Cole Ramirez's Staging Area

I love the timing of this race. Cowtown is a better race on almost every front, but training for Cowtown leaves you doing long training runs right around Christmas. I love that the Dallas marathon happens in mid December, leaving you free to pull back from running so much and recover through the holidays.

THE GOOD: Route incorporates both city views and lake views. Race starts on time. Great expo. Super cute participant shirt. Plenty of water/gatorade stations. Easy bathroom access in convention center.

THE BAD: Corrals are too big. The first mile is very tight. If they doubled the number of corrals to make them more pace-specific, this would help. Lots of potholes on the road (not the fault of race production, just sayin). The finisher shirt has been ugly two years in a row. Mostly a fit problem, as opposed to design. U-can is the gel sponsor, which I don’t personally care for.

Overall, it’s a well run race – I can’t imagine all that goes into executing such a big event in the city. There are some serious hills in miles 19-20ish that make it a not-so-easy but interesting course. But if you’re trying to decide between Dallas in December or Cowtown in February, go Cowtown.

Despite its name, this race is NOT in the dark. On the contrary, it’s at 6pm, which is close to peak heat for Texas. This is what makes the otherwise flat course difficult: heat. I can understand why they don’t want the run to actually be in the dark, but then why call it that?

In my opinion, the race could be improved by moving the start time back an hour. The run would still be in the light, but the temperature would have gone down a bit.

Otherwise, a great race. Easy packet pickup at Bear Creek Running store. A good number of participants both fast and slow, but still small enough for parking and spectating to be very very easy. Water bottles at the finish.

The shirts could have been better (purple, meh).

The course difficulty here is obviously the fact that it’s an August race in Texas. It was hot. Otherwise, the course is almost completely flat and very easy. There was great signage AND people directing runners at every fork, split off, or turn around.

The race started late, but it seems like most races I’ve done at White Rock Lake have started late, so it could be that this is more an issue with the lake security team than with the race producers.

Plenty of water and gatorade. I don’t know what the deal was but the first few water stops had HOT water – like it had been sitting out all night and risen to 85/90 degrees – but after that all the water was cold. The refreshments after the race could have been better. It looked like there were quite a few options at one point but they were largely consumed by the 5k and 10k participants. I finished at the early part of the half, but some vendors were already packing up to go home. I’d imagine the people who took over 2 hours to finish the half crossed the finish to a line of empty tents!

Also, I somehow ordered the incorrect shirt size and they said they have a no exchange policy. Most races will let you exchange it on the day of the race, but they said they order tightly. So double check your size when you order!

In any case, great race production. I love the size of these races… not too small, not too big. This one was well staffed and well run. I would do it again.

There’s a lot to love about this race. It’s a great size – enough runners to be FUN but not enough to make parking or the portapotty line an issue. The swag was great. Love the socks! Loved the participation from our armed forces, and loved supporting causes that support our military. Much hillier course than I anticipated! Half marathon included two loops of rolling hills. Maintaining pace on the trail portion was also difficult…. both because of the windy trail and the weaving around slower 5k/10k participants.

Water stations felt plentiful. No gu/nutrition on the course, just water and gatorade or whatever. Water and some kind of sports drink at the finish, but no snacks.

The main reason for the three star rating is the poor directional signage. Around mile 10.5, there was a blue arrow pointing to the right that drove MANY half marathoners off course and onto the 10k loop. There needed to be a half marathon sign in that same spot directing the half marathoners to run straight. Taking the 10k loop portion cut somewhere around 0.17 miles off the length of the course. Obviously this is not a cheating situation… none of the runners meant to cut their race short! But I do think it should have been mentioned or taken into account in the awards. Comparing race times is meaningless if people are running different distances. Even before this, there were multiple points along the course where I was confused about whether I was supposed to turn or go straight. Signage needs to be CLEARLY marked HALF MARATHON or 10K instead of just being color coded. They need double the signs, too.

Also, as the race grows, I would suggest keeping it off the bear creek trail. It’s challenging for half marathoners to weave through the 10k walkers… the trail is just too narrow for the number of runners. I think the race has outgrown the trail.

Overall, a fun race. Hopefully the race directors get lots of feedback about the signage issue and correct it for next year.

The shirts are good. I actually like the participator shirt better than the finisher shirt. The neck hole on the finisher shirt is bizarrely small. I’m a normal sized woman. It should not be hard to get this shirt over my head and around my neck. But I digress – I don’t run for the shirts.

The course is ok. I only ran the half, so I didn’t get to experience the part around the lake, which I know is beautiful because I’ve run other races around it. The half is mostly in downtown with part through the bordering neighborhoods. Dallas is pretty ugly so I liked the neighborhood stretches the best. There are some hills throughout but I wouldn’t personally call this a hilly course.

There is water/gatorade every other mile but I think the nutrition could definitely be offered more frequently. For the half, the only gels are on mile 8. Apparently there was supposed to be gels at the start, but I never saw any.

The spectator support is great in the neighborhoods (a contributing factor to why I liked those stretches best), but there’s not a lot in the way of race entertainment otherwise. I’m comparing it to Cowtown I guess, where there is entertainment almost every mile for the entire half.

The big issue, and the reason I would hesitate to run Dallas BMW again, is the corral organization. There are only 4 corrals, and corral A contains people running 5:00 pace to 10:00+ pace. There is no organization by time within the corral. I spent the first two miles dodging runners going 12 minutes per mile. I did so much weaving in the first two miles that my half marathon race actually ended up being 13.5 miles! Dallas needs to figure out a better way to do this. Corral A should be separated into 5-6 different corrals with tighter pace ranges.

Lastly, this race is EXPENSIVE. It’s the most expensive race I’ve ever run (including my fulls!) and I just don’t think it was worth the premium cost. Next fall I’ll probably go back to running DRCs the half and stick with the Cowtown full (which I do highly recommend!! A great course!!).

This is an exciting route through the Stockyards, downtown, and beautiful Fort Worth neighborhoods. There are a couple of small hills, but nothing excessive. Texas is pretty flat, remember.

For the first half, the race entertainment was ON POINT. They had music every half mile or so and the roads were lined with cheering spectators. How motivating! This all came to a grinding halt when the half marathon folks split off and start making their way back to the finish. From that point on, there were a few neighborhoods who organized block parties to cheer us on and offer refreshments (fruit, candy, fireball) and there was a water/gatorade stand every mile, but other than that, nuthin. It felt so sad, after those first 10 miles of noise, distraction, and encouragement! There may have been 1-2 musicians on the second half, but no big bands like there were for the half marathon. I guess most people run with headphones anyway, but I wasn’t, and I’ll admit to losing some steam without the musical pick me up every few minutes.

The water and gatorade stations were plentiful, as were the bathrooms. I thought they could have had more stations with food, and I would have preferred an alternative to the gooey stuff (like mini cliff bars?). Thankfully multiple neighborhoods had their own refreshment tables set up and offered bananas, oranges, etc. How thoughtful of them!

The other thing I really appreciated was the memorial to fallen heroes on the bridge to downtown. There were hundreds of people holding flags and probably an entire mile lined with the faces of those who’d been lost. It gave me the chills! One of my favorite parts of the run, for sure.

Overall, a really fun race. This was my first Cowtown and I hope to return next year to run it again!