On Saturday, we gathered with three of our closest friends and trekked from Houston to Dallas for the Metro PCS Dallas Marathon and Half Marathon. I’ve been to Dallas more than a couple of times in my life, and well, it’s Dallas. So I don’t have nearly  as much to say as I did about the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington D.C..

But! I will say that if you’re making your way from Houston to Dallas, I highly recommend stopping off for lunch in Leona, Texas at The Pecan Grove Cafe. The teeny tiny town only has one hundred and eighty people, and we were surprised how downright delicious their only lunch restaurant turned out to be. Best dream bar of my life!

The race expo had all of the usual vendors there, and the guys couldn’t even find a hat that suited their needs. We grabbed a coupon to Luke’s Locker and drove to the one in Colleyville, where we stayed the night with our friend’s parents.

My friend’s mom made a super cute sign for the race evoking everyone’s inner Jimmy Fallon.

In all of my other races, I’ve eaten either a banana or a granola bar as fuel in the morning, then had bananas, cookies, or sport beans along with Gatorade throughout. There wasn’t anything good about that stuff, I just needed sugars. Through the Expo at the MCM, we stumbled upon UCAN.

Mark’s favorite pro marathon runner is Meb Keflezighi, and he uses this stuff for his preworkout. You add the packet to a bottle of water, shake it up, and if you’re me, you hold your nose while you chug it 30 minutes before the race. Because it tastes just dreadful: it’s thick and reminiscent of something I had to gulp down when I had childhood cancer. EW.

I had a great race. I’m maybe known to be a slacker when it comes to race training. (This is why your first race shouldn’t be a marathon. Over-inflated sense of abilities.) In fact, this race was supposed to be a full marathon for me, but I ended up trading down to the half because of my lack of training and so that all of us would be doing the same race. I’m still relatively fast from when I used to be in great shape, despite the weight I’ve gained, and I managed to beat everyone except for Mark! I felt really energetic after the race, and didn’t have an empty feeling like I needed food in my belly RIGHT MEOW. I was even dancing at the post race party. That’s a first. Despite the flavor, I’ll be using UCAN again.

All in all, my race performance (finally!) gave me the motivation to step up my game with my training, physical fitness and health. I will be an Ironman before I’m 30. I’m not letting go of that dream, and I’m reigniting the fire I once had.

and, the race medal!