Beach to Bay Relay Marathon

I've been wanting to try a relay race for more than a year. So before dawn, I found myself standing on the sand with a baton in my hand.

Today I covered the first leg of the Beach to Bay Relay Marathon in Corpus Christi, an annual event that celebrates Armed Forces Day. Leg number one of the relay is an out-and-back completely on the beach of Padre Island.

It was a memorable run. Remember the opening scene of Chariots of Fire? (cue dreamlike movie soundtrack here) Well, imagine that, except it wasn't a dozen Briton dudes, it was an overwhelmingly Texan crowd of a couple thousand men, women, children all surging in a long pack southward on the beach after the horn sounded. After a couple of miles, we reached a turnaround point marked by a couple of ribbon-wrapped barrels next to a pickup truck and then doubled back to the north.

Since impact cushioning wasn't a real concern, I decided to recall an old pair of Saucony Trigon 5 Guide from retirement and use those and not my current Brooks Adrenalines. Honestly, it as if my feet had returned home to shoes they should have never left. Perhaps I ought to check out Saucony again to see if they've returned that feel to anything in their current lineup. Anyway, while it was nice for my feet to not feel pounded, they definitely had less traction versus the road. I had shortened my stride and was depending on swing-forward motion to propel me rather than push-off. The extra effort demanded by the surface quickly sapped my energy, and it's reflected in my splits:

Mile 1: 9:49
Mile 2: 10:20
Mile 3: 10:53
Mile 4: 11:25
4.19-mile elapsed time per Garmin Forerunner 205, including handoff: 45:12

Along the way I passed and was passed by so many. There were the gazelle-like guys who looked like they probably ran for their collegiate or high school track teams. There was the Danish lady running barefoot. There was the entirely-too-enthusiastic brunette who recognized my "Houston 26.2" finisher shirt and tried to encourage me to sign up for another full marathon. There was the old guy who lumbered forth in an unsophisticated shuffle -- and yet he was moving faster than me.

As I approached the end of my leg, I passed a volunteer who was rapidly muttering our bib numbers into a two-way radio. I entered the handoff chute and frantically looked around for RW forumite "ta_tx," who was going to be running leg number two. It was pandemonium in that chute, with finishing runners looking left and right at the throngs on either side, holding batons aloft and yelling names and numbers, hoping to make a connection. Meanwhile the public address announcers took turns with the rapid-fire delivery of our numbers in a near-hopeless effort to keep up with our arrivals. It was like the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, except more spandex was visible. After a nervous minute or two passed, ta_tx got my attention from outside the chute. I relinquished the baton to her and watched as she took off to advance it another four miles or so towards the mainland.

I did have a great time chatting pre-race at dinner and post-race at lunch with the all-Runner's-World-forumite team, dubbed "Paulette's Penguins." Paulette -- aka "kayano" on the forums -- is currently on a journey towards wellness. Having teammates that depended on me gave extra impetus to do my best and be prepared. That preparation included setting three -- yes, three -- separate alarms to make sure I was not late for the shuttle buses as I was in San Antonio last fall.

I had a lot of fun with this event and I'd recommend the relay experience to anyone who runs. Paulette, it was an honor to run under your name. During our race you became four hours and forty-five minutes closer to kicking that MFer cancer to the curb.