Urban Cow Half Marathon 2026 - Racing on a GLP-1

NOTE: This is not medical advice or any kind of recommendation. I am merely reporting on my own experience.

Backstory

I am postmenopausal. And let me just say that the weight gain you hear people talk about (if you know any postmenopausal women, or even perimenopausal ones) is real and unrelenting. At first I thought I had it managed, but last year, even in the middle of training for IRONMAN California with the later weeks pushing 20 hours of workouts, my weight barely dropped, and most weeks stayed constant. Thankfully, I rolled right into training for the California International Marathon (CIM) after IMCA, so my weight didn't fluctuate too much. I chalked up any gain to the holidays.

But then the new year started. I did dry January and extended it with a 40-day sugar fast, but my weight kept climbing. I was beyond frustrated. No amount of working out or dieting seemed to do anything to the scale. Something had to give because my clothes weren't fitting and I was miserable.

Then someone mentioned that they were micro-dosing GLP-1. I sat with that idea for a bit. For over a year, I had been listening to fitness and biohacking podcasts about GLP-1s. I had also read plenty of articles about them. I knew the downsides, and I had made snide comments about stars with Ozempic face. But I had also been reading about the positives. So after careful consideration, I decided to give them a try.

I began taking a micro-dose of semaglutide from AgelessRx at the end of June. It was a tiny fraction of a full dose. Every month, the dose increased in a process called titration. Two weeks ago the dose went up to 1.25 mg, which isn't really a microdose anymore. It's about half of a full Wegovy maintenance dose.

On top of the dose going up, semaglutide has a half-life of about a week. Even though you only take it once a week, about half of the previous shot is still in your system when the next one goes in, and it just keeps building like that.

After this last increase, my appetite just crashed. I found myself forcing food down, trying to get enough protein and calories that I could do my CIM training and not struggle through it. Food as fuel became my number one concern. The night before the race, I could barely get a few bites of dinner down. I was starting to worry.

Race Day Morning

After a restless night, I woke up and fixed my normal pre-race/long workout breakfast of apples & cinnamon oatmeal. As it cooled, I poured half a cup of coffee and sat down to eat. I took a few small bites of the oatmeal and my stomach flipped. There was no way I could eat it. I opted for a Maurten 160 gel. It went down easy, but was probably not near enough for a half marathon.

My breakfast still on the counter when I got home from the race.

HS drove me to the race. I hopped out of the car as the line to park was very, very long (note to self, leave earlier next time). As I was walking to the start line, I saw a pair of runners I recognized, Scott and Karyn. They looked fresh and full of energy. I started to worry. The only other time I had done Urban Cow was when Karyn was coaching our running group. I had looked up my time from that race and I was shocked at my pace. How did I run it that fast? I had shown up with a tight back that morning, and about ten  pounds more than I am carrying now, and still ran one of my best half marathons. I knew I didn't have anything like that in me for this race.

Race Results 2023 - 8:34 pace!

Race

I hung back with the 10:00 group at the start and told myself this was just a training run. Maurten 320 was in the handheld. A Maurten 100 + caffeine and a 160 were in my pocket. The plan was a gel every forty minutes. I only got the caffeine gel down. I sipped the 320 here and there, but not nearly enough to make up for skipping my oatmeal.

My people, at least that was the plan

The gun went off and I did what I always do — went out too fast. I had yacht rock in one ear, trying to keep an easy beat, and the beautiful Land Park neighborhood had me looking for "For Sale" signs. As much as I tried to fight it, the sea of runners pulled me along. I checked my watch at the first mile and knew I was in trouble. If I didn't back off, I was going to blow up. I didn't back off.

The caffeine gel went down at four and a half miles. I took electrolytes at the aid stations, which were conveniently placed every two miles. I walked most of them just to breathe.

I held my pace until about halfway. Then the wheels came off. My legs got heavy and my left calf tightened. Runners I'd passed early started passing me back. I told myself a slow jog was still faster than walking, and almost as easy, and I kept going.

