Half Marathon Archives - lifeisarun.net

DRC Half 2014

January 21, 2015 by Life is a Run · 1 Comment

Not only was DRC Half our first half marathon since having Lane and Miles, but it was also our first time to be separated from our babies and/or breastbumps for an extended period of time – you know what we are saying?? (sorry if you’re a dude reading this) Because we planned to get there at the last possible minute we both rode down there separately. On top of getting down to the race site at the last minute we also planned to leave as soon as we were finished with the half. Not time for dilly dallying for LiAR!

We should mention too, thankfully we both got to run this race together! Teal ended up having to register for the race the morning of. When she got to the registration tent it was 7:14 a.m. (one minute until registration closed) the volunteers were already closing up their computers. This is where we get to insert the babies make getting things done harder excuse, riiight?! Ok, fine, we know we aren’t the first in this world to have babies, but it is interesting to get things done. So don’t be surprised if we periodically use that excuse. 🙂 Anyway, Teal got registered and we met up at the port-a-potties. Do people meet up at other places on race mornings?

When we got to the start line we ran into the lovely Lauren of The Unlikely Runners. So good to briefly catch up with you lady! Our main goals for the day where and stop us if you’ve heard this before – don’t die and finish. 🙂

Oh how goals sure change when you have major things happen to your body! But of course, Lane and Miles are more than worth temporary setbacks in running!

Thanks, Robert, we stole this picture from you! 🙂

We stuck together, chatted each other’s ears off, occasionally listened to the conversations of other runners and appreciated having the other with us!

The weather was nice for our first half back and to that we are thankful to the race day weather gods! 😉 We complete our half running the whole way! We were pretty darn proud of ourselves. If we could run DRC Half then surely we would be able to make it through the half at Dallas Marathon with continued training right?

Well, it would be kind of sad if that was it for the day. Rode by ourselves to the race, complete our first post partum half and then rode home by ourselves, that’s it? No way! Naturally we forced our husbands and our babies to come celebrate with us at brunch afterwards! And we love celebrate with a tasty mimosa. 🙂

With all of that said….that is a wrap on half marathon no. 22!

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, we love the medal series the Dallas Running Club is doing with this race!

Fun fact: DRC 2013 was our first half as pregnant ladies. Doesn’t it make it fun that 2014 was our first half as moms??

Filed Under: Races Tagged With: Dallas Marathon, Dallas Running Club, DRC Half, Half Marathon, postpartum, pregnant, race, race goals, running

Goals? Resolutions? Forward Progress!

January 9, 2015 by Life is a Run · 1 Comment

We haven’t in the past put New Year’s Resolutions on the blog. Remember how we use to do monthly goals?

The monthly goals were good, but there seems to be some sort of balance between New Year’s resolutions and monthly goals we need to find. However, we have decided this year to put our New Year’s resolutions out there. Maybe we’ll do a quarterly check in to see how we are doing?

Here goes nothing….

Teal’s Resolutions:

1. More yoga. My favorite yoga instructor is back at my gym two days a week so I would like to start going back to that. On days that I cannot I have 4 videos that he made that I would like to do from home. This goal is easy to accomplish since I basically did little yoga last year so I would like to say a minimum for 4 days a week even if it’s just 30 minutes. So far, on January 9^th, I have kept that!

2. More running. I would like to beat each month’s mileage by at least 1 mile. I would also like to run under a 2 hour half marathon because well… after 23 of these bad boys I still haven’t done that, I have gotten close but not under 2. Running is way more difficult to fit in with a baby so I will have to be pretty strategic about this and be fine with just going out and running 1 mile if that is all I can get.

Thanks to the ladies of Tone It Up we will both be using this to help jumpstart our running this new year!

3. Less mess. I know that sounds like a goal for a 5 year old, but I have this HORRIBLE problem of dropping everything on the floor or leaving it on the counter because I am busy or tired. I want to stop this. If I have a dish I am done with I want to get it put away or clean it, and other things like stop leaving my shoes everywhere (my parents have been hounding me about this since I was 7) but really what this will accomplish is less overall cleaning time. If I just do it then it won’t pile up, and I hope that this gives me more time.

