Registration for the second annual “Run the Dallas White Rock Marathon with ACU” is now open for ACU faculty, staff, alumni, students and other community members.
About 150 people participated in the event last year. Organizers in the Students’ Association hope for more participants this year.
“We had a really good response to it the first time,” said SA President Samuel Palomares, senior communication major from Elsa.
The Dallas White Rock Marathon takes place in early December each year. Participants can register to run a full or half marathon, a 5K, or a 5-person relay on race day.
SA sponsorship of the event provides participants with a $20 reduction in their overall registration cost, a free ACU running shirt and a free pre-race pasta dinner.
Last year, about 70 percent of ACU participants attended the pre-race pasta dinner, Palomares said. The dinner will be held at the ACU campus in Irving again this year.
So far this fall, many of last year’s participants have registered or asked about the event. However, Palomares said there are also people signed up from as far away as North Carolina and California.
Brent Bailey, senior Bible major from Kingwood, hopes to complete his third full Dallas White Rock Marathon this year. Bailey said he decided to run the Dallas marathon for the second time last year when he heard about the ACU sponsorship. He also said his favorite parts about the event were the pasta dinner and the ACU running shirt.
“The dinner allows you to see all the other people running with you,” Bailey said. “You kind feel like you’re part of a big team.”
Both Palomares and Bailey said the White Rock event targets a small niche of people at ACU but has the potential to involve a larger community.
“It captures a unique ACU community,” Palomares said. “It’s also good for marketing ACU. It looks really good to have 100 ACU people running around.”
Palomares plans to run the full marathon for the second year in a row. All members of the SA cabinet are also taking part in the event.
This year’s races are on Dec. 5 and will begin at 8:00 a.m. Anyone interested needs to register both at the official White Rock website, www.runtherock.com, as well as on the ACU sponsored website, www.acu.edu/whiterock.
