Up Early: Dallas White Rock Half-Marathon

In early December I headed home to Dallas to run a half-marathon with Ian. The morning started very early and a bit chilly, perfect for running.

With nearly 20,000 runners (and their respective family and friends) competing in the marathon, marathon relay, and half-marathon, the start area was a zoo. Somehow, Ian and I met-up, got in a warm-up, and worked our way into our starting corral. Thank goodness for our quick goal times that put us up front.

The plan was to start out at 7:00 miles and then see how we felt for the closing half of the race. However, the over-the-top start with rockettes, confetti canons, a fly over, and cowboys on horses led to a very disjointed beginning and we struggled to settle into a good pace. Miles 1 and 2 both went by in around 7:15.

Ian and I were weaving through all the slower runners and I think the slow early pace had me anxious to get the time back. I looked down at my watch at mile 3 and it was in the 6:30s and then looked around and realized Ian was nowhere to be found.

With no idea where he was I realized I had to settle into my own race from there on out. I ran past my family around mile 4, had a minor panic at mile 5 when I realized everyone around me had marathon bibs on (thinking I’d missed the half-marathon turn), and then ran past the first set of photographers.

Around this time I realized that my racing flats had reached their life expectancy. With a small amount of condensation on the ground I found my feet slipping constantly, especially on any type of climb. It felt like I was only pushing off at 75% with 100% effort. It was really frustrating, but I did my best not to let it mess up my stride or mentality.

The race was pretty uneventful from then on. I ran a little slower than I had wanted on miles 6-8, finally spotted Ian on the turn around, and then headed back toward the finish.

After a few more glances at the watch and finally passing mile 10, I decided to let it loose to see how much time I could get back. One more sighting by the family later and I was really moving on the closing stretch with all my miles well under 6:50.

The finishing stretch was fairly quiet, though I did get a little encouragement from a fellow runner urging me on. He ended up crossing ahead of me, but care of his head start at the beginning, my finish was actually ahead of his.

I finished about 8 seconds behind any other runners (and 15 ahead of the next), so the crowd was pretty quiet until I started clapping, high-fiving, and doing anything to get them excited. It worked really well and made for a fun close to 1 hour 30 minutes and 40 seconds of fun.