Around mile 10 I gave up on yacht rock and switched to Sammy Hagar. If smooth and easy wasn't working, maybe loud would. "I Can't Drive 55" came on, and a smile spread across my face. It's a callback to a nod to Sammy in my debut novel, Transitions. Shameless plug, maybe, but the song and the smile got me through about a mile.

Available on Amazon

I finished in a respectable time — my longest and fastest run of this CIM block — and it still felt like a fade. I walked past tables of food with my stomach churning. Nothing doing. I took a banana and ate it hours later.

13.25 mi • 2:03:18 • 9:18. First half too fast. Second half under-fueled.

Post Race

I spent the afternoon reflecting on the day. I know I was under-fueled. I have ten weeks to figure that out before CIM. There is a balance to be struck between race weight and proper nutrition. I may reach out to the doctor to discuss lowering the dose. Yes, running with less weight feels great, but not when my energy is gone.

Finished!

Transitions: Book Release

Just like triathlons, publishing a book came with a learning curve. I was very optimistic after I handed off my finished drafts to my beta readers. I was so optimistic that I hired a cover designer ahead of choosing my copy editor. Then I had to wait. Wait for the final edit so I could tell the cover designer the EXACT number of pages. Who knew that a couple pages would matter.

So my timeline slid from the end of June to the end of September. I uploaded the finished product into Amazon and ordered three proof copies. Even with the "Not for Resale" band across the center, holding an actual book in my hand felt amazing. Almost as amazing as an IRONMAN finish line!

But none of that logistics stuff is really the story. The story started years before any of this — with a question I didn't know how to answer yet.

So Why Write This Book?

If you have followed this blog at all, you know that way back in the beginning I wrote about why I call myself a closet athlete (Read full post here). The excerpt below is what Transitions is built around...

I was an active kid. I took gymnastics and tennis lessons. I played softball for a season, I played on the first all-girl soccer team in Stockton, and I swam on the summer rec team for a few seasons. Were any of these activities on a highly competitive level? Not really. Did I play any of these sports in high school? Nope. Did I aspire to do more? Unfortunately, no. That is, until I had my own kids.

This is probably one of the hardest things to write. Probably because I have to admit that I pushed my daughters to compete, not always when they wanted to, but when I wanted them to. I think I did this because I felt I had missed my opportunity when I was young and I wanted to make sure that they didn't. Would I change anything? Of course. Would I have pushed as hard as I did? Maybe not... but then again, maybe I would have.

Ashley (age 10) at Tiger Memorial Day Swim Meet

My girls' accomplishments became my own and I lived through them. Every first place finish, every high point trophy, every PR, every goal, every save... they all became my own. It didn't matter that I wasn't the one spending several hours a week practicing. It didn't matter that I wasn't the one in the pool getting kicked and scratched during a water polo game. It didn't matter that physically I had let myself go while pushing them to improve.

The end of my daughters' high school careers was bittersweet. So much of my time had been spent getting them to practice and games, now I wasn't going to be needed. 

That tug-of-war — between wanting it for them and wanting it for me — is basically the whole book.

Is It a Memoir?

No, although it is based on many real life stories and anecdotes. The people aren't real and the circumstances are very much fiction. The only thing I tried to remain true to were the races. Although for those of you who may have done Dirt, Sweat, and Beers, you probably remember that the race was at the end of July and not June as I wrote in my book... but I needed the timeline to work a certain way, so I fudged the date a bit.

Is There More?

Books two and three are already taking shape — Recovery is drafted, and book three is starting to come together in my head. More on those soon, once Transitions has had its moment.

Release Date

The official release date for book one, Transitions, is October 1, 2026. I have so many plans to get the word out there... you might even see me out at IRONMAN California handing out flyers and maybe even a few copies of my book.

In the meantime — if any of this sounds familiar, follow along here or on Facebook so you don't miss release day. I'll be sharing more as October 1 gets closer.