4. More prep. This means more than just my food. I would like to prep breakfast and lunch for work each week at a minimum. I should maybe blog about this too to keep me on track and help other people to see what I do?! I would also just like to have a system with stuff and just getting out of the house. I have so much to deal with on a daily basis with breastfeeding, working a full time and a small part time job, running, working out, baby, life… I mean you get it. But sometimes I don’t do things because I am not prepared enough to actually do that.When I figure out a system I will fill you in!

5. More snail mail. This includes birthday cards, Valentine’s cards, thank you notes, Christmas cards, random letters. I like this and love getting “non-bill” mail. This also just goes along with number 4.Plus I know an awesome graphic designer that can help me out with this!

6. More muscles. So I am back to pre- pregnancy weight but it’s, well… NOT THE SAME. So I would have made this a “less weight” goal, which still might happen but I really would just like some things to go back to how they were before, so I’m gonna just go with more muscle. And this might mean working out from home more because I really haven’t figured out how to get to my trainer more than 1 day a week and still get to see my baby after work.

7. Less excuses. Let’s face it, if I have less excuses than maybe the above 6 goals will actually work!

Beth’s Resolutions:

1. Be more prepared. Over the holidays there were a couple times I was scrambling for things when I shouldn’t have waited until the last minute. These days waiting until the last minute is soooo not a good option because, well, (a) it stresses me out more and (b) it means sometimes things won’t get accomplished that have to get accomplished.

2. Complete a self created 30 day yoga challenge. Our friend Drum talked about how she had started her own 60 day yoga challenge which sent all sorts of inspiration my way. She basically put all the tools I’ve been needing to really dive into a practice on my own in my hands. (Thank you so much for that Drum!)

Ashtanga Yoga: The Practice Manual by David Swenson is the book I’ll be utilizing for my challenges

3. Complete a self created 60 day yoga challenge. Because these are my goals for the entire YEAR, I’m committing myself to two different yoga ones.

4. Run 900 miles. Ultimately I want a 1,000 mile year, but I’m afraid to fail and my highest mileage year to date has been 728.1 miles in 2013. I actually had to go back through my runkeeper records and learned that I had run over 700 miles. Originally I was going to say 750 and maybe I still should, but let’s try 900 this year. I’d like to bring consistency to my running as well so here’s to hoping this helps!

5. Run an under 2 hour half again. A goal to keep me motivated in my running! I’ve done it before pre-pregnancy and I’d like to do it again post pregnancy!

There you have it, folks! We’ll check back in with you and let you know how we are doing!

Again, Happy New Year!

Filed Under: Goals Tagged With: ashtanga yoga, david swenson, goals, Half Marathon, muscles, new years resolutions, runkeeper, running, snail mail, yoga

Wounded Warrior 2014

October 9, 2014 by Life is a Run · Leave a Comment

Ok, so if you saw yesterday’s post you might be thinking, huh?! Well, we migrated over to our own self-hosted site quite awhile ago, but we still get so many inquires about Advocare over on our old site we thought we’d make it abundantly clear over there we are operating over HERE!

And now we shall take you back into time to four months ago! 🙂 Sorry for all life flashbacks, but we want to keep a record here of our races and what not so back to June when Beth was still pregnant……

For the past three years I have run the Wounded Warrior 10K each June and really love this race even though usually it is super toasty outside. We are talking about June in Texas here. But I didn’t want to miss out on running Wounded Warrior for my fourth year in a row although I’m pretty sure no one would have minded if I said I’m pregnant I’m out this year.

why yes I did take a pre race care selfie 🙂

We actually had a WAY cooler summer this year so I was hoping for some great race day weather! As it turns out it actually was raining that morning and the race was delayed due to lightning and so by the time we did all get out there to run it sure was humid. I was going to take it easier out there and do lots of listening to my body. About 1.5 miles in I had some round ligament pain and had to stop to walk. Of course I had lots of people around me checking on me to make sure I was ok. Such sweet people!

Luckily, my friend, Cassie, out there let me tag-a-long with her on the course and we did a nice run/walk combo to get through the 10K. I’m so glad that I did still commit to running this race. The heat was my biggest fear about keeping up with running. This is probably the least exciting race recap, but if you made it through this then THANKS!

