Running with the Cows Half Marathon and Heartland 39.3 Challenge

Pre-race: The Running with the Cows Half Marathon was the third of three half marathons for the Heartland 39.3 Challenge (I ran the Rock the Parkway on April 14 and the Garmin Land of Oz on April 21).

I wasn’t sure exactly how to maintain my training and ended up repeating the last three weeks of my training plan between this half marathon and the Garmin one. I was a little nervous about the weather—we didn’t really have much transition between winter and summer here in Kansas and we’re definitely into summer heat and humidity.

The weather forecast called for sun and temps in the mid to upper 70s during the race. I knew too that the route would have a lot of rolling hills. I do like hills but coming off the two previous half marathons plus the 5k last weekend, I also knew I wasn’t as fresh as I could be. And then there’s the struggle I continue to have with my running shoes. Anyway, I hoped for a new personal best but also knew that might not be possible.

Race: This race wasn’t nearly as crowded as the Rock the Parkway. I’m not sure if that’s because of the weather or the location (Bucyrus is about 25 minutes south of Kansas City), but the corral area wasn’t bad at all. But none of us could hear a thing—never heard the national anthem, couldn’t understand a word the announcer was saying (and he talked a fair amount). I found out later from Kent that the race was delayed because of weather. We had a big storm moving through slightly west of us with some decent lightning. But finally we were off.

Kent ran the 5K!

The best way to describe this race and the atmosphere is sweet. Bucyrus is a small town, and they have fully embraced the cow for the race. There were cow signs everywhere, some people were running in cow patterned tights or headbands with cow horns on them. Oh and the cow bells. So many cow bells! The high school drum line played right at the first mile marker, and later on I saw a boy playing a full drum set on a flatbed trailer.

I’d started with the 1:55 pace group—I wasn’t sure I could hang the entire distance at that pace and figured I would land somewhere between that and the 2:00 hour. Unfortunately, around mile 7 I could tell this might not be my race.

You see, I’ve struggled finding running shoes that work and don’t hurt my feet. Call me Cinderella but it’s been nearly impossible to find shoes that work for me. I have very narrow heels, a low volume (top to bottom) foot and long toes. If shoes fit my toes, they’re much too wide and if they fit everywhere else, then my toes hit the ends of the shoes. I ran in a pair of Altras that fit me well except they are pretty wide through the ball of my foot and much too tall (top to bottom). That’s OK when I’m running uphill or on flat surfaces. But remember those rolling hills I mentioned? The downhills just killed me. My feet slid forward so I had a lot of friction on the bottoms of my feet and my poor toes got jammed up against the front of my shoes. By mile 8, my feet were screaming at me. So frustrating.

So OK. I faced facts: no personal best for me in this run. What could I learn and how could I get through the rest of the race? I started getting water at the aid stations (I’ve never drunk during races before so this was a good chance to learn how), I walked some short intervals (mostly downhill to spare my bruised toes and what felt like but weren’t blisters on the balls of my feet). I kept playing tag with another runner. He would pass me and start walking so I’d start running as long as I could, then walk. Boom, then he’d pass me. At one point, I said guess we’ll tag team it into the finish line. And you know what? We did.

My running buddy at the finish.

This is what I love about running and runners—we may be competing but we still help each other. With only the point 1 left in the 13.1 race, he and I were both running. We came around the curve and could see the finish line ahead (so far away) and he said OK you ready? Yup, I said, let’s go. And we both did everything we could to sprint across that finish line. He told me right after that his legs were cramping like crazy. I told him thanks for the teamwork and then I found Kent.

Chip time was 2:03:32—my slowest half. Oddly though, I wasn’t bummed. I was just so glad to have completed that Heartland Challenge, and also a bit relieved I’m not running another half any time soon. Kent and I enjoyed the amazing spread of food (seriously, this half marathon puts out a feast!) and then headed home. Once at home, I looked up my official results and was stunned to see I placed second in my age group. That was a total shocker!

What I learned from the series and from this half marathon:

• I need more endurance, which means I need longer runs.
• I have to solve my shoe issue. My feet are still killing me and I’m hoping one of my nails isn’t as bruised as it looks.
• I’m really tough and also the accumulated fatigue was real.
• I’m also faster than I ever thought I could be. Now I want to see how much I can improve.
• I need to get acclimated to the hotter, more humid weather. We were lucky on Saturday—we never did have the forecasted sunshine and in fact we got rained on about four or five times.

What’s next: I’m definitely not running the Hospital Hill Half Marathon in three weeks. I toyed with the idea but I need a bit of recovery and some easy runs. But I will find something else to train for—it’s in my nature and also I’m fully hooked.