Dallas White Rock Half Marathon Recap

What a day this race turned out to be.  Quite honestly, it was pretty miserable.  The weather was awful - rainy, windy and cold.  Temps were in the high 30s with a wind chill in the 20s.  It had been raining for a couple of days, so the ground was full of puddles - you couldn't help but get your feet soaked just walking TO the start of the race - and it was all a sloppy mess after that.  Really, if you were going to run this race, you just had to commit to being cold and wet the entire time - and that's what made it so amazing to watch these runners cross the finish line, knowing that not only had they run either 13.1 or 26.2 miles, but that they did it in really awful conditions.  They all showed incredible inner strength to not only run such a long distance, but to grit it out in such bad weather - major kudos to everyone who ran!

This was Jeff's and Max's first half marathon, and they did quite well.  Jeff finished in 2:14, and Max in 2:46 (yes, that bugger beat my first half marathon time by a minute - and I trained for mine, while the longest run he'd had was a 5 miler!).  Despite the awful weather conditions, both are ready to do this again, and Max is even thinking about training for a marathon!  Shoot, if he can run a half with practically no training, imagine how well he'd do WITH an actual plan! 

I'll let the pictures tell most of the story (clickable if you want to see them bigger):

Bibs in hand at packet pick up - it's official, they're really going to do this!

 Jeff looking like Hobo Joe in his warm throwaway clothes - lobby of the hotel, 5:30 am.

USAFit BCS running club, represent!  All decked out in rain gear, ready to leave the warmth of the hotel lobby and go to the race start.

Lucky for us, the race organizers opened up the coliseum to wait in before the race - at least we could stay warm and dry for a little while.

 The line up for the start stretched on forever!  25,000 runners all corralled into one area - Jeff and Max crossed the starting line about 35 minutes after the race began. 

 After I saw them start, I went immediately to the finish area to stake out my spot - there was no way I was going to miss them crossing the finish line!  Just over an hour into the race, the winner of the half marathon came in...it was pretty exciting to see the runner come flying in like this!  There weren't a lot of us at the finish line yet, but we were cheering him on like crazy.

 Here's the marathon winner (in yellow) - he looked like he could have kept on running for another few miles!

Jeff heading toward the finish line!

 Check out his calf muscles!  Also?  He's still passing people!

They were broadcasting the race on the local Dallas TV station, so I caught Jeff's moment of glory both on the big screen as well as in person - pretty cool!

Jeff did it!  His first half marathon at age 54!  Not too shabby for an old dude! ;)

 Max nearing the finish line...

 And he's done - first half marathon at age 22!  Nice job, Max!

 So bummed that this picture didn't turn out better - my camera lens fogged up when we finally got inside the "family reunion" area, and they were too wet and cold to want to hang around much longer to get a clearer picture.

Max wins Chafe of the Week, hands down!  Ouchies.  Of course he immediately posed for a picture so Sam could upload it to Facebook.  We were all laughing at how messed up his shirt was, and then I remembered that it was MY shirt!  Joke's on me?  Luckily the blood washed out.

Well-earned beer for the half marathoners!  Nice medals, guys!

The spectators - still cold!  

I had hoped to get a lot more pictures of the race, but it was cold.  And rainy.  Have I mentioned that?  I was juggling the umbrella and camera, trying not to get it too wet.  I wore a backpack with some dry socks and shirts for the guys, but after the race, when I reached in to get the clothes out, everything was soaked.  We should have packed a complete change of clothes for Jeff and Max and did the bag check thing, but we've never had to do that before and just didn't think about it.  Newbie mistake, even though we've been participating in races for a while.  We just usually deal with heat, not cold!  Sam met me out at the finish line just before 10am so he got a nice dose of the chilly weather as well.  It was miserable to be out there for so long, but absolutely worth it to see Jeff and Max complete their first half marathon.  A day to remember, for sure!