My goal was to do a 2:15 or better on this race.

My best half marathon time to date has been 2:28. This was because I was doing a walk/run (3 minute walk/2 minute run) before.

I decided after my stress fracture in May 2009, that once I got back to walking/running, I would TRY to run and see how it turned out. This is because my friend in Minnesota (Kim) is coming to do the Cowtown Half in Feb 2010 and she said she wanted to RUN the whole thing this time. I wanted to see if I could RUN it with her.

So I have been training to run, and I knew I could make a solid effort to run this half marathon.

I did a 12 miler on a treadmill two weeks back and it was a STRUGGLE to keep a 10 minute mile. I mean, but the end of it, I was barely running anymore. It really wore me down to keep that pace, so I figured a 10:20 minute mile pace for this race would be good.

I started out fast, with a 9:30 minute mile. Kept telling myself to slow down. It's all about pacing on the longer stuff and I know this.

I kept running too fast. I made more of an effort to stick to a 10:00 mm, but also just went with what felt good.

I took my first gel at :25. Since it takes me about 10 minutes to eat a gel, I start a little earlier than :30. I took in 3 gels for the whole race and it was perfect.

I didn't drink as much water as I should have though. While it didn't hurt me I knew I was a tad dehydrated at the end. I chugged half a bottle of water. I probably took in around 20oz of water the entire race. Not good.

The course was on the Champion Trail in Las Colinas. While it was nice not having to dodge cars and what not, it was a little disappointing to ONLY run on the trail. It would have been nice to run on some city streets other than at the start/end of the race.

What was nice about the trail was the shade. It was great, because there wasn't a cloud in the sky and it was getting hot.

I did stop for the restroom once. Maybe around mile 8?

I walked a couple of aid stations, but I never walked for that long.

Around mile 10 is when I got the side cramp from h@ll. Nothing new. I get those all the time. So I worked on getting it out while I ran.

The last 2 miles I tried to stay strong. I would see people walking and it would get in my head. I would tell myself to suck it up and keep running. And I did. :)

Then I saw the finish and it was done. I was tired and in pain. But overall a great race!

I am very proud of my performance. I beat my goal of a 2:15 for this race. My PRed from my best half marathon by 17 minutes! Awesome! And I also did a hard 75 mile ride (17.4 mph average) the day before this race! I am pretty sure I can run a half marathon faster with a taper! Yeah, a 2:11 half mary with no taper? I'll take that!

I walked around and rested.


If you like doing smaller races, this is the race for you. They do a good job with the stuff that matters- nice race shirt, nice medal, lots of volunteers, professional timing system, aid stations and it's organized.

What was lacking were Port-O-Johns for the start/finish area. That line could have been fixed with more than 10 restrooms. Although there were Port-O-Johns on the course, so that was nice. They also didn't have a very distinct start/finish line. The food after wards was non-existent. We had some 100 calorie cookie packages to eat on. Uh, I passed.

So, for the stuff that really matters, they have it covered. It's a race for a good cause and I would do it again. It was nice to have 75% of the field racing be women.