Wednesday, December 30, 2020

MO' Cowbell Single Chuck Challenge - Half Marathon #54

On a cold Christmas Eve morning in St. Louis, my runner friend and I finally completed the Single Chuck Challenge for the MO' Cowbell Virtual Half Marathon.  Since summer we had trained and were working our way up to running at least 10 of the 13.1 miles, if we couldn't run the entire distance.  We were on track and had a great eight mile run on November 7th, but soon after that our training got derailed due to a couple Covid scares and crazy work schedules.  The rest of November and the 1st half of December, we hardly ran at all.  Since our training had completely derailed, we settled for walking the entire 13.1 miles.  

Once we saw the forecast for Christmas Eve we knew that despite the cold, the weather was otherwise beautiful and sunny.  My friend asked me how long I thought a walking half marathon would take and in my experience as a race sweeper, I told her four hours.  We finished just under that, around the 3:52:00 mark.

Our finish time

Our course was beautiful and almost completely clear of any other humans, partially due to the holiday and partially due to the bitter cold.  We started at Longview Farm Park in Town & Country, walked several loops through Drace Park, down Bopp Road where we felt tiny as we walked by mansions, and then repeated the same course back to Longview Farm Park.

Drace Park along the course in Town & Country


We even passed several holly bushes along the course, which made the race feel more festive. 

Holly along the course

As we got back to Longview Farm Park to finish the 13.1, we were cold but we were not sore.  We were the only two cars in the parking lot when we left, which was a completely different view from when we started training together this summer.  We had picked up our race SWAG back in October and normally I refuse to wear race SWAG until I complete the race, but I've actually been using this year's race SWAG ever since packet pick-up.  I wear hats much more often now since I primarily work from home in the Covid-era and I LOVE the face mask because it is perfect for workouts.  I actually wore my MO' Cowbell face mask during the entire virtual half marathon not only for safety, but also because it protected my face from the bitter cold!

Single Chuck Challenge SWAG

Normally my runner friend and I volunteer on race weekend, so it was nice to be a participant again this year.  Be sure to stay tuned to the MO' Cowbell Marathon website to see what they have in store for 2021.


See you next year!