\u00a0First place in the Cowtown Ultra Marathon<\/a>, making history as the first woman in the race\u2019s history to come in first overall. At the finish line, she was awarded a black cowboy hat to add to her collection of trophies and prizes.\u00a0<\/p>\nWhen she began training for the race, she was still working to manage a neurological issue that affects her balance and leg muscles. After she first resumed running in 2025, she entered the Cowtown Marathon, and despite winning in her age group, she fell short of her goal: crossing the finish line first. So, the next year, she thought, if she can\u2019t run faster, she\u2019ll run farther.<\/p>\n
In the end, on a balmy Sunday at the Cowtown Marathon, she went faster and further than anyone else running the ultra. She came first, beating every man and woman in the race. The 41-year-old ran over 31 miles in 3:33:11, or an average mile pace of less than seven minutes per mile. The second-place finisher, 43-year-old Dustin Darakhshan of Richardson, notched a time of 3:34:02.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI was enjoying myself,\u201d Montgomery said. \u201cIt hurts less when you\u2019re winning.\u201d<\/p>\n
Watch McKale Montgomery’s full extended interview below<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not the first time Montgomery has come first in the Cowtown Marathon. She won the full back in 2018. And she\u2019s beaten men before, too, setting the Kansas state record in the marathon while also breaking the tape first.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, it’s good to beat anybody,\u201d Montgomery said. \u201cIt just reminds us that, you know, we can, you can just compete\u2026 You don’t have to look at who’s on the start line and say, \u2018Well, I’m not gonna win because she’s here, he’s here.\u2019 Every day is different, and you just have to give yourself the chance.<\/p>\n
Montgomery, an assistant professor studying nutrition at TCU, said she loves the process of both science and running. She begins every day with a run.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople ask me sometimes about how I do it,\u201d Montgomery said. \u201cIt’s not really so much about the outcomes, but the process. I think I’m just in love with the process, and the outcomes are the byproduct of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
She\u2019s also a mom to two young girls. Her supportive family is key to her continued success in running, she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt does take a lot of support and just planning and a little bit of craziness,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She isn\u2019t the first North Texas mom to come first in a race at the Cowtown Marathon. In 2025, Rena Elmer came in first place<\/a> at the 10K distance, beating everyone else in the field.<\/p>\nMontgomery\u2019s win marked the second year in a row that a woman made history in Fort Worth.<\/p>\n
Winning a race at the Cowtown Marathon holds special significance and, she thinks, gave her a special advantage; she saw people she knew along the route and felt comfortable running the same trails she had trained on.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce I hit those Trinity trails, I was like, oh, no, I own these trails,\u201d Montgomery said. \u201cI run these trails every day. Nobody’s gonna beat me on these trails.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McKale Montgomeny, a TCU professor and 41-year-old mom of two, made history at the Cowtown Marathon, winning overall…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197763,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":{"0":"post-197762","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-fort-worth","9":"tag-fort-worth-headlines","10":"tag-fort-worth-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}