The serene waters of the Lake Benbrook reservoir, surrounded by rolling hills and prairie meadows just outside Fort Worth, are the setting for the Lake Benbrook Half Marathon & 5K, which marks its 38th annual running in 2024.
An out-and-back race with hills scattered throughout virtually the entire course, the event starts and finishes in Dutch Branch Park near the top of the lake, and takes runners on a course that offers ample views of the lake from several different vantage points.
Designed as a kind of practice/tuneup run for the Fort Worth Cowtown Marathon, which takes place just a month later, the Lake Benbrook race began life in the 1980s as a 20K race event, then called the Fort Worth Runners Club’s Fort Worth Fall Classic 20K.
The club became inactive for a few years, however, and the race wasn’t held again until 1990, when it was resurrected as a half-marathon organizers then named the “Better Half,” to distinguish it from Dallas’s “The Half” 13.1-mile race. Its name was changed again to the Lake Benbrook Half in 1993 when it was moved to the lake, and the rest is history.
