My First Official 10K Race

I didn't post about this, but I did the 40 minute YogaWorks Beginners video on Friday morning. It felt great to do the stretching at a slower pace and it was not as difficult as the other yoga videos I have done. It was just right and I will do this one again. I did this on the On Demand Free Workout Thing.

On Saturday evening, we headed to Galveston for the First Annual Galveston Sand Crabs 5K and 10K Run. This race was 6 miles on the sands of Porretto Beach at 9 p.m. Yes, that's right, I said 9 p.m. I had to go buy a headlamp, which is cool to wear at first, but not cool when you have been sweating like a pig racing on a hot August night. We got there really early to get our packets, but also so that Amy could actually register for the event. She wasn't going to do the race with us, but she changed her mind on Friday evening (yay for us).

At about 8 o'clock, we got in the long line to get our 10K packets (the 5K was much longer). I started to get super exciting seeing the big finish line thingy like what I have seen on the Biggest Loser or at other race events. After we got our numbers (yay, 1460, my first race number), we stood around waiting, did some stretching, walked around, and just people watched. It was fun, but at 9:07, they still hadn't started the race. The lines for registration were still long.

The line at 8 p.m. Imagine what it was like later on.

Jodi and I waiting for the race to start.

Jodi looking poised for her trophy win...I'm not sure, we were bored.

I'm supposed to be looking confused. Did I get it?

Jodi, Amy, and I waiting for the race to start. Notice how we already have our shirts off...that's how freaking hot it was and we haven't even started the race. I bet you can only imagine how worst it got when we started to run.

Finally, the organizer guy told us that the race would be starting in 10 minutes and then about a couple of minutes before start, he told us what was going to happen when the siren does go off, but I was still confused. There was something about the faster racers somewhere and the 10K people starting. People were starting to pack it in. Sometime between 9:45 p.m. and 10 p.m., the siren blasted out to signal that the race has started. Luckily , we were standing by the entrance and could just easily filter in with the people. Amy didn't have a headlamp, but we just put her in the middle of us. Between Jodi and I, she had enough light to see the ground. And boy did she need to see the ground. There were holes everwhere. It was nice, because everyone would yell out "HOLE", "BIG WOOD IMPALING STICK", "SEAWEED", "BIG TARP HOLDER THINGY." It wasn't as dark as I thought it was going to be, but it was still dark enough.

The race was hot and not hot as in it was super fine like Claudia Schiffer. It was just flat out hot and humid like this whole month has been (core of the earth hot). I figured that a run at night on the beach would cool it down, but I was wrong...so very wrong. In fact, when we went passed the 5K turnaround point, it got even hotter. I am not sure how that happened, but it did. Also, running in sand is alot harder than running on asphalt. Within a mile, I was tired due to a couple of factors: 1.) The Heat, 2.) Lack of running the last 2 weeks, and 3.) Injury on my upper thigh. At the mile marker and first drink station, my thigh was hurting. We had just ran through deep sand, which I'm guessing infuriated it. I decided that I would make it to the 3 mile marker (the 10K turnaround point) before taking a rest. However, when I got to the 2 mile marker, it was getting harder and harder to keep up the pace. Finally, Amy said that she just couldn't run anymore and we stopped to walk. THANK GOD. Walking on sand with tennis shoes is not what it's cracked up to be since big clumps of sand would get kicked up into my shoes. On a side note, Jodi bought those new toe shoes just for this event. She seemed to love them for sand running. If I do this event again or maybe any sand running, I might consider getting them. They looked really comfortable. Plus, they looked easy to clean since they are made out of wetsuit material; I still have to clean all the sand off of my tennis shoes.

Anyhoo, back to the race. There were people cheering us on throughout the run (mostly locals confused by this mass herd of stupid people running in the sand at night). On our way, we saw a dead crab, a sand crab (drawn out in the sand), trash, people smoking weed, and some weird dude burying himself. The sky was beautiful. It was totally clear and you could really see the stars out. Plus, we had a crescent moon lighting up this mystical (yes, I used that word) sky. Someone had mentioned that it would have been cool to get an aerial shot of all of us running at night with our headlamps. I think I might put that in the suggestion box for next year.

We finally made it to the turnaround point and I swear that thing was never going to show up. We picked up the run, but my thigh was inflamed by now. As we treached along, I got slower and slower, even when I was walking. And we did some walking. I tried to run as much as I could, but it was hard. There were times when the girls would stop to wait on me to catch up even when I was walking. Jodi would get scared when she couldn't see my light anymore. We hit up both of the drink stations on the way back to the finish line. In our opinion, Gatorade is not that great when running; the water was better. It just seemed like the Gatorade was too much fruitiness or something.

Amy and I on the final stretch.

We decided to run at the last marker (signifying that we had 1 mile to go) until the finish line. I tried, but I had to do a quick stop to walk off my thigh. At first, Jodi thought we were going to walk until we got to the very end and then we would run. However, I had no intentions of showing that we weren't running at all. About a half of mile (maybe a quarter of a mile) left, we picked up the run all the way to finish line. People were cheering us on. Jodi wanted us to sprint, but I had nothing left. So, she took off in a sprint, which was good for her since Amy and I pretty much held her back during this run. We saw Amy's family at the finish line taking pictures and she stopped to hug them; I continued on. Jodi got 1:28:27.5, I got 1:28:41.9 (the tag says 1:26:22.5 and I'm not sure what the difference is), and Amy got 1:28:50.7 (she wanted Zany and Aiden to finish with her, which I thought was so cute). Race results can be found here. The top female got it done in 47 minutes. Who cares, we high-fived eachother for a job well done.

The girls at the end of the race looking like death has rolled us over three times.

Afterwards, they had BBQ ready to go, but I just didn't feel like eating. I more wanted the beer. Jodi and I stood in that long line for beer, while weathering out the huge fire they started (very smokey and gassy). But once we got close to the front of the line, they told us that the beer was done. They were waiting for ice or something, but it never came back. We were a little disappointed about that, but Jodi and I headed to a bar for a couple of beers and it was great. We looked like complete dorks with our shirts and numbers still attached to our shorts. So what if we didn't want to take them off...dammit, this was my first race number and I want to wear it with pride. Thank God, Jodi was feeling the same way.

Unfortunately, we drove back and didn't get to Houston until probably 3 a.m. Next time, I will probably just stay the night down there.