Runs with Cranes

In Flight took a road trip yesterday to the Kemah/Seabrook area for our Saturday long run. The only thing bad about running in Kemah is not running in Houston. Being away made me appreciate the energy of running in the city. I haven't run in many big cities. But Houston's gotta be one of the BEST running cities in the nation.

Although I did miss big city running for just a day, I thoroughly enjoyed our trip out to Galveston Bay and I must say the morning was gorgeous. I've only seen the Seabrook trails in pictures taken from friends who ran the Seabrook Marathon. I didn't really appreciate or know what a really great running venue that is. Plenty of sidewalks, miles and miles of crushed granite trails, and some pretty nice back roads with very light traffic, at least on Saturday morning. There were lots of bikers wizzing by and everyone, bikers as well as folks in regular vehicles offered a "Good Morning!" or a wave. It's a really friendly town. Makes me want to put the Seabrook Half on my spring racing schedule. We'll see.

Our course took us south out of the Rex Meador Park and out onto State Hwy 146. We hit the Kemah bridge just perfectly at sunrise. The cold front was really pushing down and the entire bay was just flat. It seemed like the locals down there were either very courteous or they were used to sharing the road with bikers and runners. We all got along pretty well for the 5 or 6 miles out and back on the 146. Once we got off the bridge coming back, we looped back under it and hugged the coast up Toddville Rd back to the park. After a pit stop, it was onto the Seabrook trails, through some nicely shaded areas and back out to Toddville road. Discovered a nice little park and I don't even know the name of it. But it features a VERY nice t-head fishing pier which I'm going to have to visit again. The 14.67 mile route afforded me just a couple of shortcuts and I ended up with 13.75. I was getting real hot by the end of the run but made it in the last mile strong.

Besides the view off the Kemah bridge, there were a lot of interesting sights along the way. I came across some tidal inlets just as the tide was coming in and it was really neat to see the power of the tide rushing in and rising, almost like a flash flood. I imagine that really stirs up the bait fish and gets the big predators to feeding. It made me want to go fishing. I also happened upon a couple of whooping cranes making baby whooping cranes. Oh my goodness, that was quite a sight. They were both flapping around so much, I couldn't tell one from the other. Looked like they were having fun.

Michael met the mayor of Seabrook who offered us a police escort over the bridge next year. Cool, huh?