And I shall leave you with this picture because it’s funny! 🙂

hashtag pregnant jokes

Filed Under: Pregnancy, Races Tagged With: 10k, Half Marathon, Irving, pregnant jokes, pregnant running, racing, running, Texas, Wounded Warrior

Rock ‘n’ Roll Dallas 2014

July 2, 2014 by Life is a Run · Leave a Comment

So at this point it’s July and it’s about dang time I put up a recap of my last half marathon in MARCH, right?! Right! Here goes – when we ran New Years Double on January 1st Teal did the half and I did the the full so we found ourselves yet again at not the same half marathon number. Don’t you love how we try and keep that the same?? It just makes it easier to keep count!

I had signed up for Rock ‘n’ Roll Dallas as the last half I would run during this pregnancy. The weather has been pretty good for this race minus 2012 when it was hot! I didn’t then and still don’t now really know how pregnancy and hot weather mix, but it completely scares me! 🙂 Anyway, I thought this would be a great last half to do plus it was great motivation to keep me going with running. And my cousin/friend, Chase, would be coming up from Houston to run this race as well!

It was hard to have goals for this race other than finish it! At 20 weeks pregnant and still not really noticeable that I am pregnant I just didn’t know what my body would want to do that day. While you couldn’t totally tell I was pregnant my pace had definitely slowed down some so I knew I was not going to be busting out a new PR or anything that day. Of course, as race day got closer I did have this idea in my head that maybe I could achieve a 2:10 half, but again this would take a lot of listening to my body.

I got in my corral just minutes before the first corral was signaled to take off. I was getting nervous, but was also thankful that it was kind of chilly out there instead of really, really hot! When it was our turn Chase and I took off together although we didn’t stay together long because of a potty break. 🙂 In our family we joke about how some of us have the world’s smallest bladders and lucky for both Chase and me we inherited it! I knew I would see some friendly faces out on the course so I just tried to start off conservatively and keep an eye out for people to say “hi” to!

photo cred to Amy Stubblefield

My first sighting was Amy from NTX Runners who snapped the above picture of me. Since I waited until the beginning of July to write this recap (minus the few notes I put in my phone) I can’t remember now when I expected to see Teal & Catherine out there cheering, but it was juuuust shortly after this and I was soooo happy to see their smiling faces!

My happiness of seeing them is evidenced below. 🙂

A little blurry, but I was surviving which is good to do somewhere around the 3.5 mile mark of a half marathon. 🙂 So I kept on going and the next big thing I remember from the course was that I was running through a neighborhood, saw this group of people outside of a house and thought that little kid looks familiar! Ohhhh, it’s Cason! As in the son of J-Si from KISS FM and sure enough his wife, Kinsey, holding their daughter and their son, Cason, playing. Though I didn’t actually see J-Si out there anywhere. Bummer! But I thought that was fun since I’m a Kidd Kraddick in the Morning fan!

Shortly after this I saw the most awesome cheering squad comprised of FRUNNERS!! Right around mile 8 which made me oh so happy! I mean, look at those happy faces and look at that hot dog! 🙂

photo cred to Mama C

This left me with a goofy grin on my face and not even a mile down the road from that sighting did I hear the sounds of a police officer being an awesome cheerleader for all of the runners! This was the first time I’d really heard an officer be THAT encouraging and vocal towards runners on a race course. I loved it! So pretty much the goofy grinned stayed on my face that much longer thanks to him. Before you know it I was telling myself you only have a 5K left! And then it was you only have a mile left! Somewhere I was able to tap into a bit of a reserve for a final kick right before the finish line.

