Things that go wrong at a marathon (even if you’re experienced!)

Things that go wrong at a marathon (even if you’re experienced!)

Sixth marathon seems like a no brainer that you should have it all figured out.  Suddenly everything seems to fall apart.  5:15 AM at Luke’s Fort Worth, almost everyone shows up on time.  We wait 7 minutes for one runner and ended up leaving him.  I actually still don’t know if he ended up coming to the race.  It was said in the truck I was riding in, “If this were a hunting trip we would have left at 5:15!”

Off to Dallas we go.  Smooth ride, got to Fair Park in plenty of time to go to McDonald’s and use their restroom since we’d be using the port-o-lets the other 5-10 times that morning.  We were told to meet at the Luke’s tent at 7:15.  We get in the park about 6:20 and spend the next hour literally running around looking for a Luke’s tent.  We asked information…they didn’t know.  Maybe we didn’t see it because the Luke’s tent wasn’t manned, there was nothing in it, and it was put up short so no one could get under it (except me because I’m short. J)

Luckily we ran into someone who had seen the coach we were trying to meet.  His lovely wife was going to take all of our bags to bag check so we could wear our warm clothes as long as possible.  We start making our way towards to start line at 7:40ish.  We’ve all gone to the bathroom many times, got our music and watches ready.  At about 7:50 we take off our warm clothes (mine included a ski coat), put them in our bags to check and hand them over to go get in the start line.  Even though I was supposed to be in C Corral I decided to start the run with the people I knew and trained with.  We were way back in J or K!

Being at a new location, White Rock marathon will have some logistics to figure out.  One of which is that fact that some runners didn’t start until 1 hour after the race started!  We started at 8:40.  I had finished breakfast like I was supposed to by 5:15.  Now, my nutrition was going to be all messed up!  Not to mention I had left my water bottle in my bag to be checked.  Lovely!  I’m now standing in the freezing cold with no water, already burned up a lot of energy running around and freezing and I have to go to the bathroom.  One thing they did right was have port-o-lets right by the start line.  With a few minutes to spare, I run to the bathroom one last time and come up with my plan…when I’ll take my gels now and at what stops I’ll get water.  Luckily, I had studied the map.

All in all, it was a great race, lots of cheering spectators, and the weather was perfect.  Moral of the story: you can have the best laid plans, but when they get messed up, it’s all in the attitude how the rest of the story will play out.