Derek, Don, Jarrod, Wilhe and I ran the White Rock Marathon this morning as a 5-man corporate relay team. We finished the 26.2 miles in 3 hours and 50 minutes - good enough for 104th place out of 575 relay teams. I ran the first leg (6 miles with an overall uphill slant) in 50 minutes for an 8:08/mi pace.
The weather was on the cool side (temperatures in the 40s). We also had a few light showers, but thankfully, the heavy rains (scattered thunderstorms were forecast) stayed away.
The starting line was quite crowded (the 15,000 entry slots were all sold out) but I was able to sneak in near the front with the other relay runners. It was quite a thrill to be in a race that was televised on network TV (the local ABC station covered it); I think I may have been captured at the start at the American Airlines Center/Victory Park. (Jarrod is going to check his TiVo :-)
There were a few annoyances: (1) Had to pay for parking - $5 is actually pretty reasonable, but since there were no in-and-out priviledges, we had to pay twice after using Derek's car for relay exchange point transport. (2) Insufficient bathrooms - huge lines at the American Airlines Center at the start and lines at the porta-potties at 6-mile exchange point (after I had run 6 miles). (3) Ran out of food too quickly at the post-race party - our team did okay since we finished in under 4 hours. But I'm guessing that a lot of people that finished in over 4 and a half hours (at a decent 10:20 pace) missed out on the pasta salads, tomato basil soup, fish tacos, cookies, and sushi that the local restaurants offered (in addition to yogurt smoothies, bottled water, coffee, and beer beverage options).
Overall, though, the race was nice - great crowds cheering you on and a pretty good course. I look forward to running the full marathon sometime in the future.
Course map: http://www.mapmyrace.com/races/DallasWhiteRock2006
No comments:
Post a Comment