I don’t know who exactly gets the photo cred here, but Lisa texted me the picture 🙂

Oh, did you wanna know if I actually came in around 2:10 or not like I had put in my head?! Well, I made it across the finish line in 2:09:19! I was pretty darn proud of myself and felt like I ran a really conservative race considering I was in fact running for two. 🙂

With that I was caught up to Teal with half marathon no. 21 in the books! We will see you half marathons again on the other side of our pregnancies! 🙂

Filed Under: Pregnancy, Races Tagged With: 20 weeks, frunners, half, Half Marathon, J-Si, Kidd Kraddick, Kidd Kraddick in the Morning, KISS FM, pregnancy, pregnant running, Rock 'n' Roll Dallas, running, running for two

February’s “Race”

March 13, 2014 by Life is a Run · 5 Comments

You guys!!! Our last post was our 300th! *pats each other on the back* It’s crazy that we’ve been doing this whole blog thing for right at about 3 years now! Thanks to those of you for sticking with us! Starting #LiAR has definitely opened us up to a wealth of knowledge (running and then some) and a lot of great frunners! Shoutout to Mama C who, we believe, is responsible for coining that term! 🙂

Back to the original reason we sat down to write this post…..a half marathon about 5 weeks ago! We posted some pictures on instagram, but still wanted to put some details out there. We signed up to run The Texas Half in February. The timing on this race was pretty perfect for around the time Teal wanted to run just one more half before she said good bye to racing half marathons during pregnancy. Plus this year they were offering a jacket with your registration! Apparently you change things up just a little bit from a shirt to a jacket and the people want to sign up for your race. We were sold and handed over our moolah to The Texas Half.

Our pre-“race” pic

Fast forward to race weekend and Saturday a front was moving in and bringing the cold weather back to DFW. It was another one of those times of religiously stalking the weather to see what would happen. We saw rain, we saw snow…..but what was really going to happen?!

Ultimately we didn’t give the race a chance. We decided to let our current state of each of us growing a human + slower running + freezing temperatures = no race for LiAR. You can call us wimps! But the idea of having to run/walk a half in freezing temps just did not sound appealing nor did the idea of the weather potentially getting REAL bad and either one of us getting hurt. We each still wanted to get miles in for the day so we hit up Beth’s gym together for some good ol’ treadmill miles.

26 weeks!

13 weeks

Between the two of us we put in 14.2 miles that day so if we pretend like it was a relay with just some extra mileage then we completed a half! YAY! 😀

Filed Under: Pregnancy Tagged With: DFW, frunners, Half Marathon, miles, pregnant running, running, The Texas Half, treadmill

Honkers Marathon, Spoiler: We Did the Half

February 26, 2014 by Life is a Run · Leave a Comment

Back in January, Beth and Brent had one weekend where they were invited to three weddings. In order to make it to at least 2 of the 3 they decided he would stay in Dallas and attend one and Beth would set off into the sunset with Teal to California for another wedding. 🙂

Conveniently, the California wedding was for Beth’s high school buddy who let us stay at his house each time we went out to Cali for Disneyland Half, so Teal had gotten to know him. When we came up with the plan of the two of us going out to California based on planning to try and get pregnant we anticipated that both of us would be with child on the trip. 🙂 So that also meant we probably wouldn’t be staying up late drinking adult beverages which meant we could definitely squeeze a race into the weekend too!

We searched the internets and narrowed down our search to two races – we ha d a Saturday option and a Sunday option. Turns out that Sunday’s option was the winner of the two which was Honkers Motivational Marathon. We liked the name of the race. 😀 Annnnnd part of the logo involves a duck which Teal is named after a duck so it’s fitting, right?!

The first time we’ve ever gotten a tech half zip pullover

Ok, really we found out later that the logo features a goose not a duck. A Canada goose to be more specific. 🙂

Contrary to what we thought – we did stay up late both nights that weekend, but we were able to get out of bed Sunday morning anyway and made our way to Riverdale Park.

The race was on the smaller side and was entirely along the Santa Ana River Trail as well as being an out and back course. From the beginning the plan was to stay together the whole way. 🙂

We still have wedding hair!

Off, we went! Pretty sure we stopped around mile 1 for a potty break. The joys of running pregnant, right? Shortly thereafter we ran by a lady whose capris were so see through we could actually see the tattoo on her butt cheek (because you know we notice these things which is why we wrote THIS blog post).

We are both pregnant running here although you cannot tell that AT ALL

At one point we had a back and forth game of catch up with the course director and he said to us, “hey get your camera back out I’m going to photobomb you!” Haha, OK! Such an encouraging guy!

