When a Race Goes WRONG

Little Rock Marathon has this early start thing...if you are going to finish between 6 and 8 hours you start at 6am. If you are going to finish in under 6 hours you start at 8. Well...I was planning on a 5:45ish finish, but I was going to be running with a friend who was planning to run a PR marathon the day before at Snickers. She had not told her coach (not me) that she was going to do back-to-back marathons. I really wasn't sure what that might do to our race day. She assured me she was down to do whatever I wanted (early start and make it a 6-8 hour day or regular start and make it sub 6). I figured I would be good for a 5:45 on a good day but 6:15 on a bad day. 

So I asked questions...

When I picked up my bib I went to the "Bless Your Heart" booth (so cute to call it that)....and asked for some details on the early start. I was told that the most crucial thing is that early starters MUST NOT pass the 6 hour pacer (who starts with the early starters) because that pace group "opens" the course. I said at some point the regular starters would pass that group. The lady said that wasn't until about mile 18...and at that point it would be fine to go ahead of the 6 hour pacers. So I thought an early start would probably be great-hold us back a bit early on and then after the hilly section (at about mile 19) we'd turn it on and finish sub 6 (even if not by much). The lady said it's really hard to hold back when you are fresh on the front half but I figured that might be the better option.

So a little while later I went to the early start meeting. (In order to be in the early start you have to have a special bib...I wanted to gather all the information before pulling that trigger.)

In the meeting they said if you were to join the early start you ARE NOT EVER allowed to pass the 6 hour pacer...even at the finish line...and if you had an early start bib but end with a sub 6 hour time you would be DQd. (This was NOT what I was told earlier, but the lady who told me this was in the room so I figured she was wrong since the RD was giving the information.)

Earlier in the week they had sent out written instructions. In that email it said the early start was for 6 hour or slower finishers and that the cutoff for the general start was 6 hours (must be faster than 14:53 pace).

From the instructions:

Well, a 6 hour pace is really like 13:40...so that question was asked in the meeting. They said basically they made a mistake in the instructions (I get it...instructions are copied from one year to the next and sometimes new information gets missed). They clarified and reiterated-slower than 6 hour finishers need to early start.

So I asked the question...if I'm having a good day I'll be 5:45. If I'm having a bad day it will be 6:15. Given the fact early starters are NEVER allowed to pass the 6 hour pacer (who starts early) I really wasn't sure if I should start early or at the regular time.

This is the CRUCIAL point in time where my race day plan was formed, and WHY my race went VERY WRONG....

They said there are 3 cutoff points but the first two are more for the half marathoners (therefore much slower than the full marathoners would need to be at that point in the race). The 3rd cutoff point was at mile 19.2. They said that is a HARD cutoff...if you miss that one you will be turned (cutting the race short for you). You'd still get to finish, you'd get a medal, but you would be DQd in the results.

They SAID that cutoff time of day was going to be 12:45. He said it was based off the 8 hour pacer (who starts early and is the last person to cross the early start line...then they add buffer time; he said it was based on an 18:18 pace...plus buffer time). I made a point to text that information to Dwayne to figure out the pace we'd have to have in order to make that cutoff point in time if we were to start at 8...

text to Dwayne

TriCalc app info

Based on that information, and talking with my friend, we decided we had plenty of time to make the 12:45 cutoff starting at 8 and we'd make sure we had a sub 6 hour finish.

Here's the thing about Little Rock-the first maybe 15 miles are mostly flat (flat-ish). Then there's a hill that is literally like a mile long--and NOT a gradual climb, and there are several hills after that until mile 19. But at mile 19 there's a LONG out and back that is super flat, there's one hill and then the finish. So you will likely lose time between 15 and 19 but you can make up a good bit of time from 19-26 if you have properly paced the first 15 and don't kill yourself on the hills. Armed with the 12;45 cutoff I figured we'd have no problems at all.

Well...I was right, but... (cue sinister music)

To Be Continued.... stick around for my race report....

When Expectations are Too High...

After Mercedes Half Marathon I planned to run the Cowtown Marathon in Ft Worth. I had heard so many great things about this race that I had built up my expectations for what it might be. The biggest expectation I had was for the medal. When I signed up there weren't any pictures of the medal on their website. Because of that I didn't sign up for the marathon, nor did I sign up for one of the extra races (5 or 10K) to make it a "challenge". The medals from their previous races that had really caught my eye were like giant charms of a cowboy hat, and a cowboy boot.  I can't even express to you how much I wanted THESE medals. I would have paid extra for either of THESE medals.

