30 - Surfside Beach, Texas

Thunder, lightening, pouring rain, and 26.2 miles on the beach — all made for an unique marathon in Texas.  This was a small marathon with less than three hundred runners, and Surfside Beach is a cool, little beach community.

I flew into Houston, rented a car, and drove south to Galveston. I then continued driving another 20 miles west along the Gulf Coast to Surfside Beach.

Back in December I booked a room at Cedar Sands Motel for $50 per night, but when I arrived to check in the price for my room had doubled!  I cancelled the reservation and figured that I would be sleeping in my rental car since this was the day before the marathon.  Fortunately, the Surfside Motel was just around the corner  and they had a room available for $60 per night.  By this time I was getting hungry, so I stopped for lunch at Kitty's Purple Cow

and had a delicious burger.  After lunch, I drove over to the start / finish area at Stahlam Park to pick up my race number and T-Shirt.  

Stahlam Park Pavilion

The T-shirt was very cool!  It looks more like a surfing shirt than a running shirt and even has a hidden little zipper pocket.  Also, for first time Surfside Beach Marathon runners were given a gym bag with the Surfside Beach Marathon logo on it.  Yes, I know no one needs another bag, but it was the thought that counted.

While I was driving around Surfside, I saw a beach / surfing shop called Bingo Boards and decided to check it out.  Little did I know that it was also a surfing museum.  The owner, Bing Cosby, is a 60's guy who had competed around the world in his younger days. He still is a big surfer and the surfboards in his shop were amazing.

For dinner, I stopped at the Red Snapper Inn and had Shrimp Jambalaya and called it an early night.

The next morning I woke to a cloudy sky.  When the marathon started it wasn't raining, but within 10 minutes the heavens opened — pouring rain, thunder, and lightening.  At the starting line, I started talking to Sarah

Sarah

and ended up running with her for the entire marathon.  Sarah was using this marathon as a training run. She is doing the Ironman Texas on May 19, 2012.

Ready, set, go!

Sarah and I kept waiting for us to be pulled off the course since the rain, thunder, and lightening didn't let up, but we never were.  By mile 15, our sneakers were completely soaked and filled with sand. Sarah and I decided to take off our shoes and carry them for the rest of the marathon.  It was much more comfortable running barefoot in the sand.

Sarah was trying to beat her time from last year and she was able to better her time by about 5 minutes. She came in first in her age group, and I came in second in my age group.

After I got back to my motel, I took a long hot shower to warm up!  Then I drove to Galveston to check out the Mardi Gras festivities.  Unfortunately, the "festivities" didn't start until later in the evening and I couldn't find a hotel room there, so I headed back to Houstan and got a room near the airport.

This was a first for me, running in the thunder and lightening.  Not sure how safe it was, but I'm here to write about it.  What I love about doing these marathon in different states, is the interesting people I get to meet.  Sarah is an amazing person, and I loved running with her and hearing about her life.