We caught up with a runner who was out there doing the full and we offered to take a picture for her who gave us more background on the race than we knew about. The woman who started the race was a friend of hers that wanted a way to celebrate her remission with cancer and run her……marathon (OK so it’s been to long and some of the details are foggy now and we have pregnancy brains!), so the Honkers Marathon was born!

And just like we said we would run together…..our finisher’s pictures prove that we did! This was half no. 21 for Tealio and half no. 20 for Beeper!

Filed Under: Races Tagged With: California, goose, Half Marathon, Honkers Motivational Marathon, out and back course, pregnant running, Riverdale Park, running, Santa Ana River Trail

Running for Two: Trimester Two

February 6, 2014 by Life is a Run · Leave a Comment

They say the second trimester is the “honeymoon” phase and I have to say I am really not sure what they mean by that. I was not as tired which was awesome, and I didn’t have to just sit around and rest like I was in the first trimester, but that was about it. Everything else was still the same in terms of working out and running feeling more and more like extra work.

I had previously complained about breathing but it did not really become harder, which was nice. I just had some moments of feeling breathless and much of that started in the last couple of weeks of the second trimester instead of the beginning. Our last White Rock 9 mile run was tough and I had spots where I had to stand more to catch my breath even at a slow pace.

My pace has dropped again. I was normally around a 9:30 mile runner on average and am now closer to 10:30-11 average, which is hard to swallow sometimes. It’s slow (slow for me, not the world of running.) I didn’t think it would get that slow, but it has, and mixed in with that slowness is also many breaks.

Towards the middle of the second Trimester I had a pulling feeling in my lower stomach. Some I really can’t explain what they were, but it more or less felt like tightness or soreness at the bottom. I hesitate to call it round ligament pain (I only know about that because I read other people’s horror stories) and what I was experiencing was not horrible, it was just uncomfortable. It mostly would happen if I did runs closer together and would just stay tight for a couple of days. Also with that I had a few runs where I just felt the baby in weird places and stopped running. My belly button has felt bruised and sometimes when running it would feel like he was pushing there so I would stop running. I have also had a few times where I had to walk until he moved or a random pain would go away. It’s just weird to have a human in there doing its own thing while you are running. Most of the time it is fine, but sometimes it is weird and I would just stop and walk until it went away! Not sure what else to do but really my advice, if you wanted it, is just stop! I think if this was a second baby I would feel differently but having nothing to really compare feelings to it makes me nervous so I just stay cautious, even though I am sure it is fine!

My back HURTS. The last half we ran in California, the back pain started about the 8^th mile and continued for a week… haha

I don’t brave the elements like I would have before. It’s not worth freezing or burning up for any length of time to run a half while growing a human! As a matter of fact we both wussed out of our last half, and what would have been my last half with this baby due to poor weather.

In none running related news I got my trainer back!! I went 13 weeks without my trainer due to him opening a new gym, FIT, but am glad to be back with him and have consistent monitored cross training and weight lifting! It also just mentally makes me feel better. Packing on pounds is required and happens, but it’s not fun to see on the scale and being active really helps with this mental game. I struggle with it a lot and I am sure/wonder/hope I’m not alone in thinking lots of pregnant people do too.

I am ready for the 3^rd trimester and interested to see how much I will be able to keep moving. Many say it’s the most uncomfortable time, which I totally believe; I am not comfortable now but it is important to me to keep moving and do what I can. My plan is to keep running with a goal of 15 miles a week and will most likely not run any longer than 6-9 miles at a time. No more half marathons until after the baby gets here!

We really would love to hear from anyone who is or has run while pregnant! It’s nice to hear the stories, different experiences and advice! Let us know.

