This was my 6th consecutive Cowtown Marathon. As I live close to Ft Worth, I consider this my home course. I always see lots of running friends, and it's quite a weekend. This weekend's weather was nearly perfect (40F, S10-15).
As I'm still on my comeback from a knee injury and overall running "burnout", this was my first run of over 20 miles since last year's Cowtown. As I was not invited back as a pacer, I had no real target for finish time - and no pressure. I just wanted to finish - and I wanted to keep my string of sub-4:00 marathons alive, and hoped to finish around my previous pace group time (3:40).
I started in the second wave, which started about 5 minutes after the first wave. They do this to give the aid stations a chance to restock, and it's actually a pretty good idea. As I powered up my Garmin, I realized I had forgotten my HR monitor in the car. Too late. Going to run by feel today.
I started out a little too fast, and I knew it. At about halfway, I had caught up to the 3:40 pace group - that had started 5 minutes ahead of me - so I was on track for a 3:30 (8:00/mi). I stuck with them for a few miles. Then my feet started hurting too much to hang with them. I wasn't really fatigued, but my feet hadn't gotten used to the pounding - I wore Injinji toe-socks, thinking that would help with my toes rubbing together - but they seemed to be hard on the bottoms of my feet - or could it be the shoes I was wearing had less than 10 miles on them? Possibly. As I didn't have a major goal, and I wasn't too proud to walk a little. I walked/ran the last 7 or 8 miles and finished in 3:39:36. I'll take it.
The weather was perfect. I saw some great friends before, during, and after. I completed the "star" series - which contains 5 medals from the past 5 years - when you put them together they form a nice start. (I will have to post a picture).
This is a very well-run marathon. My only complaint is that the half-marathon finishers tend to make the last mile a little tough, as most of them finishing in more than 3 hours are usually walking in pairs or threes, it's a little tough navigating. I'm sure it is even tougher for the leaders of the marathon. They need to find a way to segregate the half finishers from the marathon/ultra finishers.
Other than that, this is a great marathon, and seems to be getting better each year. Lots of bling, nice shirts, medals, food, beverages, etc... I'll keep coming back
3:39:36
AP: 8:23
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