I had a beautiful fall day to run the MO’ Cowbell Half Marathon. This was my 17th half marathon and I’ve already scheduled my 18th half marathon for the Spring. I don’t know when I’ll ever give it up! Ha, ha! This race didn’t go 100% perfect for me, because I started to have some allergies the evening before and later found out it was actually the cold (not Covid, thankfully!) that was going around in my household. Boo! I am pretty sensitive to the heat even even though it was a cool fall morning, I got hot quickly with what I had on. I thought the free race shirt would be breathable enough, but I should have worn layers. Never overdress for a race! It was a full sun day, so the sun just got to me after being directly over me the entire race (and there is little shade on this course). However, I did REALLY amazing up till mile 8 and then I started to struggle. I was able to finish strong enough and the time I finished at was a pretty average half marathon time for me. It was a great race and I thank God that I can still run these half marathons in my mid-forties!! Training is a lot of work and a huge time commitment, but the mental and physical rewards are immense.
Brian took some photos of me before the race. This race is in St. Charles and starts in Frontier Park by the Missouri River. There is this town in St. Charles that we always run through called New Town and it is SO gorgeous. It is a walk through community where there is houses around a lake, a farm, small shops, etc. The houses are always decorated for Halloween and a lot of the residents come out and cheer us on. One of these days I need to pull out my phone and take some photos/videos to share with you.
Here I am before the race by the start line. The cow theme is always so fun and they had a mascot you could take a photo with before the race.
The medal was SO pretty this year. I took a photo of it in our backyard by one of my huge mum planters.
It is always fun to look at my splits after any outdoor run or race I do. As you can see, I was just feeling AH-mazing up till mile 8 and then I started to actually feel a little nauseous (which RARELY happens for me!). I don’t know if it was that I had a cold (and not allergies) or if it was that I got a little too much sun… or perhaps I went out too fast. I wasn’t able to take my last GU gel due to feeling nauseous, which didn’t help. I did start to feel better after I got up to the top of the hill on mile 9-10. Based on my training runs, I had figured I’d have a 9:45 pace overall, so I wasn’t TOO far away from that by finishing at 9:48. My best pace ever for a half marathon is a 9:40 pace.
Here are my race stats for the 2022 MO’ Cowbell:
Time: 2:08:29
Pace: 9:48
I typically run the MO’ Cowbell in the fall and the Go! St. Louis in the Spring. For some reason, I always seem to get my best times at the Go! Race and all of my PR’s have been with the Go! half marathon. I don’t understand this, because the MO’ Cowbell is fairly flat with just one big hill for a mile and a half. But, the Go! St. Louis has a lot of rolling hills. I’m not sure if it is because I get bored with an almost completely flat race, or if a flat race uses the same muscles and those muscles fatigue on me. Perhaps with a rolling hill race I’m more mentally aware with the changes and I’m using different muscles as I go up and down these rolling hills, so by using different muscle groups I’m not fatiguing as easy. I have no idea! It’s not that I really love hills… I kinda hate them. SO, we’ll see how I do at the St. Louis Go! this Spring. I can’t wait!! But, I’m going to enjoy a few months off from half training in the meantime! I’ll be doing some shorter runs for awhile.
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