From the Beach to the Bay with the "Sole" Sistas

I'm so sad the weekend is coming to an end because it was soooo much FUN. In a span of only 24 hours, my Beach to Bay Crew and I managed to drive about 300 miles (to and from Corpus),stuff ourselves at lunch and dinner, squeeze ourselves into an unusually small Holiday Inn room, laugh, help others try to be more thoughtful, and oh yeah finished a RELAY MARATHON!!!!!! All of that with only about 5 hours of sleep too!!!

Our first Beach to Bay experience was AWESOME!(Yes ladies I already have the date for next years---May 15, 2010) Friday night we spent a lot of time trying to figure out the logistics of it all. Who was going to drop off who, what time we all needed to be at our legs and where and how in the world we were all going to meet up after it all with over 12,000 people participating. Luckily it all worked out. It was so great to see each other running towards the finish line and ready to pass the baton (pvc pipe) on to the next person. As the fourth leg, I was able to actually run through the entire Naval Base in Corpus. Considering I would probably never have been allowed access onto the base otherwise I thought it was a great experience despite the heat. It really was like a whole new world in there. They have everything they could possibly need and were so gracious to us as we made it through our 4.7 miles. After the race we all met up for lunch at Landry's before heading back home.

So having spent a couple of days with just the girls, now I'm going to channel my inner Oprah and share what I know for sure:

1. Mariana was born with an internal GPS. Without it who knows where we would have ended up on Friday.
2. Apparently you cannot run UNDER the JFK Causeway in Corpus. One must run OVER it to get to the other side of the island. And for future reference it's leg 3 and not 2 who does this.
3. Causeways are built so tall so that ferrys can indeed go under them.
4. It can be really hard for some people to be thoughtful. Take for example friend A who prepares goodie bags for us all and then friend B who laughs at others "clown" pajamas. Not thoughtful I know but we've made a pact to help her get better.
and
5. The race directors really knew what they were doing when they decided to name the event Beach to Bay because after 26.2 miles, you really do go from the beach to the bay. Who would have thought??????

Our next big challenge: