Behind the Scenes of Cowtown: A Conversation with Race Director Heidi Swartz

Heidi & Chris: DFW Running Talk
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Chris Detzel: [00:00:00] Welcome to DFW Running Talk. I'm Chris Detzel. So let's get started.

All right. Welcome to another DFW Running Talk. I'm Chris Datzel. And today our special guest is Heidi Swartz. Heidi, how are you? I'm great. Thank you for having me. Thanks for coming on. And you're the race director of Caltown here in Fort Worth, right? Correct. Yes. We talk a lot about Caltown Marathon, Half Marathon, 5K, 10K, 50K, whatever else.

You have there. I think

Heidi Swartz: you got them all. Okay,

Chris Detzel: good. I don't know if you had a mile or. No,

Heidi Swartz: not yet. You never know though.

Chris Detzel: You never know. And look, it's a very prestigious race in the Dallas Fort Worth area. We'll dive into that, but I want to get to know you a little bit, Heidi, just who you are, when when did you start running and, then your journey into how did you get involved in cow town and all that kind of stuff, if that's fair.

All

Heidi Swartz: right. I will say that I'm, I was never a [00:01:00] runner. I grew up in Montana, so I was more of a snow skier, ice skater, that sort of thing, golf, tennis, but never running. And I actually ran the Cowtown, the first time I ran the 10K was in 1994 and only because I had to. You had to? I had to. My son was in elementary school and they had a school team that was participating at the Cowtown 10K and they were required to have a parent.

Run with them to do the 10K. So I was forced into running and I ran the 10K with Trey in 1994. We had to train with the school. We had to show up twice a week and run at the school with the kids and train and ~ ~ran the race and came through the finish line. And I thought, this is the most cool thing I've ever done in my entire life.

And the next week I turned in my resume to try to get a job at the Cowtown Marathon. Wow. And you just got the job.

Chris Detzel: And that's how you started running.

Heidi Swartz: That's how I started [00:02:00] running. That was my introduction. So Cowtown was my introduction to running through my son's school.

Chris Detzel: All right. Let's dive into the running piece where you ran this 10K with your son cause you had to, but you loved it.

You applied for the job.

Heidi Swartz: I loved the finish line. I didn't say I loved the running part. ~ ~I thought the run, the atmosphere and the event was so cool, I wanted to produce it. I actually didn't start running again until I became the executive director of Cowtown, which was in 2003. It took me Wow, you've been doing this since

Chris Detzel: 2003.

Heidi Swartz: Yeah And

Chris Detzel: you didn't do any running since after the 10K from 94.

Heidi Swartz: Correct. And then I became the executive director of the Cowtown, and I decided if I'm gonna Be the director of this event. I better know why these runners are asking for all these crazy things. So I took up running. And

Chris Detzel: all right.

Let's back up. So you mentioned that you applied like a few months later after the 10K? Just did.

Heidi Swartz: Yeah.

Chris Detzel: Did you do anything with them or?

Heidi Swartz: I turned in my [00:03:00] resume. They didn't need anybody. And then 19, the fall of 1996, they contacted me and hired me in November of 96 and I came to work for Cowtown.

Chris Detzel: And what'd you do for Caltown then?

Heidi Swartz: I came as the assistant to the executive director in 1996. She was looking to retire and she wanted to train somebody to take her spot.

Chris Detzel: And she retired in 2003?

Heidi Swartz: And she retired in 03.

Chris Detzel: You had a big gap there, so that, she really taught you a lot of stuff.

Heidi Swartz: Everything. Everything you ever wanted to know. And I also worked other events. I started working other running events, working for timing companies so I could learn how to time them. So I learned. All the nuts and bolts of putting on events from 96 until 03, and then I became the director, but then I didn't know anything about what runners wanted and why they were asked because back then at Cowtown.

They get had plastic cups at the fluid stops and people kept complaining about these plastic [00:04:00] cups, and I'm like, why are they complaining? They have water. It's in a cup. What's the deal? Yeah, so I decided if I was gonna understand why they were complaining I needed to start running and then I realized yeah, you can't squeeze a plastic cup It's gonna crack and you're gonna have water everywhere and runners didn't just squeeze the cup So That's right.

I came, I started running in oh three, my first five KI was dead last, and I vowed never to be dead last again. And then I got really competitive and next year I ran that same race and got first in my age division. And it now I run halfs and I do fulls. Yeah. And I run every week,

Chris Detzel: so

Heidi Swartz: I got the vibe.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Yeah. Now you're, it's crazy that you didn't do any writing until you actually became the executive director. And then, you, you started doing that and it's, that's pretty cool. So you're still running, have you ever had a chance to run CalTalent after, became executive director or no?

Heidi Swartz: No, what we do, I run the route, but I never get to run it in our own event. We're way too busy for that. [00:05:00] So what we do is we have quite a few volunteers that are runners that don't get to run our race. So in the spring. We do, we run the half marathon, unsupported, but we run the route and we have some volunteers that do a rolling water stop for us.

And we have people at the finish line that meet us there and give us our medals. And then we go out to breakfast afterwards. And we do that every year so that we can earn our medals.

