About a month and a half before we moved up to the Dallas area, Dustin and I had a talk about our travel plans for the year. Because of the new job for him, there wouldn't be as much taking off and so my tradition (started just last year) of wanting to do a destination race would have to be put on hold this year. I knew the lottery for the ING New York Marathon was coming up and that Chicago would sell out again in days (who knew it would turn into a lottery like it did?!?) so instead of pine for those races, I decided to look closer to home for a run to do that required no travel. There are several in the fall, but then I saw the Cowtown Marathon just down the road in Fort Worth and figured, why not? I'm already in 1/2 Marathon form because of the SA Rock N Roll and the 3M and have been running at least 8-10 miles every weekend. I could just intensify my weekend runs over the next 6 weeks and be ready! I'm a firm believer in the Hansen Method anyways, never running further than a 16 mile long run before the marathon. It worked out for Chicago, and turns out it worked out for Cowtown!
The course was mostly flat with mile 9 being entirely uphill, though I keep reading it's considered a hilly course, so maybe my idea of hilly and everyone else's is different. Being used to running in the hills of north San Antonio, this hill was easier than the Point Bluff Drive hill, just a lot longer.
Mile 6 took us through the historic Fort Worth Stockyards and most of the way was cobblestone streets. Not so great for week ankles like mine, but I pushed through it. I was clocking a 8:12/mile at this point.
I didn't throw my gloves off til mile 13. It was 39 degrees at the start and warmed up into the mid 40s about an 2 hours in. Since your body warms up 20 degrees warmer than the outside temp, my body finally had pumped some blood into my fingers, though it was mostly working on getting the blood to my heart. This is actually perfect, near ideal, race conditions, save for the south headwind we had that slowed us down.
This was the first marathon I've run that I had to stop to use the bathroom, twice. Mile 17 and Mile 22. There was no way around it. And I can only say run with the gels/blocks WEEKS before you run your marathon. I'm normally good about this, but because this was kind of a last minute race entry, I had not been using any sort of fuel on my long runs. I should have just run like that in the race. Lesson learned. I probably lost 3-4 minutes each stop. I ended up 15th out of 87th in my age division. Not bad! My goal was sub 4, so I was happy even with the stops, I hit it! My splits were as follows:
| Chip Time | Bib | Name | |
| City | State | Division | Class
Position | Overall
Place |
|
|
|
|
|
| Pace |
|---|
| 03:59:12 | 1526 | Jessica | Tondre |
| TROPHY CLUB | TX | MARATHON FEMALES 15 30-34 |
| 346 |
| 9:08 |
|
|
|
|
|
| 5KPace | 5K | 10KPace | 10K | 13.1Pace | 13.1 | 20MPace | 20M |
|---|
| 7:56 | 0:24:38 | 7:58 | 0:49:28 | 8:12 | 1:47:17 | 8:43 | 2:54:05 |
When I hit the finish line, I felt great! I wasn't overly exhausted and my legs weren't spent. I was proud of myself and already thinking about my next race... I may wait 5-6 months before the next full marathon, but there are a lot of halfs in the area in the meantime. And, never, say never :). I think my body is just getting used to this because the day of the race, my body was creaky and sore, but the next day I was good to go! No quad soreness, leg pain or anything! Either that or I didn't run hard enough!
I'm definitely doing this one again next year! Great race!
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