A total of 27 runners and 41 walkers opted to participate in the Pendgo Timing trial run and their times varied from 27:55 for the first runner to reach the finish line to 01:15:01 for the last recorded walker. My own time, inclusive of hanging around at the top of the bridge to take photographs of the walkers (see YouTube for the video) and collecting all the signs on the route back was 01:25. The complete list of times for the 68 timed participants can be downloaded HERE.

It’s just a bit of fun for Cinco de Mayo but it will also serve to show us how a timed BridgeWalk event might work. The thought is that we might do an annual timed walk, which would command an entry fee, with proceeds going to a good cause. The advantage of working with Pendgo Timing is that we would be able to arrange the closure of one traffic lane on the bridge for our participants to use and that sounds like fun to me!

Watch this space for details.

May 5th Event Details:

LOCATION: The Galvan House, 1581 Heritage Park:

• The BridgeWalk will commence at 7:30am for the summer season. Please note we will endeavour to start the walk at 7:30am prompt.

Fitness Sunday List of Events:

• 7:30am – 8:45am                 Bridge walk / run
• 8:30am                               Yoga class by Youga Yoga
• 8:30 – 10am                         Toe Joint Excercise Program                                                      by Dr Murad
• 8:45 – 9:30am                      Tai Chi by Taoist Tai Chi Society                                              of the USA
• 9:00 to 9:45am                     Zumba by Z-Live
• 9:30am                                Yoga class by Youga Yoga
• 10 – 10:20am                       Capoeira by Corpus Christi                                                       Brazilian Capoeira)
• 10 -4pm                              Art in the Park by Creative                                                       Connections. This free monthly art event initiated to promote the creative community on the first weekend of every month, ART in the PARK celebrates the lingering season of Spring on May 4th - 5th from 10am – 4pm. Live musical entertainment ranging from rock to reggae, folk to blues, country to gospel, appealing to all audiences will be created by R & R from 10:30 – Noon and Spark in the Dark from 1pm – 3pm on Sunday May 5th; so come out to Heritage Park and enjoy the tunes of these favorite community duos.

BridgeWalk YouTube Channel

Amongst the crowd were two ladies who had met on a plane headed for Corpus Christi and had agreed to join the BridgeWalk together. Jackie, from Omaha Nebraska commutes to and fro to Corpus as her husband works here.  She had amended her schedule especially to be here for the BridgeWalk. Carol, from Chicago, has just moved here to become Executive Director of the Science and History Museum and, in spite of a fear of heights, was caught up in Jackie’s enthusiasm for the walk and came with her. Both ladies managed the walk successfully and, as out of towners, received their Bridgewalk T-Shirts.

Carol and Jackie after the BridgeWalk

Anyway, immediately after the BridgeWalk I set off for Austin and I’m posting this from my hotel room within sight of the Capitol. Why share this information with you? Well it’s my excuse for not publishing a video compilation of the days events as I am too tired (and busy) to deal with it tonight even although I have access to all my photographs through Dropbox.

However I do feel the need to share this photograph of Mayor Adame and his wife Kathy with me in the courtyard at Heritage Park after the event so that all you avid BridgeWalkers can see the “prize” for walking the bridge 5 times. Note the snazzy polo shirts I and the Mayor are wearing – BridgeWalk Club polos. Have your card stamped 5 times and you too could be the proud owner of one of these, can’t be bought, polo shirts.

Also I’d just like to mention the officers of the Corpus Christi Police Department Traffic Division who turn out at each of our monthly BridgeWalking events and cheerfully look after our safety throughout the length of the walk. I certainly appreciate their presence particularly at the busy on and off ramps at each end of the bridge. Thank you for your service to the BridgeWalkers and to the community in general.

Looking forward to the next event on July 8th and in the meantime keep checking the website for more photographs from the June walk, details of exciting new developments to the event, and hopefully a video made by one of the walkers.

“A bank robber gets his old gang back together to organize a daring new heist.” (IMDB.com)

Photo by Maire Kelly

So what has a 1974 film starring Clint Eastwood, Jeff Bridges, and George Kennedy have to do with walking the bridge I hear you ask? Well, nothing actually, it’s just the way my mind works and whilst ruminating on what to say about the May BridgeWalk this film title crossed my mind as I recalled the cracks of lightning and the claps of thunder which accompanied our event this month. There is also the reference to “a gang” aka band of enthusiastic BridgeWalkers and “Lightfoot” which signifies to me the feeling of urgency to get over the bridge and finished without being hit by a “Thunderbolt”.
Like I said earlier – it’s just the way my mind works.

Is there also a hint of the Stockholm syndrome at work here:

In psychology, Stockholm Syndrome is an apparently paradoxical psychological phenomenon in which hostages express empathy and have positive feelings towards their captors, sometimes to the point of defending them. (Wikipedia.org)

And what do I have in mind here? Well although I have had expressions of support at previous events and there is a regular band of BridgeWalkers who support the event, there was a noticeable excitement and camaraderie surrounding the aftermath of our exciting adventure this month. As has been commented on the Facebook page:

“we can literally say, we walked and survived the walk”

Photo by Marc A Carter

First timers were exhilarated and determined to come back next month bringing friends with them to experience the walk (minus the thunderstorm!) Thus my reference to Stockholm Syndrome – walkers who experienced the wrath of nature whilst on the bridge now have “positive feelings towards” the bridge. Also when everyone arrived back at Heritage Park, soaking wet, many folks stayed and exchanged bridge walking stories with their fellow walkers whilst enjoying the music of Barbara and David Brown and brunch by Desiree’s Restaurant.

Here is a video taken at the height of the storm.

Despite the weather problems it was a fun family event and many of us are looking forward to June 3rd and the next event.

Suggested signage

Today was an interesting day for me. In the morning I met with the City’s Traffic Engineering Department to discuss the possibility of placing permanent signs on the BridgeWalk route so that we can turn it into a “documented” event which can be undertaken either as the monthly organized event or by individuals and groups as and when they feel like it. (Once the maintenance work is completed which now looks like being at the end of May 2012)

In the afternoon the July 4th Special Event Committee and various other interested parties took a bus tour from One Shoreline Plaza to Whataburger Field, the proposed marshalling point for the July 4th Event, and then over the bridge to North Beach and back again.

Stopped at the top of the bridge

The bus was kindly provided by the CCRTA who will be helping with the transport of people to and from the bridge event and we had a police escort front and back. This enabled us to slowly drive over the bridge stopping at strategic points to take photographs and assess how and where we will be placing people on the bridge for the event.

This is going to be an exciting and historic event; something many may wish to take part in if only to tell their grandchildren - “we took part in the big Fourth of July Bridge Sway Event of 2012″

If you are interested in participating individually, or by organizing a group to participate, please register your interest on the Special Event Page and the committee will be in touch as the event develops.

Here are the photographs from today’s outing:

Dr J after his walk over the bridge

… and the official Public Event “BridgeWalk April 8th” was cancelled due to holiday logistical problems. However I and my trusty companion “Dr Johnson” went to The Galvan House for 7:30am just to make sure that anyone who turned up for the walk was informed of the cancellation. We had also arranged to meet a few friends from Portland so that we could walk the bridge anyway. I had noted on Friday that the walkways were clear and so there was nothing to stop a private party undertaking the walk.

Photographs from our Easter Sunday walk are posted in the Media Photo Gallery:

In the mean time here are a couple of links to YouTube videos posted by one of our March 4th walkers, Mr Dominic Olivares of http://designznow.com/

• The Full Walk sped up version
• 2 Minute segment at normal speed

There is also another video on the BridgeWalk YouTube Channel of the February Bridge Light Show.