Arbuckles to Ardmore Half Marathon Race Report

I made a smart decision and decided to sign up for the half marathon instead of the full marathon since I’ve only been doing a few 5-mile runs each week for the past two months. My original plan was to drive up to Ardmore on Saturday with Gus, camp with Cliff and his family, and do the race on Sunday morning. However, Gus got into some jalapeno juice and made a huge mess on our bedroom carpet on Friday night, and he could not be trusted. So I decided to get up early (3:45 am) on Sunday morning and drive to Ardmore so I could leave Gus at home. I got to the Ardmore High School stadium at around 6:00 am and picked up my packet. We boarded the buses at 6:30 am and left the stadium shortly before 7:00 am. The logistics were very well planned, and the volunteers did a great job organizing the event. I wore my sweatsuit to the start line and dropped off a clothing bag. I was anticipating losing the sweats, so that was a nice bonus. I wore a long-sleeve t-shirt over my dry-fit shirt for the first three miles and pitched it. My only mistake in planning was that I forgot to take my Garmin on the bus (I left it in my car). I had my watch though, so I just did some calculations in my head as I was running.

The gun (which was HUGE… do they start races with shotguns in Ardmore?) went off at 8 am. I staked out a spot right by the start line since there wasn’t a starting mat for the chip time. It felt like a ton of people flew by me during the first mile or two. I cruised an easy 8:44 and 8:30 the first two miles (I was aided by downhills and a tailwind). I figured I could hold close to 9-minute pace and finish in under 2 hours. I knew I needed a cushion for the last 4 miles, which were uphill. I was cruising along the first 9 miles or so, but I REALLY had to go to the bathroom. This has become a recent problem for me during races, and I need to start making some adjustments (maybe less coffee in the morning, more GI medicine, etc.). I wanted to stop, but I knew it would jeopardize breaking 2 hours, so I continued. The last few miles required some mental toughness, and I figured I would end up being 2 hours even. I heard some people talking about how their Garmins were spot on the whole way with the mile markers (since there weren’t any turns until the very end – it was a straight course) and 13.1 miles ended right at the stadium entrance, but then we had to do a lap around the track. So maybe the mileage was off just a bit? No big deal though. I was still close to my 2-hour goal (official time of 2:02:42, which is 9:22/mile pace), I was happy with my effort, and I was so incredibly excited to use the restroom!

I was 14th out of 33 in my division (25-29 females) and 76th out of 232 females. I was really surprised with the turnout. I didn’t think there would be many people doing the half or full marathons, but there were about 500 people in the half and 100 people in the full (plus a bunch of 5K participants). There were a lot of Ardmore runners, but there were also quite a few people from Oklahoma City and Dallas/Fort Worth. I didn’t realize Daris and Cheryl (from Biggest Loser) were running the 5K. I looked at the results and saw Daris ran 21:43 (gun time) in the 5K, which is 7:00/mile pace.

After the run I met Cliff and his family at their campsite for a bit and visited with them. Then I headed back to Fort Worth and inhaled a Subway sandwich on my drive home. Cliff and I had a nice, relaxing evening with our Netflix.