No, not a marathon….but I raced 26.2 miles this weekend!

A good weekend of running is a dangerous thing…it can prompt you to do really stupid things. In my case, the problem occurred nearly two months ago, when I ran 7 and 8 miles on consecutive days, and actually enjoyed it. That night, I registered for the Seabrook Lucky Trails Pelican Challenge: two half-marathons in two days on St. Patrick’s Day weekend.

(Last week I casually dropped a message to my brother Dave Mows Grass, mentioning my plan to run 26.2 this weekend…yesterday I learned he had been frantically Googling Houston-area marathons, thinking I had decided to sneak in and be the first in the immediate family to do a marathon—he’s running one in April.)

My running has been very inconsistent lately, and I knew I was unprepared. Two weeks ago, I set a 3+ minute PR at the Woodlands half-marathon, in perfect running conditions. I pushed myself further into the pain cave than ever before, and was very pleased with my race. Since then, I have run twice: a 4-miler in which I bonked and walked a bunch, and a 10-mile treadmill run. I had no aspirations of speed records this weekend, but planned to approach it as a fun run and a long training run, hopefully just right for my last scheduled half-marathon of the season, Angie’s Half-Crazy Half-Marathon on April Fool’s Day.

I decided to splurge on a motel room and make this a running/writing retreat weekend. Unfortunately, the running and its aftereffects took a toll on the dissertation writing. Oh well, it was worth it…what a fun set of races! Saturday had a half-marathon and a half-marathon relay, and Sunday had a marathon, a half, and a marathon relay. The race course was a 6.55-mile loop along Seabrook’s crushed granite trails, some next to roads, and some through parks and along bayous.

(Brother DMG disdains my usual road races and sidewalk running, saying he prefers to run “outdoors”. I thought “outdoors” meant the sun or rain was beating down, in other words, not under a roof—but Dave thinks differently. The Seabrook trails may qualify as “outdoors”, even under Dave’s definition.)

Marathoners ran 4 laps, half-ers ran 2 laps, and relay-ers ran one lap each. Most of the route had runners going both ways on narrow trails, so even the speedy folks were probably slower than usual. The usual zoned-out loneliness of a half-marathon’s middle miles was nowhere to be found at Seabrook. With multiple laps and multiple races, runners of all speeds were mixed together, coming and going, passing and being passed. The St. Patrick’s Day costumes and trivia questions on signs added to the fun.

I pushed it more than I expected the first day, and surprised myself by getting steadily faster as the race progressed. The day started hot and muggy, and the sun came out for the second loop—an occasional coastal breeze came through, but it wasn’t enough. My legs were fried and the rest of me was completely miserable by the time I finished. I think I held back a little bit, knowing I had to do it again the next day, but I felt nearly as awful as I had two weeks before, after running 8 minutes faster.   

On Saturday, as I found my pace steadily improving, I temporarily entertained an ambition of negative-splitting both races, and the whole weekend (by doing the second race faster than the first).  This lasted until Mile 2 of Sunday’s race, when my dead legs told me I would have to be satisfied with slow-jogging the whole way. I did manage this, just barely.

Sunday I finished nearly an hour behind the overall female winner, an 11-year-old girl, who had a time around 1:40. When I saw her on the course, she was speeding along and zipping around people—the narrow trails didn’t seem to slow her down much. I should have asked her to autograph my bib, in case she turns out to be an Olympic superstar someday.

The post-race party was the best: fresh-grilled hamburgers, hot dogs, with all the fixings; also soft drinks, tacos, burritos, ice cream, cookies, red beans and rice, green beer, and probably more stuff I didn’t notice. Start line, finish line, and party were in a big park, with plenty of open green space and a nice pavilion. There were zillions of smiling volunteers, all through the course and at the pre- and post-race festivities.

Pictures of races don’t always add much, but in this case I think they capture the atmosphere. I was disappointed in the pelican statue picture, because the nameplate “Robby” got cut off at the bottom. Robby Sabban, race director extraordinaire, was responsible for this weekend’s fun. If you are ever in the Galveston Bay area and have the opportunity to do a Robby Sabban race, you should—you can count on it being an extremely well-organized and runner-friendly event.

Saturday HM: 2:25:23.4 (11:05 pace) (chip time)

Sunday HM: approximately 2:34 per Garmin (official results not up yet)

The Pelican Challenge medal (bonus for doing both HM’s) has this stamped on the back: “Two halves take FULL effort”.