I was already signed up for the Seabrook trail challenge in March. In January, I signed up for the Baytown half marathon. But, well, that is only a half. So after perusing all the marathon calendars, I decided on the Galveston Marathon. There were two marathons in town this weekend, but Galveston had packet pickup at a nearby location and also, it is a very easy drive from my house.
On a whim, I signed up for the Miracle Match Marathon which was last weekend in Waco. So today's Galveston marathon was my second in a week. I haven't done that for nearly 2 years.
I took it easy this week with only about 1 hour of work out per day and only two 3 mile runs. I felt good going into Galveston. I slept good and got up easily when the alarm went off. The main question was the rain forecast. I wasn't sure how I would handle that. But decided to wear my heat gear shirt because it is tight and wouldn't be all saggy if it got wet. Turns out we had a mostly sunny and very warm day, so the heat gear shirt was perfect: spf 30. Dang shirt feels cool when you wear it.
Drive was very easy and I easily parked in a nearby garage. The garage was across the street from the cruise terminal. They were backing a Carnival boat in while I waited.
The race started at 7:30. It first goes down 25th street. I vaguely remember this street from 20 years ago when I did an environmental assessment in Galveston. Many of the houses are old Victorian style and decorated for Mardi Gras. When we got to Galveston Bay, we headed right along the Seawall and eventually came back up the seawall. Lots of restaurants and amusement type activities. For some reason, this caused me to spend most of the run thinking about my choices in life. Choices to not participate in what I think are energy dissipating activities of America: over eating, meat eating, idle amusements, etc.
I thought alot abut my boss who just went on a cruise. How different we are. While he was eating drinking and generally ruining his health, I was running marathons.
I finished the first half in 2:40 and proceeded to do another lap. Now it was hot and my legs were tired. I was near the back of the pack, so it was a very solitary struggle. I started thinking about real estate signs advertising a "simple island lifestyle." Like this was margaritaville or something. No one has a simple lifestyle whose house costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. I recognized however how we all wish for that escape.
I observed the huge mass of UTMB medical complex. Hospitals are our new places of worship.
Slowly but surely, I made it. 5h36min by my Garmin. I got a very very nice medal:
When I got back to my car, I noticed that they were loading up the cruise ship. People were lined up. I thought they looked like cows headed for slaughter.
I'd rather be a marathoner.
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