I crossed the start line and finish line of the Dallas Marathon, but I’m not counting it towards my official count.
This race was a total bummer to be honest. I was worried months ahead of time about being swept because the race had a hard sweep. I couldn’t change my corral after registering, so I tried to self-seed the morning of the race. I felt relatively strong too…no major pacing issues, I was pretty consistent, the weather was extremely favorable. There were a few emotionally tough spots, such as the park with all the footbridges. Being near water was really tough given the events of a month prior. I was looking forward to a really strong finish, until I ran out of hydration at mile 18.5. I looked at the map during my slow intervals, and saw that there would be an aid station at mile 20. I get to 20 miles and….NOTHING! No tables, nothing on the curb. Absolutely nothing. I see a convenience store right up the street, so I duck into it to grab some electrolytes. I start drinking them, and then attempt to fill up my hydration bladder while walking so that I would not lose any time. For the next 3 miles, I’m annoyed but at least on schedule to finish on time. Some time later, I see roving sweeper cars and buses. I remember reading that if I fell below the minimum pace needed, or if I showed signs of struggling to keep up, then they’d pull me. I would have the option of finishing on my own on sidewalks but would have to forfeit my bib and finisher time. Otherwise, I could get into the sweeper van and be shuttled closer to the end so that I could cross the finish line to get an official time.
At mile 23, a race official instructed me to get in the sweeper van so that they could leapfrog me. They dropped me off about 0.25 from the finish line. It actually took them *longer* to sweep, drive, and leapfrog me than it would’ve taken me to run that distance on my own. The fiasco lasted between 2:22pm-3:10 pm. I absolutely could’ve finished the race under time if they just let me continue 🙄
I’ve got a LOT of beef with this race. 1) Their support/aid stations were missing at mile 20, so I had to run into a convenience store to get electrolytes. 2) The electrolytes on-course were watered down so much that it was pointless to drink them instead of water…at that stage of the race, it’ll just cause more cramping. 3) Earlier participants got cooling towels, bananas, orange slices. Back-of-packers got unattended or missing tables. 4) Stopped at 12 porta-potties…none had bathroom tissue or hand sanitizer. 5) In all the races I’ve done, sweep times are calculated from when the last runner crosses the start line. In this case they actually let all the corrals go early, despite posting an 8:30am start for the last corral. Had they followed their own math, about 45 runners would’ve been able to finish. 6) They didn’t have my shirt sizes for both the participant shirt AND the finisher shirt, despite having registered in May and 7) the obvious sweep fiasco.
Big city races are so expensive. I don’t mind paying a premium if I’m getting good service and value. (See: runDisney and pre-2017 Rock n Roll Marathon Series) Smaller local races work on a tiny sliver of a budget and never have these issues. I think I might be over big city races for awhile, unless they actually have a reputation of being back-of-the-pack friendly (like Honolulu).
I’m royally annoyed that I can’t (won’t) use this towards my finisher count 😑 Was really hoping to finish the year out with a win.
Amara in Training 