Seabrook Marathon

I had a huge long post and it was lost when the stupid internet went out.  Grrr.  Anyway, I ran the Seabrook Marathon last weekend.  I started out with the walkers at 5:30am.  Yes, 5:30am.  My Dad was nice enough to get up at 3:20am to drive me down to Seabrook so that I didn't have to venture onto the Gulf Freeway the early morning after St. Patrick's Day on my own.  Thanks Dad!  I started with the walkers at 5:30 because I could barely walk on my right foot Monday and Tuesday.  I was nervous that I was going to have to walk a good portion of the race.  I walked the first loop (6.5 miles) with the walker gang and then took off.  I ran the 2nd loop pretty fast (for me) and the 3rd loop was slightly above average pace for me.  So I had a delima with the 4th and final loop.  Do I run it and finish in under 5 hours or do I slow way down and walk some to push my time closer to the 5:30 range?  Since the race director made it clear that the 5:30am start was for walkers and those finishing >6 hours, I decided to walk.  Since I walked the 1st loop anyway I figured that I might as well.  I think I finished at 5 hours 20 minutes, but I'm not sure since my stats aren't on the website.  I've emailed the race director, but Brian says I'm blackballed from racing since I 'abused' the early start.  I would like to state that I made sure I wasn't the fist early starter to finish.  There was a woman in front of my that I stayed with almost the entire race and then when I decided to walk the 2 miles on the last loop let her go ahead.  I'm sure she finished at least 10 minutes ahead of me.

I was very aware that had I ran the 1st loop I would have blown my PR out of the water.  That was very surprising.  I was really not expecting to feel as good as I did this race.  It was a really nice course and I got to see the Bay at sunrise.  I stopped to chat with volunteers and tried to encourage as many runners/walkers as I could.  It was fun seeing everyone 8 times (literally) since it was an out and back loop course.  The only down side was the humidity.  I'm not used to running in Houston's humidity and my sweat just would not evaporate.  I was dripping the entire time.

After the marathon we headed to the Kemah boardwalk for lunch.  I was starving.  Logan and Isabel were on their best behavior.  I very very rare occurrence. I was especially proud of Logan.