Wellstone's Dallas White Rock Marathon - RunMarathon

This was a really fun race. I felt great the whole time, and really had to keep myself in check b/c Reese was getting stressed out that she was holding me back. She said a few times, "you can go ahead, don't slow yourself up for me!" but the whole point was for me to pace HER. I didn't mind slowing down at all, I just needed to consciously keep myself from running faster.

The first couple miles were really crowded and Reese started off WAY too fast, so I had to say "cool your jets!"

We were feeling really good from around mile 5 to the halfway mark. We had about 3 minutes of extra time in the bank on our projected 13.1 time, for 3:50. Then we hit the lake!

The lake was crazy windy. At certain points it was strong enough to pick up grit and sting our legs with it. I was trying to let Reese run behind me to help her conserve energy, but the wind was all over the place and it was hard for her to get in a good drafting position. I know that the wind was very demoralizing for her, and we started to eat up that time we had in the bank. By the time we were around the lake and finally in neighborhoods again, we had slowed considerably.

One of the first things we hit after the lake (heading into miles 19-21) we some hills. These weren't hard or particularly steep, but I think that Reese wasn't feeling so hot after the wind on the lake, so she had a harder time with the hills. At one point, there were guys in drag as Dolly Parton handing out beer. That made me laugh. I was laughing and really enjoying singing out loud to "9 to 5" and didn't realize until I was over the hill that Reese was much further back. I had to stop until she caught up with me. I realized I needed to get her head back in the game!

So I was trying to do stupid stuff to get her distracted and keep her spirits up. We had a friend of ours meeting us at mile 22 to run with us for 2 miles, so having that to look forward to was nice.

I was feeling great and was just worried about Reese's PR slipping away in the final miles.

By mile 20 it was warm and I started dumping water on me to try to cool off. My nutrition and hydration had been spot on, so I was feeling good besides being warm. The usual marathon tightness in the quads was starting to make itself known but nothing too crazy.

We saw our friend Suzanne and that really helped Reese to get her head back in the game. She had really been slowing down and I kept saying "only 4 more miles! you can get through 4 more painful miles!" The night before we had talked about the inevitable pain of marathons and I told her what Dime once told me: "When it hurts, you have to change something. You can either slow down or speed up to change things. I choose to speed up!" So I kept telling her, just speed it up! It's going to hurt either way!

The 3:50 time was now out the window (her stretch goal) but I didn't want to see the PR slip away in the final few miles. And I told her that... I said "you will be SO angry with yourself if you've got this far and had such a great race and let it all go away." Then I switched my tactic to more encouragaing and positive and up beat. Our friend Suzanne left us at mile 24, and that is when Reese really hit the wall. It was hot, our legs were hurting, yada yada. But she pushed herself through it! While she did slow down quite a bit, I could tell she was leaving everything she had out there on the course.

We were in the home stretch and if she kept her pace constant, she was going to PR!

At mile 25.5 our friend Gretchen was waiting to run us in as far as she could. That was another good distraction for Reese b/c she wanted to look good in the pictures (hahaha) and I am sure she was tired of listening to me yammer on about how great she was doing and how we were almost there. Gretch was running around us taking pictures and jumping up and down and saying we looked fabulous. It helped me too!

It was great running past the 26 mile marker and knowing that Reese was going to PR. Helping her reach her goal made me feel really good, too.

Not much. It was a fun race!

We walked around and stretched, met up with Gretch for a few more pics, and then all three of us walked home. Felt good to keep my legs moving.

Reese and I had a GIANT lunch at Spiral Diner afterwards, lazed around on the couch for a few hours, then rallied and went out for drinks to celebrate.


Acting as a pacer. But it was by choice!


This was a really well-run race. The organization was great, the crowds were great, it was a very open course so friends could see you a lot. The swag and expo were really good too. I got a total of 2 technical shirts and a cotton tshirt from the race, not too shabby! I would def reccomend it to anyone looking for a marathon in TX.