Cowtown Recap

I checked the weather forecast periodically throughout the week last week, and as Saturday approached, I was dreading the WIND. Sure enough I woke up at 4:45 a.m. Saturday morning to a howling North wind. I arrived at the race with my friends Tod Tieszen, Paul Polk and Shane Pierce at about 6:30. (See a picture of me and Shane above.) It was awesome riding to the race with those guys--a race is always more fun when you do it with a group of friends.

Before heading to the start line, Tod led the four of us in prayer. Despite the cold, I decided to run with just a singlet, shorts, hat and glove. At the start, a group of half-marathoners jumped out to the early lead. I quickly settled in behind this lead group. At about the 6 mile mark this group started to break apart, and the eventual winner took a commanding lead. I stayed close behind him until the half-marathon and marathon courses split at the 8 mile marker.

My goal time coming in to the race was 2:28; a 5:40 per mile pace. From the beginning of the race, I kept a plus/minus count of how close I was to 5:40 pace. By the half way point, I already had over 2 minutes in the bank. I took my first POWERBAR gel pack at around mile 15 and my seconde at mile 21. By mile 23, I had over 3 1/2 minutes in the bank, and so all I needed to do was maintain in the last 3 miles to exceed my expectations.

At mile 24, I merged with the finish of the half-marathon course. Many of those runners were cheering me on as I passed. As I made the final turn and had the finish line in my sights, I felt a rush of adrenaline. The police escort was bottlenecked by waves of half-marathon finishers, so I passed him up and gave my best effort to sprint to the finish. I crossed the tape in 2:25:13, my 3rd best time ever (over 3 minutes faster than my goal time).

My splits are below:

5:30, 5:45, 5:31, 5:19, 4:34 (this one and the next had to have been mis-marked), 6:19, 5:30, 5:30, 10:48 (I missed the 9 mile marker so this is a 2 mile split), 5:35, 5:27, 5:46 (this would be my slowest mile), 5:33, 5:30, 5:29, 5:41, 5:41, 5:32, 5:40, 5:20, 5:36, 5:28, 18:03 (at this point I was so excited about winning my 3rd Cowtown that I quit looking for mile markers and just ran)--2:25:13