, and we saw people beginning to park along the roadside, so we pulled a quick u-turn and pulled over. This was a good decision. It was only maybe a quarter mile to the start line and we stayed out of the worst of the traffic.

When we got down to the site it was weird - the race was running out of a parking lot and the lights weren't on. It was still practically pitch-black with the occasional flashlight or phone lighting a small area. I grabbed my packet and made my deposit in the porta-can (holding my phone in my teeth with my flashlight app on) and we returned the packet to the car. Then it was just about time to start. I downed a Honey Stinger gel and lined up.

The start was also kind of a clusterflock. It was 1 lane of a pretty slender road and there wasn't enough room, so the line actually curved around back into the parking lot. But it worked. The gun went off and it was about a mile to the bridge. Then we were on it, and wow, how amazingly cool. I was running with a permanent focus towards the water where I definitely saw fish, may have seen a dolphin, and also saw boats. It was just... lovely.

Remember "Spidey" from the Toughest 10K Kemah? Saw him, too.

And long, omg, that is a long freaking bridge. Just under 2 miles, I think.

Original plan was 9/1's, but for some reason at the last minute, I switched to walking only water stops, and I did! Which is more impressive, I think, because there were only 4 and none on the bridge. Oh, and as for the bridge, they only had 1 lane and the shoulder blocked off, so it was tight. The leader passed me before I even got to the top on his way down, less than 20 minutes into the race. What must that be like??

I was struggling on the second pass over, but I didn't walk. I was also floored by how low the barrier to the water was. For some reason I didn't notice it on the first pass, but after I noticed it I was so freaked out that I was running as far from the edge as possible. I'm not normally scared of stuff like that, so it was... weird.

On the downside I got passed by an awesome mama pushing a double BOB, and then it was only a mile-ish to the finish!

Awesome beast mama with double BOB. Passing me.

1:03:46. Not bad at all! Several minutes faster than the Toughest 10K Kemah only a few weeks ago!

And they had a most excellent post-race party. Oreos, pretzles, banana, flavored ice, cookies, pizza, beer.... it was stellar. And they were really smart about it, too: they had the oreos and pretzles in cups, which made it really easy to grab and get out of the way. I was very impressed!