Just under 2,000 finishers made their way to the Island for the 9th running of the Santa Hustle Half Marathon and 5K on Sunday, December 19, 2021.
While cooler temperatures delighted runners and walkers of all kinds, the brutal winds - some reporting gusts up to 40 miles per hour at times - also challenged runners heading south down Seawall Boulevard, especially in miles seven and eight.
Galveston's Garrett Seeba, 39, who finished fourth two weeks ago at the Brazos Bend 50 Miler in Needville, held off a closing Andrew Hayes, 32, of Houston, to win the half marathon in a time of 1:24:35.
Hayes was second in 1:25:27 while Houston's Konstantin Loguinov, fresh off a 1:20:55 performance at the BMW Dallas Half Marathon a week earlier, was third in 1:26:29.
Chasing the 44-year-old Loguinov was League City's Michael Robbins, 16, who wasn't able to close the gap and finished in fourth in 1:27:21.
With Loguinov cracking the top three, the top masters' time went to Cypress' Michael Prejean in 1:31:53.
In the women's race, youth was served as St. Edward's University junior cross country athlete and middle distance specialist Faith Brothers, 21, held of Cambridge, Massachusetts' Ani Zotti, 30, by less than 17 seconds to take home the win in 1:28:33.
Brothers, who qualified for and competed at the 2018 UIL 5A state cross country meet for Friendswood High School, ran the entire way with fellow Class of 2019 Mustang grad Brandon Lantau, who currently runs for Lamar University.
The race for third was hotly contested as well.
Having jumped into the race to run with friends after a long 15-mile plus training run on Saturday, Houston's Erika Park, 46, found another gear to take third place by just three seconds in a time of 1:35:05.
Somewhere around mile nine, Houston's Sung Im Kim-Vences, 35, started to pull away from a pack that included four or five men and Park.
"For two miles I was on her heels," said Park. "She kept looking back but I had myself placed to where she couldn't tell if it was me or the pack she was with because I figured all she would see is red. The pack was in red and so was I."
Meanwhile, Park said she was battling those racing demons in her head.
"I thought, OK, do I pass her? When is too soon? Will she re-pass me? Will she finish stronger?" she said she went on and on telling herself that "I'm not good at being in the lead, pacing hard making sure she doesn't pass me back."
But finally Park said she stepped out of her comfort zone and took off at mile 11.
"I made her work for it," she added. "I beat her. She was ahead of me the whole race so I had to cover and make up a lot of ground."
That included progressively faster splits such as 6:51 (8-9), 7 (10) 6:52 (11) 6:48 (12) and 6:28 (13) from Park.
All of that handed the masters' title to Galveston's Karen Jobe, 46, who finished less than a minute ahead of Houston's Nicole Desai in 1:40:45. Desai stopped the clock in 1:41:38.
In the 5K, Pearland High School junior Josh (Joshua) Estes, 16, beat a pair of Islanders, Marco Antonio Munoz and Mauricio Serrano, to grab the men's division in 18:47.
Munoz, 46, and Serrano, 35, both from Galveston, finished in 18:53 and 18:58, respectively.
Kingwood High School senior Om Gawankar, 17, had the fastest time of the day in 18:42, but he had started nearly two minutes back in the pack at the start of the race.
Youth was also served as Houston Strake Jesuit's Zachariah Wrobel, 16, and Humble Kingwood's Logan Beach, 16, were fifth and sixth overall in 19:02 and 19:04, resoectively.
For the women, Pearland High School senior Sarah Maddux-Hensley, 17, of Rosharon was the women's overall winner in 21:21.
Syracuse, New York native and former Le Moyne University lacrosse player Anna Daucher, 28, was second in 22:24 while Friendswood High School junior Isabella Palermo, 17, was third in 23:04.
There were 487 finishers in the half marathon and another 1,469 finishers in the 5K.
Sources: Santa Hustle and Negative Split Productions.
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