CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — For people running the Beach to Bay Marathon for the first time and not from the coastal bend, they felt the full brunt of the heat.
“It was hot. Super hot,” said Julio Sanchez after running the race for the first time.
"One of our first runners that came in today to the tent, I think he was runner number five or in the top 10, he’s from Austin, TX and he said this was brutal," Liz Mathews said, a registered nurse and volunteer in the medic tent.
Pushing through the heat to win the solo marathon happened to be a Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi student. He said this was his first ever marathon.
“The furthest I ever ran was 18 miles," Isaac Mireles said. "So, this is…everything after that was all new for me. 20 miles in that’s when I started getting a little tired of course. But it was really rough.”
Despite the heat, some first time runners enjoyed all that Beach to Bay had to offer.
“It was great, you know, really good weather appreciated the wind," Jessica Thompson said, another first time runner. "I was leg three, dad took on leg two.”
“It was fantastic," said Thompson's father Darrell Dement. "Well organized, I was really shocked. It was the first year we’ve run it and really impressed how it was all put together.”
Some said they fared better before the sun came up.
“So, I had the first leg, so the weather for me was perfect," Roy Falcon said, running his first race coming from the Halingen. "I was like, oh man this is awesome. The only thing is—was on the sand and you got to go with the wind for the first half and then against the wind. So, against the wind I really felt it.”
‘We trained pretty regularly," said Dement. "We go out. We were concerned about the humidity and stuff down here because we’re not from Corpus (Christi), but we did pretty good. We ran the early legs, so it’s nice that it’s in the morning.”
As the runners got to leg 3, the sun started to make things interesting.
“So, it was hot," Ernesto Alejandro laughed. "I was third leg and going up the causeway was a struggle, going down was good. Going flat was not good, no it was all good.
“It kind of did ,but I was glad that the base had a lot of water stops there. So, that kind of helped a lot too,” Edgar Estrada said after running the fourth leg and for the first time.
As is the case every year, the medic tents were prepared with veteran nurse and physician volunteers.
“If they’re not local then we’re a little more diligent about making sure that they’re going to cool down," Mathews said. "The ones that are local, they cool down because they’ve been training in this environment.”
But those that struggled, didn't have to do it alone. Alejandro, who made the trip from Harlingen as well, says there was a lot of camaraderie on the course.
"At that time when you get winded, you want to do that small walk, but then someone else behind you says come on, come on, lets go, we got this. We're almost there," said Alejandro.
Now that it’s over...
“Celebration tonight,” Thompson exclaimed.
And for our KRIS 6 News Marathon Team, all of our team members finished the marathon.
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