Earlier this month, I ran my 19th half marathon! How is that possible? This race was a pretty hot one (with little to no shade) and we even got an email warning us about it the night before. Some people can run in the heat and they do great, I do awful. We went from 62 degrees at start time to 72 degrees by the time I finished. I had to slow down and it really messed up my time. I actually finished at a fairly average half marathon time for me. I had hoped for better though, since I had been running my double digit long runs at a faster pace this training season. But, I’m proud of myself for getting it done and now I can rest for a bit. And you know me… I’ll be signing up for another half marathon this spring!
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. Here is a photo of me by the big bell!
Here I am walking to the start line, since I’m about 10 minutes late starting. There was an accident on the highway at the bridge and everyone was coming in late. I didn’t start running till I got up to the line, no need to start running early! Lol!
The medal was SO pretty this year. I took a photo of it in our backyard by one of my huge mum planters.
Well, here are my splits. I did really well till about mile 9 and 10 where I started to slow down and this was mainly because the streets were narrower in this part. Then the sun started to come out too. It was tough, y’all. But, I’m just glad I got it done. I was SO glad when I crossed that finish line. My best pace ever for a half marathon is a 9:40 pace and my average pace for this race was 9:59.
Here are my race stats for the 2023 MO’ Cowbell:
Time: 2:10:49
Pace: 9:59
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.
And, I love to share a photo of the after race snacks.
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