Filed Under: Pregnancy Tagged With: FIT, FIT at Stonebridge Ranch, Half Marathon, pregnant, running, running for two, second trimester, trainer, White Rock Lake

New Year’s Double Eve & Day

February 3, 2014 by Life is a Run · 3 Comments

We have decided to blame #Icepocalypse on a lot of things we have found annoying lately. We also approve of any Dallasites doing the same! Prior to #Icepocalypse, we signed up to run the Day part of the New Year’s Double race to support and keep our friend Catherine entertained. She was going to use the double races as training for her 50 mile race in February. 50, yes, 50 miles, we think she is nuts too! BUT… the stupid weather gods had other plans that basically changed the makeup of the two days. Catherine trained super hard for Dallas and wanted to race for a PR and instead decided to race the Eve portion of the the New Years Double and drop the Day race all together. That left Beth running the Day marathon solo (she would have run with Catherine the entire race) and Teal running the day half solo.

We whined…. a lot and then just decided we would make the best of it.

We woke up New Year’s Eve day and headed to Celebration Park to cheer on Catherine and Paul as they worked towards a sub 4 marathon.

Jesse found us!

1496172_10201259338227217_78182120_o (2)

Race spectating is hard work! …..especially when you’re preggo 🙂
photo cred: Jesse Puentes

It totally looked like Beth was drinking a mimosa or some sort of adult bev in that giant cup until you actually learned she was pregnant, huh?

Catherine is flying!

We also gotta to help out another runner fan club/cheer squad and jump there car for them. 🙂 Thankfully, Teal comes prepared for such a situation!

@mcgaritydotme having fun out on the course

Beth and Brent stayed the night at Teal and Michael’s house and basically had a chill evening of Aggie football watching. We say “chill” but did anyone watch that game? Madness! Beth, in true Beth fashion left her Garmin at home and trekked home at midnight to get it putting us both in bed after midnight, we made it to see the ball drop! Which we really didn’t expect to happen but are glad it did. Brilliant plan for marathon and half marathon running, right?!

Luckily the race had a late start and we strolled up, went to the bathroom, chatted with Ninja and began the race. Super laid back with a small race, we even missed our wave starts, whoops. From here there is really not much else to say except we ran the entire half together, again in true preggo running fashion, we took it super slow and cautious. 🙂 Thank god for patient running buddies who don’t kill you when you have to go to the bathroom during the race!

After the first lap of the race we were greeted by basically the BEST bicycle cheering squad one could hope for. All of our frunners were in the area knocking out a New Year’s Day bike ride together and they decided to bike over and cheer us on! We LOVED it and it gave us a boost to run around that dang course again!!

photo cred: @thatpinkgirl

We also LOVED the Frisco Running Clubs water station. They sure know what they are doing. Our crazy friend Mark was at the station and we swear you could hear is voice all over the park. He kept us motivated and ran alongside us in a few spots, but don’t worry, never more than .25 of a mile. 🙂 We might also add this station had it all, oreos, m&m’s, skittle, coffee station, and black eye peas! That’s a first for us.

photo cred: Nancy Howard

Running by Frisco Running Club’s water station!
photo cred: Nancy Howard

We are both proud to say we finished our races and love starting out the new year with a healthy activity. Next year however, we think we are sleeping in!!

Filed Under: Races, Uncategorized Tagged With: Dallas, double races, Half Marathon, Marathon, New Years Double, PR, race, running

Wordless Wednesday No. 42

December 11, 2013 by Life is a Run · Leave a Comment

Filed Under: Wordless Wednesday Tagged With: Dallas Marathon, garm, Half Marathon, long runs, Marathon, training, White Rock Lake

How the Ice Ate Dallas Marathon

December 10, 2013 by Life is a Run · Leave a Comment

Just in case you didn’t know or somehow missed, we were supposed to run the Dallas Marathon this past Sunday (Beth the full and Teal the half), but Mother Nature had a completely different plan for us and the rest of the Dallas Marathon hopefuls. Thursday afternoon Dallas weather turned from what was a warm, high in the 70’s during the week to what we Dallasites refer to as the #Icepocalypse2013.

Our favorite weatherman, Pete Delkus, basically told us on Thursday night that we were all about to be “entombed” by ice. We of course spent our evenings in denial and really just seemed worried about what the heck we would wear to run in this weather. Beth tweeted our Colorado friend Courtney for advice on what to wear since she is used to this sort of thing. We were not thinking at all that we actually not run this race at all, or at least if the thought was there we were trying to ignore it!

