Marathons: Paul #18, Leah #8, State #4 : Dallas Marathon 2012
9th December 2012, Dallas, Texas, USA
Finish Time = 4:33:16
Between Baystate in October and this marathon in December, we had got married in November and therefore all of our free time had been spent organizing and planning the wedding. Training had taken a complete back seat (or rather, no seat). However, continuing on our mission to run in different States we headed over to Texas for some winter warmth. Unfortunately we didn’t enjoy Dallas or this race.
We felt unhealthy just being in the city, the smell of fried food was everywhere and we would walk past places that seemed to expel their cooking oil air just onto the streets. It probably didn’t help that a knee injury flared up for Leah, making it a miserable race for her.
Early on she had been saying that her knee was hurting and then 11 miles into the race we had to stop on the side of the road because she was in so much pain she was almost in tears. I decided to stay with her rather than heading off and running my own race and while trying to be encouraging I was concerned about how she would get through the rest of it with this problem.
To her absolute credit once we carried on she just clenched her teeth and fought through it. I tried not to ask how it was doing as often you just want to forget and not have someone remind you / have you focusing back on it. We stopped on occasions to stretch and to walk.
Listen to my Engines!
At one point in the run we ran past a group of bikers with their Harley Davidsons on the grass at the side of the road. They meant well, cheering the runners on but they also had their bike engines on with the exhausts pointing towards the runners and would revs their engines on full as we went by. I understand that they were trying to add to the atmosphere but it did that in a very literal way, adding gas fumes into our lungs. Seriously guys, how could you think we would want this?
We made it through to the finish in our slowest joint time together (apart from the Boulder practice marathon). We were happy to have completed another State but concerned about Leah’s knee. Our first run as Marathon Pipers hadn’t gone well and we were hoping it wasn’t a sign of things to come!
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