See...when I say I run for the medal, I'm not joking. I LOVE really awesome medals. In ADDITION, I would like to have a great registration shirt, SWAG is nice and an interesting course is ranked among the top reasons I will do a race. 

I was apprehensive when there was no photo of the medal at Cowtown, but I figured it had to be special given the boot and hat the years before...

I was WRONG. SO WRONG.

Cowtown apparently does "series" events where if you sign up for each year in the series you get a medal that fits into a series....this year was a puzzle piece. It had a photo of some iconic building on the course (I really didn't look too closely at it to even know what the building is...it's not special to me in any way). Getting more puzzle pieces is not NEARLY enough motivation for me to go back again in this series. To say I was disappointed is a SERIOUS understatement. That factor aside, the course was pretty fun. You run through the Stockyards and by the river and downtown. It's not flat but it wasn't soul-crushing hilly either. 

Before starting I was looking at the finisher area map and saw a place where we were supposed to pick up our "Finisher jacket". As I was running in what had to be the hottest half marathon I've ever been in* I kept thinking "finisher jacket".

Let me take a side step here...back in 2019 when we were trying to figure out what we were going to give away at the Rocket City Marathon for our finisher gift we got a sample of a finisher jacket from a company called Leslie Jordan...it was a quarter zip jacket that is one of my all time favorite long sleeve running "shirts". It has a multi-colored bull on the front and it says "Cowtown Marathon" on the back. This is one of the first things that made me even look into Cowtown in the first place. We gave the same type of jacket away for our finisher gift that year based on how much I love that "shirt" (jacket? ...it's not really what I would call a jacket). Well....we also got a "rally jacket" sample from Cowtown that I had seen at several races. It's a "one size fits most" full zip hooded jacket with knit cuffs. It looks awesome, but it's really kind of what I call a "prop"...it looks good from afar, but it's not really impressive up close. It seems as though you wouldn't be able to wash it (I've never tried). I saw maybe 50-75 at the start line and the first mile as "throw aways"...items people will wear to a start line and then toss away. (Many races, ours included, will collect these items, wash them, and donate them to homeless shelters.) It's a fair amount of money to spend on a throw away item IMO.

Well...they did give a rally jacket...which I found myself being disappointed with. Not just because I had one already but because of my expectation was really high and I had already been let down by the puzzle piece medal. They did give a finisher shirt which I have worn a couple of times. It's a soft short sleeve shirt. It's a v-neck which I don't care for...I won't wear it out to advertise the race...honestly I thought their registration shirt was better than their finisher shirt....but that falls under "you can't please everyone".

I can't even tell you what their post-race food was like. I know they had ice cream sandwiches (couldn't eat them because of the dairy and gluten), fruit (standard bananas and tangerines) and beer (2 beers for a half marathoner) which I gave away and little bags of chips. Maybe that was different from pre-covid post-race food?

I left Ft Worth with an overall feeling of let down....except we LOVED the food (we ate BBQ twice and freakishly good tacos) and I did enjoy the course (I could have done without running on brick roads, but that's required in order to run through the Stockyards so it's a good trade!).

However, even saying I felt let down, I would certainly recommend the race with one little caveat...take your own gels. I went to the pre-race meeting where they told where aid stations would be and when Gu would be given...they did NOT have Gu where they said they would and I was NOT properly prepared because I trusted them to do what they said they would do. But, honestly, that alone isn't enough for me to not recommend doing a race.

My letdown was 100% a case of having expectations that were too high. The fact was they didn't advertise anything they didn't give (well, okay, they didn't have Gu where they said they would at the pre-race meeting....). Overall it was a fun race-TONS OF PEOPLE which is always fun. I think the very best part of the race was the finish...I was DRAINED by then (too little fuel and it was HOT)...for about the last .2 miles there were SO MANY spectators along the route I felt like I was running into the finish at Boston!!

Bottom line for me and the biggest lessons learned for our race is to clearly advertise what we are giving and then go above and beyond--under promise and over deliver. And, you can't go backwards-once you have some amazing thing (medal, finisher gift) you can't give some sub-standard thing!!

Thanks for stopping by and sticking around. Next up I'll tell you about how WRONG my race went at the Little Rock Marathon... :(