urban cow half marathon race report or a race like no udder

Ha, proof that I'm getting a little lazy, because generally I post these a day or so after the race, but I was so pumped with the result this week.

Urban Cow starts at 7:30 am, so I had to get up a little earlier than usual. Grabbed a quick frozen waffle (of course, I popped it in the toaster), jumped in the shower so my hair wouldn't look too hideous (ha, in the finish pictures it looked hideous anyway, so I don't know why I bothered), my run gear was already all set out, dressed, put on the Garmin, got in the car and drove over to Land Park. One of the upsides of having lived here nearly five years (gasp, has it really been that long?) is most of the race courses start and finish in the same place, Land Park being one of them. Parking is never difficult in the neighborhood, even with 5,000+ supposedly registered for the half marathon and 5K. The worst part is getting caught at the stoplight on Freeport Boulevard at the Fart Rail tracks. It stays red f-o-r-e-v-e-r. I knew I had plenty of time to find a parking spot and walk comfortably to the starting line, but still... I'm always a little freaky before races, regardless of the distance. Of course, I got caught at the red light... ugh. It *should* be blinking red before 10 am on a Sunday morning, because there's no traffic on Freeport until then.

Since I got there about 40 minutes before race start, the close parking spots were already gone. Temps were perfect - mid 50s, dry, it was clear (a bit of a disappointment as they'd predicted cloudy skies for the morning hours, but I'll take dry weather over running in rain anytime (especially after last fall's Apple Hill Harvest Run, where we ran in cold pouring rain...) and much warmer than when I ran this race the first time in 2007.

Based on my performance a couple of weeks back in Buffalo Stampede, I thought that I could probably run in the 2:10 range, and if I ran < 2:10, this would be my 3rd fastest timed half marathon since I started running seriously in 2006 (and I'm guessing it would also be my 3rd fastest). I'm still not in the run shape I was in during 2007, but the IT band injury appears healed - I get twinges now and then but I don't need to have acupuncture to keep the hip loose anymore. In retrospect, I think I babied the injury perhaps too much - I didn't need to lose 2 1/2 years to running because of the injury, I should have sensibly and judiciously run through it.

I figured it would be far easier to do 2:10 also because Urban Cow added pace group leaders this year. I walked into the park, checked out the starting area stuff and vendors, hit the porta potty (well, not literally, because that tends to make them fall over), and moving into the starting scrum, as the race director kept announcing that "we have a record number of entries this year (something like 5,400)". I was craning my neck waiting to see where the 2:10 pace group leader sign was... Dianne hopped into the crush about five minutes before the start, the horn went off (after a local high school student sang the national anthem), and we began the shuffle...

The streets inside the park are nice and wide, and we did roughly the first (and last) miles inside the park, but this was the first race I've been in where elbow banging was an issue for more than the first mile or so (it was still a problem even 8 miles in). Like Shamrock'n', I made a point to stick to Dianne like I did Will - like glue. My experience in the 40+ races I've done since 2006 - regardless of whether they've been run, try or du - is that I get far better times chasing or hanging with someone. The minute that I start to let someone pull away, I lose them. So I didn't stop to grab water at the aid stations unless Dianne did, whether I was thirsty or not.

As usual, I felt kind of icky the first 3-4 miles. It takes me a long time to warm up in races (5Ks are just a suffer fest - you run like hell, hang on, run like hell some more, and then hurl at the finish line), but its always amazing to me that somewhere between 4 and 5 I start to feel halfway decent. I was kind of tired the entire race. I had made a point to get plenty of sleep during the week, but didn't follow through on Friday night knowing that I was going to see Wayne Shorter on Saturday night (although I was home shortly after 10:00 - Wayne's quartet only played about an hour and a half). If I'd gotten a better night's sleep on Friday I don't think the short night on Saturday would have made any difference.

Dianne kept an extremely consistent pace looking at my Garmin logs, we were always 5 seconds +/- 9:55/mi - even weaving through the pack the first mile. I was running a good race - I never felt winded, just tired - slurped down Gu at 4 and 8, but my body felt tired all the same (shrug) and I mentally struggled wondering if I was going to be able to hold the pace.

Around about mile 7-8, a guy was standing outside of Old Sacramento on side wearing a bright red Wisconsin hoodie. Of course, since Bucky had smacked Nebraska in Nebraska's first football game as a member of the B1G the day before, and as an Iowa fan (and GRAD BABY) that dislikes Nebraska far more than Wisconsin, I yelled "Way to GO Bucky! Nebraska SUCKS!" The guy yelled "Hell yah!" and gave me a thumbs up.

For some reason, because so much of this race uses parts of other courses (and they changed the route again this year), a lot of it just blurred together in my mind after 8... the small group of us that had been sticking together exchanged small talk, and I was suffering some - but not nearly as much as I did in March, so I'm definitely in better race shape (so much of racing is mental)... the miles crawled by... 9... 10 (and I start a countdown in my mind to the finish "Oh, now its only 3 miles! I can do that! Only 2 miles!")... we got to 11 and I started to feel better, probably because it wasn't that far. Dianne told us we could "take off if we felt good" but I hung with her until about 11 and a half, and then I just started to... pull away. Maybe I went a little early, because I did slow down a little too much from 12 to 13.1, but as I rounded the last curve around the back of the golf course in Land Park (this is the curve that's in nearly every race that starts/ends there) I heard a guy say "we've got a minute to beat 2:10", I looked at my Garmin, I looked at the finish, and knew I was going to make it < 2:10 without sprinting... and I did, by 11 seconds according to the official time - 2:09:49. I finished roughly MOP (Middle of the Pack), set my 3rd best half marathon time ever, and I'm set up nicely for California International Marathon, if I can get enough long runs in the next 6 weeks.

Stopped by the merchandise tent and bought an Urban Cow champion brand sweatshirt... I don't usually buy race gear, but I made an exception this time. All in all, a very good race!