Toughest 10K Galveston

I think it was the hubby's idea to do this series of races, and when my alarm clock went off at 4:14 am, I questioned my judgement in agreeing to this!  The race is over a hour away (something like 1 1/2 hours), so that meant we had to leave pretty early to be at the race site and parked by 6:30 am.  I told the Hubs that we were only allowed to do local races from now on!  :-)

 

The race shirt and bib - two thumbs up for both!

We actually arrived and parked by a little after 6 am, so the drive was a little shorter than we expected.  When we left our neck of the woods, the temp was 51 degrees and I had on my arm warmers.  When we arrived in Galveston, the temp was 68...this is due to us being so close to the coast.  Needless to say, the arm warmers were not needed!  The hubs was actually scheduled to run 12 miles on Saturday, so he decided to do a little warm up run before the race.  The traffic and parking was getting pretty congested, because my friend M was stuck in traffic, and had texted me to let me know she was in traffic waiting to park.  Luckily, she made it to the start with plenty of time to visit the porta potties and get all lined up for the race.

 



Me and the Hubs before the race

We placed ourselves near the back and waited for the start.  The race was about 1 mile of flat roads before we hit the bridge, also known as the "Causeway".  I am not sure why it's called the Causeway, but it's a pretty damn big bridge!  It's not as steep as the bridge at the Kemah 10K, something like a 3.5 grade, but it is much longer.  We ran 5/1 intervals all the way up and over.  The views were amazing!  I think we were only 1/2 way up when we saw the leaders already heading back...sigh, to be that fast.... 

A view from the Causeway - gorgeous!

Once we made it over the bridge, there was a short out and back section before we had to head over the bridge again.  We took some water and Gatorade and kept chugging along.  We took an extra walk break every now and then, which gave us plenty of time to chat and catch up...much like the last 10k, this race was meant to be part of M's comeback to running and an opportunity for us to hang out again.

Me and M with our bling!!!

 Finally, we were off the bridge and had one more mile to the finish! We did it - we conquered race 2 of 3 in the bridge series!  And, we actually finished this race 3 minutes faster than the last 10K, so that was good.  And, we received another awesome medal!! 

Pizza from the world famous Mario's...well okay, it might only be famous in Galveston, but it's awesome!

The post race party was great - there was muscle milk, beer, pizza, icees and cookies. Yummo! Did I mention there was pizza and cookies?
 

The bling - it doubles as a bottle opener!

 So that was it...another weekend, another fun race.  I will say that for a newer race, it was very well organized.  Even with limited parking, there were no big issues.  So, yes I did complain about the distance we travelled, but I would definitely consider doing this race again in the future!

How was your weekend?  Any good races or training?