It all started just fine, this year's B2B. Oh, the team sort of stumbled into Corpus on Friday. It's inevitable now that we come from so many different places: San Antonio, Caldwell, Houston and Corpus. And all us out of towners drove through varying degrees of inclement weather to get here. Thankfully, Corpus was mostly dry when we were finally all accounted for Friday night. The forecast called for possible showers on race morning, but no one predicted the stormy weather which actually materialized.
Race morning. Up at 6am and out the door by 6:20. I dropped Maeve at the starting line/2nd leg handoff and then drove from the island to the Flour Bluff bus depot. It was cloudy, a blessing, though I regretted Ed, running the first leg, would not get to watch the sun rise out of the Gulf of Mexico. But as I rode a bus back across the causeway to the island, to post myself for the start of my leg 3 (back over the bridge, 4 miles of bridge running), the horizon broke and the sun appeared, though wrapped in clouds. Once I was at my handoff zone I sat, caught my breath, ate a bagel, drank my morning coffee and watched the storm clouds gather and thicken. "How much of the race will we run before the rain comes?" I wondered.
Ed's in there somewhere!A live radio feed ran on the PA system. There was a report of complications at the start. The tide was high and water was advancing toward the dunes. Turns out it brought with it a lot of seaweed. The running track was narrowed by all this, making what is always a congested leg 1 even more so. Nevertheless, I heard a report later that the lead runner ran leg 1 (a bit more than 4 miles) in 21 minutes. Ed Brackin, the leg 1 runner for team Mid-Texas Symphony needed 51 minutes before he could hand the baton to Maeve. By now, the wind was beginning to rage and everyone watched the rain, by now just offshore. Leg 2 was all headwind, probably 20-30 mph, and a light rain began to fall.
The runner for the lead team handed off to his leg 3 runner at 51 minutes. By the time I took the baton from Maeve at about 8:30 (the start was at 7, it was raining a little harder, lightning was zapping across the sky and a strong crosswind, eventually a headwind, was blowing. I labored across the bridge, not exactly what I had trained for. By mile one of this 4 miles plus, every runner was drenched. Can anyone say duck? I handed off the baton to Holly and she handed off her 8 year old son Mathias. Ed wasn't back yet from his leg 1 adventure.
By now the rain was a heavy coastal rain. Mathias and I walked back to the parking lot, debating whether to find his mother's car or go to mine. Eventually I won. By now we were beyond trying to tiptoe through the deep puddles. It was more like wading. No dry clothes, no towels for drying off, and my shoes were squishy and waterlogged. At least we were out of the rain, which was beginning to subside. Mathias had questions about everything; I love his curiosity. Finally he decided to play games on his mom's iPhone while I waited to hear from Ed. It took a couple of semi-aborted phone calls before I finally got word from Ed. The buses from the end of leg 1 back to Flour Bluff had gone askew. Lots of runners, no buses, lots of soaked runners. Friday night I had told Ed my experience a couple of years of hitching rides on the backs of pickup trucks and finally he did that himself.
By now, Ed's iPhone quit on account of the soaking it had sustained. Mathias had Holly's phone. Communication was breaking down. Maeve called. She was back at Flour Bluff, sheltered in the Walmart out of the rain. I picked her up and we waited for Ed. At this point Maeve connected with the running buddy she had ridden with from San Antonio. She headed out with him, preferring a moving vehicle to my vehicle in waiting. I parked by the bus terminal, anticipating Holly's return from her leg 4 which I figured was surely done by now. Still no Ed, until now. He had borrowed a phone and let me know he was at the Walmart. I drove over and picked him up, then we drove around looking for his car. He didn't know where Holly had parked it, so we played the honk the horn on the remote game until we got lucky and located the car. Still no Holly, but of course she had no way of calling us since Mathias had her phone.
Monetary panic set in as Ed looked at his watch and said: "I've got half an hour to get back to the hotel and check out."
"Go!" I say. "I'll wait here for Holly." And I waited and waited. I called Holly's phone but got such a garbled connection with Ed that there was no point in conversation. I waited some more, looking for what I supposed would be dismay on Holly's face when she didn't find her car where she left it, nor her son whom she had left in my care. Time ticked on. I tried to call Jonathan, tried to call Fred, tried to call Dorian. Nothing. I finally gave up and came back to the condo on the island. It would be easier to do my tracking after a shower and dry clothes.
Turns out Ed and Mathias, returning from checking out of their hotel, had stumbled into Holly as she got off the bus. Only I had no way of knowing and by now phones seemed useless. A multi-threaded game of phone tag began, not to be resolved until past noon. That's when I at last connected with Holly and Ed, found they were reunited but that poor Holly was still in her soaked running outfit. I invited them out to the condo for a hot shower and change of clothes and also finally connected with Fred. I felt like a platoon leader must feel when all his men are located after a battle.
The afternoon eventually turned sunny. Holly, Ed, Mathias and I headed over to Port Aransas to visit with David Horne and get a ride on his 30 foot "Baywatch" boat. It was exciting to be out on the water, speeding along up to 49 miles per hour (David's sons are determined the boat will eventually travel at 50+ mph).
So....that was Beach to Bay 2010, unlike any of the previous 4 we have run. I still haven't seen our official time, but Fred told me it was about 3 hours 41 minutes, about 3 minutes off our 2007 record. If not for the setbacks of the weather, we would have broken it. However, the important record is the one which says we all had a great time despite so many weather induced complications. Earlier, as this all unfolded, I thought what a miserable experience this must be for the newcomers Ed and Holly. By mid-afternoon, as wind blew into our faces while we boated over to Rockport and back, we were all smiles. I actually think Ed and Holly will come back if we need them next year. Yay, team Mid-Texas Symphony and thanks to the entire team for a race well run.
