Wellstone's Dallas White Rock Marathon - RunMarathon

We watched the race start on the big screen TV at the AA center and then a few minutes later actually started to move. There were probably 25 people or more in the 5:30 pace group and I chatted with lots of them. We started off running and then we would take walk breaks every 5 and a half minutes. That took me a bit to get used to since I had not trained with walk breaks at all. My dad had trained that way, so he seemed to be keeping up just fine. I tried to chat with other people and not worry about my dad too much, but found myself worried anytime he slowed down. I would give him stats on how great we were doing and how far we had gone. I started to really worry more when he after we would pass mile 12, we would go for a couple of minutes and then he would yell (his hearing is not the greastest and especially difficult with lots of surrounding noise) "HAVE WE GOTTEN TO 12 YET?" "Yes, Dad we passed 12 a little while back." Then we would go another minute and he would ask "HAVE WE GOTTEN TO 12 YET?" By mile 19, He was not looking great and said he needed to slow down. I kept telling him "No problem dad, let's walk for awhile." Then after a bit of walking I would try to get him to run a bit more. We did this for the last 6 miles. I would try to encourage him and say that we were doing great and were just behind the 5:30 pace group. At mile 24, he said he thought he could finish even if he had to walk the rest of the way. I tried to get him to walk faster and then I would start a very slow jog. We alternated walking and jogging the last few miles while I kept up the role of cheerleader. Overall, I had a great time. There was lots of support on the course including bands along the route which was fun. I tried to enjoy the scenery and didn't really think much at all about my legs. Our pace group leader for the first 19 miles was from LA. This was her 60 something marathon and her 9th one this year. Clif flys her around the country to pace people. She was very nice and encouraging. She lead us in songs and chants most of the way. It was a very nice group of people and a fun event.

Nothing...it was a memorable event with my dad.

After the race, my dad and I had a finisher's photo taken and got our medals. We headed into the AA Center. Doug had not made it to the finish line so we went to find the family. They were at mile 19 cheering for us, but didn't get to the finish line. We found them and headed down to the food area. This was my biggest complaint about the race, there wasn't much food left and NOTHING warm. I guess they were prepared for hot weather. I was hoping for some chicken broth or at least some hot chocolate. I had a smoothie and was just watching my dad hoping that he was going to be able to get up after he sat down. My other worry was that we had to walk down all these stairs and to get to the food and I wasn't sure how he was going to get back up. I headed off to go find our bags that I had checked. They weren't in the same place. It ended up taking me about 20 minutes roaming around and no one knew where to tell me to go. When I fianlly found them, I went back to try to get in the AA center and they told me they were closing it down. There were 3 people trying to block the door, I looked right at them and said "I have just spent the last 20 minutes trying to find the drop off bags when no one could tell me where to go and now my family is inside waiting for me, I am going in!" and I walked right past them. Turned out my dad had taken an elevator and gotten up to the main level and Doug and the kids were waiting for me. They were trying to shuttle me out of the building and I walked past them again and said I was headed to the bathroom. I felt really bad for the people who still hadn't finished the race, they were getting no food at the end and not even able to come in to go to the bathroom. That was some serious poor planning on the race director's part and I am going to send them an email with my disappointment. After using the bathroom, we headed to the car and drove home. After we got home, I went down to the YMCA and sat in the hot tub with my dad. He was really pumped about his run.


Nothing, I felt great! On a side note, that night we went out for Mexican food with my parents and my dad showed up in his White Rock T-shirt and hat. He was really pleased with his finish time and that made me really glad I had done it with him.


I was very impressed with everything except the post race activities which were very disappointing.