Dallas White Rock Half Marathon

My goals for this race were to race healthy, have fun with friends, and high hopes of a PR. All of these goals were accomplished on Sunday. My friend Kathleen and I drove up to Dallas on Saturday morning. When we got to Dallas we went straight to the expo and meet up with Russell picked up our packets and started walking around looking at the different booths. Bill Rodgers was speaking so we listened to him for about 30 mins and then finished walking around. We were about to leave when he walked right up and started talking to 2 men standing behind me so when he was done I introduced myself and asked for a photo. Unfortunately the only camera I had was my blackberry so the picture is not that good but oh well. After the expo we headed to Hard Rock for lunch. After lunch we went to the hotel to relax and rest our legs. At dinner time we went to Chamberlin’s where my cousin Lance is the manager had some yummy seafood apps and a beer or two. I felt like a rock star at this restaurant, the chef came out to our table and introduced himself and thanked us for coming in and wished us well in our race on Sunday, the hostesses, waitresses and bartenders all came by to meet us and wish us well too. Not mention they took care of us 100%. If you are every in Dallas look up Chamberlin’s Seafood Market and go eat there, they are right off the Dallas Tollway. After diner we went back to the hotel and laid out our race clothes a pile for cold weather and a pile for warm weather & went to bed around 10pm. I slept normally like I do the night before a race- restless tossing and turning, dreaming about waking up to late etc. Wake up call came in at 6:15- bathroom, shower and got dressed, went down to the lobby for continental breakfast, which included a banana, one egg, half of a pancake and a small piece of sausage. This is not my normal pre race breakfast but it was good and I took a chance with trying something new. Sorry Coach Kim! We left out hotel for a short 10 min walk to the American Airlines Center, when we got there we saw Althea, dropped our bags and stood in line for one last bathroom break. This is where I saw my next celebrity, Crazy Tracy from the biggest loser- she looked fabulous and excited about her race. I noticed she was in the same wave as Kathleen and I but after leaving the bathroom line I never saw her again. The first wave started at 8:00am I was in wave C, but we were across the mat in about 10mins 30 sec s after the first wave. The course was decent; it was a slight elevation gain for the first nine miles, then a slight decent, in which about 3 miles were on a beautiful trail. Cons of this race were, aid stations were horrible, water and Gatorade were not ready for runners when we came through, each aid station I stopped at I had to wait for them to pour my Gatorade into a cup. Water stations were not well marked and volunteers were not yelling out. The course was way too congested, they need to reroute so accommodate the 22,000 runners. A lot of time was wasted on trying to get around other runners/walkers on small streets that were also congested with parked cars. Coming into the shoots were difficult to again they were very narrow and there were several runners who thought it was a good time to stop and high five family members or kiss their loved ones 20 yards from the finish line. The finish line was a fiasco as well, the stuffed the finisher shirts, medals and finish line photos in an area less than 20 yards long and when you got through there you had a football field length of nothing before you went to the finishers tent. The finisher’s food consisted on hard cold bagels, granola bars and fruit- But lots of beer and two great bands. So as a Beer lover they redeemed themselves with having plenty of beer. I ran a good race, I felt good for most of it, my calf hurt a bit between mile 11 and 13 but I was going for a PR and it was all downhill so I ran through it. When I crossed the finish line my Garmin said 2:11:20 but when I checked my chip time it was 2:12:16 a little disappointing- I guess my Garmin jacked up and I didn’t realize it, but I still got a PR and I had fun and I feel great today. Pros of the race, a great expo, great entertainment, scenic course, lots of beer, nice participation and finisher shirts, lots of crowd support. I would recommend this race and would probably do it again especially if they fixed the congestion issues.

Hope to see you on the roads soon!