CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Some residents have been training a lifetime for a chance to run the Beach To Bay Relay Marathon.
Doug McBee is the man in charge of Beach To Bay and said he has a lot of work to get done before the big race starts early Saturday morning.
"We have 1,086-person teams, and we have 175 running the full marathon, and we have 85 teams running the two person. Honestly it compares almost exactly to last year," he said.
While McBee works on getting everything ready for the 46th annual event, CCPD Lt. Michael Pena said they’re ready as always to make sure everything runs smoothly on the roadways.
"We are going to have extra officers out there -- the traffic safety section, the traffic section will be out there working," he said. "There will be some lane closures you know, which again, if you live in Corpus Christi, you should be aware that we have Beach To Bay.”
3NEWS found students at Windsor Park Elementary running around their school as they'll be one of the teams lacing up their sneakers on Saturday.
Meanwhile, at Louisiana and Alameda, the Cheetah Running Club from Menger Elementary was the toast of the school on Thursday afternoon. There’s a lot of pressure on the athletes because the school has won first place in the Beach To Bay Relay five times.
Joe Medina has coached the teams for 26 years and told 3NEWS that the athletes are skilled runners.
"They run well. We do 10K runs, we don’t do 5K runs," he said.
Luke Leichty is one the team's star runners. He's a fifth-grader who also has plenty of confidence about his running ability.
"I would say that I am a pretty good runner. Don’t really want to brag about it, but a pretty good runner," he said.
3NEWS will see if Luke can help lead his Cheetah Running Club to another first place finish in this most challenging of races.
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