Marathon No. 2 - Fail!

Not too far from reality

So it is no secret to anyone now that when Texas has some sort of winter weather it tends to really mess things up. We saw it a couple of years ago during the Super Bowl XLV when the Dallas/Ft Worth area got hit with an ice storm that pretty much shut everything down. Now, fast forward 2 years and we encountered a similar situation. I think Mother Nature must be mad at sport events in the Metroplex. Through out the week leading to the Marathon we had great temperatures, who would've believe it was even December. On Wednesday we had almost 80-deg weather, we knew it was going to go down significantly, but I don't think anyone could have guessed the magnitude of this one.

We were glued to the TV... it looked like a chilly run

On Thursday temperatures really went down, stayed in the 30's most of the day and there was rain and sleet on the forecast. 4 pm rolled in and it was all starting to go down, and going down quick. It rained/sleeted all night until almost noon on Friday. Friday rolled in and the temperatures didn't even go above freezing. By 10 am, marathon organizers had already pushed opening the Expo to 2 pm and they kept everyone on the edge as the future of the marathon was uncertain. By around 1 pm, the announcement came out, the Dallas Marathon has been CANCELLED.

That was today Sat. 12/7 at noon

it was official

We kept chatting with the girls from the team and some other people that we knew were doing it and it was more uncertainty. We were trying to figure out logistics of packet pickup. Roads were iced up, news were reporting accidents all over the place, trains were not working 100% and DART (Dallas Area Rapid Transit) was shut down too. Getting there by train which was an option at one point was becoming less attractive. We were just going to wait until Saturday to see what the the weather forecast called for, but it wasn't looking too good either. It was adding a lot of stress, not only getting to pick up bibs and the t-shirt but also the logistics of getting there on race day. We were saying that we could run in the cold, we had done plenty of runs in the cold and were actually ok with them, but going across the bridges on the route while frozen would've turned simply dangerous. We would've been forced to potentially walk through aid stations as water/gatorade mix would've become black ice and then you had hundreds of volunteers, friends, families and fans cheering runners out there exposed to the elements. Getting them to and from the race site was not an easy task and we are thankful the marathon organization considered not only the runners' safety but also everyone involved with it. We even knew of people that were flying in from out of state on Friday that couldn't get in because the Dallas area airports were shutdown and thousands of flights were cancelled.

couldn't say it any better

Even though we were disappointed that we had put a few months of training plus $100 registration fee, we were actually happy that it was cancelled. Training can always be done, $100 registration fees were donated to a good cause after all, but being safe and having the thousands of people involved with the marathon safe is something that you can't quantify or put a price tag on. We got an email today from the organization saying that they mail us our t-shirts and bibs and will do something special for 2013 runners when they open 2014 registration. Also if you run on 2014 you would get your 2013 medal too. We have to think that through very well, our 2014 year is taking shape and fitting a full marathon at the end will be hard and probably painful, so we are going to call it probably in about 7-8 months, so stay tuned for that.

For now, all I can say is that I'm happy I don't have to get up at 5 am to get ready to run in subfreezing temperatures. :). This marks the end of our 2013 official season, we are still going to run the 5k on New Year's Eve day or New Year's day but it will be for fun and to do something with my parents and sister.

Until then, hope you are a lot warmer than we are in Fort Worth and if you are in Fort Worth, hope you and your peeps are safe at home. :).

What really matters!!!! all we were missing was Res

All I can say is: "We will do the Dallas Marathon one day"... going on year 2, same as Res, it's starting to look like an Elusive Marathon