The night before the race, a raccoon (hoping that is what it was) was scurrying around the attic/ my room, keeping me up. The benefit of daylight savings was lost on me. I hoped this wouldn't prove to be an omen.
Alarms went off at 5 AM in the Tang household. Snooze buttons promptly hit at 5:01 AM.
The time came for the Wood-Tang Clan to head down to White Rock Lake in Dallas, arriving around 6:45 for a prime time parking spot. Thanks to the cold morning weather, we stayed in the Tahoe to keep warm while the female runners on the team made last minute wardrobe changes due to the faux pas of 4 of us wearing the race shirt to the race.
We boarded the shuttles aka Dallas Independent School District buses, which by the way now have seat belts? Overheard from older runners "We never had seat belts in my day." Yeah, same here. Kids these days. On the ride over, we passed the starting line, joking that we took the wrong bus. The bonus was we passed the second set of porta-potties which appeared to have no lines.
My signature (and only) running shorts had a Batman utility belt look, except only with TP.
Unfortunately, the start of the race was downwind from these porta-johns. That will wake you up.
Heather and I spotted the 2:00 pacer and John, Jo Ann, and Lisa spotted up with the 2:20 pacer.
The weather, ranging from around 45-60, was as good as you could have hoped for in Texas.
The Star Spangled Banner was punctuated by myself and others as we shouted "STAR" whenever it was in the song thanks to tradition at Dallas Stars games.
Heather and I walked to the starting line, which was an inflatable arch advertising for Muscle Milk.
The first 3 miles were quite slow (9:30-10:00 pace). Heather and I agreed that our butts were frozen due to the weather so the first 3 were really thawing us out. We did avoid bobbing and weaving, a lesson I learned from the Cox 5k. We even spotted another neon green Nike Lunar Glide runner and a costumed running Elvis.
Unfortunately, this is where the racing mistakes began. The machismo took over and I broke my desired pace and hit 8:00-8:30 pace, dropping Heather (what a great brother, huh?).
Between miles 3 and 7, I started picking people off one by one and while this is great for the end of the half, this was only the beginning. I committed a running sin when I tried my hand at Powerade. Big mistake. My stomach was pretty pissed about this decision. I at least turned down the little kid handing out most likely leftover Halloween candy.
I knew that there was A hill, but I did not realize there were probably 5-7 other hills that sapped the energy from me. For whatever reason, I surged at each of these hills. The good news was that, as my Dad pointed out, there were more downhill parts which I definitely used to pass people.
In the nice neighborhoods we passed, I spotted one of the twins from the Matrix (a pale guy with white dreadlocks) and had a double take and thought I was hallucinating.
At the half way point, I was around 56 minutes, which was under the pace for what I expected.
Around mile 6 or 7, there was a bridge over man made falls. A runner was mentioning the bridge moves. At this point, I did not know what the heck that meant; a draw bridge? As I crossed it, I realized what he meant as it messed with my feet and my dad said he got a head ache at this point. The bridge moved especially with a ton of runners running across it. We all agreed, The Bridge from Hell was a course obstacle.
After mile 7, my mind was focused on getting to each mile marker. Heather agreed that the supporters with posters were brutal since we thought that they were mile markers manned by a volunteer yelling out times. Instead, they were teasing us in to thinking it was the next mile.
There was a lady by herself with a squeak toy that annoyed everyone.
Around mile 10, the uneven pacing caught up with me as I blew up and overheated (carrying my gloves and skull cap) along with my left foot metatarsalgia rearing its ugly head.
I walked through every water station, and yes, I walked for a good 20-30 seconds probably 4 or 5 times. If my pace was graphed for the whole race, It would look like a half pipe.
As the final mile showed up, Heather and I sprinted to the inflatable Muscle Milk arch that was the starting line. Turns out, it wasn't the finish. There was probably another .2 miles left. I tried to throw everything I had left out at the finish line but an older guy surged and passed me at the end. Heather and I were dangerously close to yakking at the end. I am talking gag reflex while people are watching close.
I hit my goal but the way I got there, well, this will give me more motivation.
The spread was pretty sweet afterwards:
Bananas, Clif Bars, Gordon Biersch beer, pizza, breakfast burritos, muscle milk = great post run meal.
They had a booth with New Balance Minimus shoes; pretty slick.
Right before the race, we designated the orange porta-potties area as the meeting area. I walked around, thinking that I had finished first for us. I cheered on Mom as she was .2 miles away from finishing. I thought better than to say "Go Mom" since that would mean every mom would turn around and instead went with "Go Lisa".
I figured Heather would have been done so I was looking around for Asian runners wearing the DRC half tech shirts. I spotted my Dad and Heather. Heather posted a respectable time (unofficially 2:05) considering her "long" run was a 40 minute run. Dad?
EDIT: Once again, I am too gullible and I have been tricked by my dad. 2:03:20. So pretty much everything underneath this sentence, don't take for face value.
:drum roll and bowing down:
Unofficially: 1:41
7:34 pace
his best 5k? 8:10 pace
He said he was just feeling it. He said he ran a positive split. I don't even remember seeing him pass Heather and myself. He trained at Jo Ann and Lisa's pace for all his runs, Kenyan like in taking easy runs easy and racing when there are people to pick off. His secret?
Ben Gay before the race to relax his legs.
The Tahoe smelled like a training room but hey, if that gives you a 1:41, I'll rub that on my legs for every race.
After chowing down some more with 2:09 and 2:10 finishers Jo Ann and Lisa, we headed back on to the shuttle and headed home, electing not to take the bus that was smoking.
The fastest Texan's quote after returning home, PG-13'ed: "I gotta go poop."
And, "Where were the pacing groups?" - due to being faster than the 1:40, 1:50, 2:00, 2:10, 2:20 pacers.
I must commend the DRC for a great race. It was pretty organized, the volunteers were great, and the tech shirts are phenomenal and may replace my Cox tech shirt.
NYC marathon was on TV, overtaking football Sunday.
-Shalane Flanagan placed 2nd in her debut...bad ass.
-Haile walking... then retires?!? What?
