When we hit the 20-mile mark we still had a chance to make the finish line in under four hours. It was a remote chance and it was going to be close, but we still had a chance. That hope quickly faded as we headed away from White Rock Lake into the home stretch.
The beginning of the race was, in a word, cold. We bypassed a lot of the traffic backed up on I-30 and got to Fair Park in Dallas in plenty of time. We whiled away some time by watching the pilot of Big Bang Theory on my virtual running partner's iPhone. I almost made a totally stupid mistake, although I'm not sure it would have been fatal. The race used the timing chips that are plastic strips, which you thread into one of your shoe's laces and it forms a loop. They're disposable and you don't have to return them. There are two parts to these, one of which has the instructions. I looped that part through my left shoelaces and was trying to find the print that said "This side up." I couldn't find it and figured, oh well. When we were climbing out of the truck to head for the starting line, I looked down on the cab floor and realized the one I actually needed was lying on the carpet there. I suppose if we'd made it to the start and I realized my error I would have just run without it since there was no way I was going to walk all the back to the parking lot to retrieve it.
We stood in the bathroom line for a good half hour or so. By the time we got into our corral I was experiencing some intermittent shivering. The temperature was about 34 degrees with a 10-mile an hour breeze making it colder than the air temp. Once the elites took off it was another 24 minutes before our corral was allowed to take off. The only thing that I didn't like about the race was the distance from the start/finish back to the parking lot.
With about 25,000 people running and lots of spectators, we were never alone. As usual, the first several miles rolled by quickly. The course took us toward downtown, then a little north and finally east to White Rock Lake. The half marathoners peeled off from us at the 8.5 mile mark, and strangely enough, their path never took them to the lake. We reached the lake about mile 11 and circled it until about mile 21. There was one point about mile 18 or so where the route had us running toward downtown, which was hazy in the distance. We commented on how crazy it was that we'd run that far and still had plenty to go.
Our goal was to finish under four hours, and I had high hopes we could make it. Alan experienced some back spasms in the latter half, and we had to walk through those. Then his right knee started really bothering him, and our goal quickly went away in the breeze. We finished in a time of 4:10. That's okay - we'll try again next time. For me personally, I need to get some good calf stretching exercises. If I'd been running faster I could tell my calves would have cramped up worse than they did, which was bad enough. Having endured this for the last couple of races I think it's time to figure out a solution. My hips were also hurting the rest of the day and into today. No surprise there, but again, a good stretching exercise seems to be in order.
As compared to the Big D we ran last year, at least these guys were organized enough to still have food and drink for us at the finish line party. Unfortunately it wasn't real varied, with an unripe banana, oranges, and some Quaker Oats bars as the choices. We weren't interested at all in the MGD 64 they had, either. The race was plenty organized, but the biggest complaint we had was the long walk back to the truck. That was pure torture after the pain of the race, and it was actually more of a hobble than a walk. We saw shuttles running, but they apparently weren't running to our parking lot. Once we got there we never saw any shuttles, so I don't know who and where they were shuttling to and from.
I guess it's time to shut down the running for a couple of weeks and let my body have some rest time to heal. I'm sure I'll be itching to hit the road before Christmas. And I did get in a marathon in 2010. During my down time I can determine a strategy for next year, including how much to run and where. At times this year running only one marathon didn't seem like enough, but then there were times where it seemed like too much. It's certainly clear why the half is a more popular race since it doesn't put anywhere near the same wear and tear on a person's body. But there's time to ponder all this in the coming days. For now, I'm glad this one is over. It was a good, tough run, and I think it's given me some things to improve upon. Marathon #7 is in the books.
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