Turns out Pete was right (and he’s apparently now a weather god) and when we woke up Friday Texas looked much like this…

Roads were ridiculous and not drivable. We southerners are not prepared for this type of thing, it’s not just that people can’t drive or don’t know how to drive on it, we simply don’t have the road clearing equipment like they do in the north, and the little we have is not enough to clear the metroplex with any type of speed! We are always just stuck when this happens, entombed, if you will! Ugh! We still were pretty much in denial and thought the weather would get above freezing before Sunday and we could run. Surely it would, right?? We thought maybe they would just delay it. Dallas Marathon folks let us know what they could and instead of canceling the expo they delayed the opening until 2pm on Friday. That has to be a good sign right?

Well, then Friday lunch time came around. Nothing was improving, and we were all trapped. Then it came. An email from Dallas Marathon at 12:50ish Friday afternoon, cancelling not only the expo but cancelling the race altogether. 🙁

The worst email we’ve gotten in awhile! 🙁

There it was. Months of training seemingly wasted, especially for those who battled months of marathon training. Devastating really, without trying to be hugely dramatic, we get there are worse things in life, but for this, at this time, it is devastating. It was hard not to have a pity party. We did and started to Google. There has to be another marathon close that is open? We can drive (wait, can we??) Either way. We looked. The BCS marathon in College Station was the best bet but just still wasn’t feasible for us. :-/ We were out from running.

Commence eating all the carbs…

We ate, slept, did puzzles, and talked with Catherine (we are positive all of our husband’s rolled their eyes on this one) all weekend, and continued to live in denial that this had actually happened.

Come Sunday, we really hadn’t heard much about the details about the cancellation. We knew, having run a ton of races that we were not going to get a refund and we knew that and were not mad. We didn’t know about anything else. Dallas Marathon again sent us another email…

They are giving us our participant shirts!!

We think this was an awesome response and we took to Facebook to thank them for handling it so well. We were pretty shocked to see some of the responses given to the race. Like “where is our refund”, or “ how could you do this”, or whatever other idiotic response you can think of. We knew, everyone knew, you had to click an agreement before you could complete your registration that there would be no refunds for the race. This is pretty much a standard in racing and SUPER rare that you would actually get money back due to weather or cancellation. We get it. Apparently many others do not.

This race is put on by RUNNERS for RUNNERS. It is not one of those races that travels all over the country making tons of money putting on races. We can point you in the direction of some of those if you would like. This is different and this should be a learning experience for all. We do not claim to know what all goes in to race directing but we do know that this race gives a medal, a participant shirt, a finisher’s shirt, fancy bibs, food for runners, water stations, Gatorade, safety, police, port-o-potties, and anything else you can think of that we left off! We know money comes from different places and there are donations, but we also know that Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children benefits directly from money raised by Dallas Marathon. Hopefully others know this now because to call them thieves we think is a little ridiculous!

Needless to say we vented and then thanked Dallas Marathon for making the decision. They did what was best for the safety of runners and also for the city already strapped for resources. They knew it is not a good idea to take resources from the city to clear a race course when thousands didn’t have power, the roads needed to be scraped and sand poured, and officers needed to help those in need. Thank you for that!

Also, if you haven’t met our friend Erik. You are about to. He, and his friends, have been a part of an unofficial, which should be official (wink, wink Dallas Marathon) cheering section at the Dolly Parton hills (more frequently referred to as “The Dollies”), one of the most challenging areas of the course. Erik dresses as a Dolly, and helps runners up and down those hills in style. He sent us these pictures to cheer us, and everyone else up.

Pretty Sexy isn’t he? (sorry, he’s taken!) Who would want to miss this cheer section? Not us, and we didn’t have to this year either! He made our day and made the blow of the cancellation a little more bearable! Thank you for that, Erik!

Thanks again Dallas Marathon!! Mother Nature we are still pretty irritated at you, but we will be back in 2014!

Filed Under: Life Tagged With: BCS Marathon, Dallas Marathon, dolly parton, finisher's shirt, Half Marathon, Icepocalypse, Marathon, participant shirt, Pete Delkus, race medal, runners, running, Texas Scottish Rite Hospital, the dollies, training