The Background
I injured my foot going down some steps at a Fourth of July party. It took 3 months to heal, and a missed a few races, including a 100 miler during the summer. I got started running again in early October. This was in time for me to run during a work trip to Phoenix, including hiking up Camelback Mountain.
Back in Tomball, I got up to running 5 miles continuously and did a couple of 11-mile run/hikes. I dieted to get my weight down to 167. I had a trip coming up in Mexico for my anniversary, and I wanted to be able to eat there!
The Race
I had to get up at 3:15am to make the 6am bus ride...this was a point-to-point race, so they drove us down the beach to a drop-off point. It was chilly at the start.
We'd run down the beach nearly the whole way. A headwind greeted us, which would continue the whole way. Sand streamed towards us. No sand in our faces, but the headwind was a battle.
I put on music early on, and got in a good mood running. The aid stations were 10k apart, and at the first, there was no Gatorade. I should have taken some food, but I didn't.
At 8.5 miles, I got tired of fighting the headwind and started hiking. Then my energy got a bit low from no calories as I made it to the 2nd aid station at 12 miles.
Heading out again, I chatted and ran a bit with a fellow in a yellow shirt who had finished a 100k at the Martin House Miler the previous weekend. As we separated, I focused on getting to the halfway point.
At 19 miles, we reached the seawall, and we would have a short section on the sidewalk before returning to the beach.
There was a fellow ahead of me in a blue shirt I kept trying to chase down hiking, but he stayed ahead of me.
Sand blowing down the beach.
At around 25 miles, I made it to Pleasure Pier and the final aid stations.
With 3 miles to go or so, I met up with fellow in the yellow shirt and a lady. He commented that I was a good walker, since I had been keeping up with his run/walk. I had been hiking 14- or 15-minute miles, though this slowed to 16-minute miles in the last few miles.
We reached the pavilion where the finish was with about 1.5 miles to go. I commented to the fellow in the yellow shirt that I hoped the course was short, but we had to do an out and back past the pavilion.
I saw the fellow in the blue shirt ahead of me, and there were a couple of folks behind us. Reaching the turnaround cones, I ran the last mile to pass a couple of folks, the fellow in the yellow shirt finishing right ahead of me.
I finished in 7:13, 69th out of 107 finishers.
Reflections
Thanks to God, my foot held out. There was very slight soreness at the very end, but nothing major, and the next day it was fine.
I kept up a 13:57 pace overall. The 14- and 15-minute miles with the headwind were encouraging for Dinosaur Valley.
I wasn't really in shape, but this race helped me get in shape.
Thanks to God, Terri, James, Paloma, all my family, friends, Trail Racing Over Texas, and the volunteers for the support!
