On Saturday February 13, Stephen and I ran the Surfside Beach Half Marathon together. Although we have run a few full and half marathons together and apart, this was our first long race together in over 6 years, and we had a lot of fun doing it! The weather started out very cold, but it warmed up a tad as we got under way, and it ended up being good weather for a run. The Surfside Beach Marathon and Half Marathon are apparently the only marathons run entirely on sand. The course is right on the beach, and it is a fun experience running to the sound of cresting waves. The sand is packed down tight, so it isn't hard to get traction. But running on sand, even packed down sand, tends to slow your pace a bit.We bumped into some old Pearland friends during and after the race and had fun catching up with them. We cheered the elite runners on, as well as those who were struggling to finish. The course has two turnaround points, so you pass by most of the other runners in opposite directions at some point in the race.
Funny story. When we were about 3 miles from the finish line, we came upon a young guy (young 20's) who looked like he was an elite runner who had already finished the race and was doing a cool-down walk in the opposite direction of where we were running. We weren't really sure how far we were from the finish line at the time, so Stephen yelled out to the guy as we were passing by, "How did you do?" If you have ever run a long race, you know that it is common for the runners to shout encouragement and congratulations to each other during the race. Runners are a very collegial group for the most part. This time, for reasons that will become obvious, the other runner got a puzzled and kind of annoyed look on his face as he replied to Stephen, "I'm still working on it!" Doh!
In the moment, we didn't realize how far away the finish line was, and we thought certainly that this runner couldn't be hanging with the stragglers in the back of the pack, so Stephen's question seemed appropriate. After we thought about it for a while, we cracked up at the preposterous nature of the question. Who runs 13.1 miles swiftly and then does a cool down walk for 3-5 more miles?!? That poor guy probably thought we were mocking him, which couldn't have been further from the truth. We just lost our bearings for a moment and made a book-cover judgment of a situation. After the guy's retort, we couldn't think of what to say next. Later during and after the race, we just had to laugh at the gaffe!
Call us crazy, but we are thinking about doing another half marathon next month!!
