Cowtown Race Report

First my sincerest apologies—I have no pictures. I was too lazy to carry the camera with me.

However, here’s report.


I woke up at 5 and had coffee and PB & J toasted sandwich and water.
Read the weather report—40 degrees outside--Perfect for shorts and shortsleeve top when running. I donned skirtsports skirt with compression thigh length shorts underneath. Wore my blood sweat and beers top and also brought my hat.

Did the usual ‘bodily functions’ packed up my stuff and left the house by 5:45. Fleet feet said to reach their tent by 6:45 for a warm up.

Met at a friends house who lives close by the race location and parked the car in front of her house. Went in, used her bathroom and then we walked to the race start (about a mile away).

Oh.
My.
It was cold. Walking in shorts in 40 degree weather (remember this is California and it was 110 high only 1.5 weeks ago) is difficult. I forgot gloves. Drats.

Anyway, got to the fleet feet tent in time to see the group leaving for their warm up. I warmed up with a mile on my own. Talked with a few friends and then stood in the 10:00 min/mile section behind the start line.

At 7:15 I ate a GU Espresso Love.

At 7:33 a.m. the gun went off and I started pretty slow.
First mile split was 10:30. All felt pretty good. No ankle pain. Breathing was regular.

Second mile split 9:20. WTF? Ok, slow down slow down… I kept thinking I have to slow down.

Third mile split was 9:25. SLOW DOWN!

Fourth Mile split 9:15. Ok this is ridiculous. Right then my shoe lace came untied. Perfect!! Never have I wished for an untied shoelace, but I was happy to stop and tie so I would force myself to slow down.

Fifth mile split –10:20. I also half-rolled my bad ankle in a pothole. I kept running—was it hurt???? No, it was ok. I kept going.

Reached the half way point—6.5 miles. Mile split was 9:40. Fk.
At this point, I should have eaten some GU but was so focused on trying to slow down, I forgot to eat. This would come back to haunt me later.

Mile 8---Why do my legs hurt??? They feel like they are filled with concrete. Split was 10:00

Mile 9---This is a long freakn’ mile. Side stitch started and wouldn’t quit. Saw some friends on the sideline and got some much needed, “GO KAREN!!!” and high-fives.

Mile 10---Only a 5K to go. Why does this hurt? Just keep moving forward. No walking. At this point I noticed a man behind me continue to cough and cough as if he had some sort of contagious (SWINE FLU) disease. He was also telling his running buddy that he’d had a bad fever [Cough cough cough hack]. Lovely. This was a good incentive to run faster. Noticed my overall time was 1:38. I could make 2:10 if I kept up the same pace.

Mile 11—I had to walk for a minute or two. The lack of calories at halfway point and 10-mile marker (forgot that fueling point too) was really starting to hit me hard. I heard the cougher coming up behind me and took off.

Mile 12—cheery high school students were handing off water and cytomax. I tried to smile and say thank you, but I think it might have come out as a grunt. Mile split was 11:22

Mile 13---I could see the finish line and started to sprint with a smile on my face. ,I grabbed the finisher’s medal at the end of the chute-- the finishers medal is a COWBELL (of course)!

Final time 02:11:37. All things considered this was a good race for me. My goal was about 2:15 so I beat that.

Things to learn: EAT EAT EAT when I need to eat. I kept forgetting to eat because I was so focused on going faster and putting one foot in front of the other. Maybe I can figure out how to set a timer on my Garmin.

Other than that I was pretty happy. I am surprised at my fast mile splits in the beginning. I wanted to maintain 10:00 min/mile splits the whole way. This is a great race, nice and flat and even though I love hills, I enjoyed the flatness of it. I discovered later that they had a gear check (I didn’t see that info on their website) so next year, I’ll definitely wear my sweats to the start …