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... :(