Chris Detzel: Do just out of curiosity, do you ever get with other race directors? Dallas, Marcus, and others to talk about strategy or tactics or what, do you guys do that kind of stuff?

Heidi Swartz: Oh, most definitely. Yeah. There's, I'm on I was on the board for Running USA for several years, and I attend Running USA Conference, Road Race Management Conference, and we all get together and talk, actually, Running USA is this weekend, but Cowtown's really busy this year, so I don't get to go. But we all talk all the time.

Marcus and I'll text each other, or I'll text, somebody up in Philadelphia or California, all of the different [00:06:00] race directors. We talk, we compare notes, we learn from each other. To improve our own races or if we have an issue, we, talk and say, what did you do in this situation?

We're all very connected. We don't feel like we're competition to each other. Where we just work together,

Chris Detzel: I don't really see it is competition. Not really. Especially like Dallas and Kowtow, they're spread apart there, if you want to run both of them you could yeah, right So

Heidi Swartz: if one of us has a really great year with great registrations That's just gonna help the next race that's down the road on the calendar To know that we can have that too.

And that's the way everything's going right now in the United States. Running is the registrations are just skyrocketing, ~ ~which is great for the sport.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. It took a little bit of time from COVID, didn't it? It did. It did. ~ ~Oh, I'm interested in kind of the, the nuts and bolts of this is that.

You've been doing Cowtown for a long time. What's [00:07:00] some of the challenges that you've faced every year? Is there specific ones that you think? It kind of changes

Heidi Swartz: from year to year. It depends on what's going on in the United States. Like this year, my challenge is food.

Usually, we have anywhere between 24 to 28, 000 runners at Cowtown. And and we usually get quite a bit of our food donated. This year because of all the natural disasters across the United States, the food donations are very slim. So this year, my issue is food. I'm purchasing food for 27, 000 runners instead of getting it donated, and obviously the weather is always one of those things that could be an issue, but there's nothing we can do about it.

So we just need to plan all the different scenarios for the weather. But

Chris Detzel: Talk about that, like if it rains or the thunderstorms really crazy, or, one year you guys have to cancel the marathon and everything else and kept the half, but I remember driving to that and it was crazy.[00:08:00]

It was the, I think the course was fine mostly, but getting there, cause I'm in Dallas, the bridges were crazy. And it was like, I'll never do this again.

Heidi Swartz: Yeah. Yeah. It was crazy. That was an interesting year and so our race started in 1979 and the first year this race happened, they had ice and snow and the race happened.

At that time, it just happened. Everybody showed up and ran, obviously it was much, much fewer participants. There were only 400 people. And they showed up and ran on the roads. This one was different in ~ ~2015 because first off, it wasn't forecast. It was forecast to be beautiful weather.

And I have conversations with the National Weather Service leading up to the race. Every year we get on with them and have. Weekly conversations, what's the weather forecast? What's it looking like? So we know, and on Tuesday, everything's great. By Thursday, we're on the phone with them and they're like we're going to probably cancel, recommend that schools don't do any extracurricular things, there may be a dusting of snow [00:09:00] out in the country, but the inside, the Metroplex will be fine.

And Friday morning before opening the expo at 9am, we look out the window and there's Snow coming down like crazy. I had to find a four wheeler to take me down to the emergency management office so that we could figure out what we were doing. But that was an interesting year. Because we were able, the city, we work really closely with the city of Fort Worth and they're really great partners.

They cleared our course, they cleared the parking lot so we could do the house.

Chris Detzel: So that's pretty good. I felt and I think that's probably important is how a city kind of Reacts a lot, you have to get all these permits and things like that. And I know for Dallas, it's just always, I feel like Dallas is, I don't know if I should say this, but, not the marathon, but the city of Dallas themselves just don't believe in.

exercise and bringing sports things to the city and makes it difficult for all of the people, whether it's [00:10:00] trying to build a stadium, which is different, but just runners or whatever, they make it difficult for some of these race directors and I like to hear about Fort Worth being the opposite of that.

Heidi Swartz: Yeah, Fort Worth, they just all come together. We meet with all the different departments in the city way far in advance. We have another meeting with them next week and. Parks department, the transportation department, police, fire, EMS, we all work together. And I think that's what makes it an enjoyable race to put on because I don't have to fight with bureaucracy or anything else because we're a team.

And it's a huge difference for some cities.

Chris Detzel: I find, every, my top half marathon, I don't really do marathons anymore, but yeah, it's Countdown. The reason is because, one, the crowd support is always really good. Two is, it's just unique and different, it feels like a party, and just It just is well done.

You've done, the team has done a very good job over the last several, since I've been doing it for a long time, I'm [00:11:00] sure since 2003, that's why people keep coming to me. Is it true that Cowtown is the biggest race in all of, is it bigger than Dallas?

Heidi Swartz: Yes. We're the largest multi event in North Texas.

Yeah.

Chris Detzel: That's awesome. Cause We

Heidi Swartz: Go back and forth between Houston and Fort Worth. Being the largest in the state, Houston usually beats us. We got, we beat them one year. I don't remember what year it was, but just by a few. He Houston's such a great course and they do such a great job and it's nice and flat and fast, but yeah, we're the largest multi event in North Texas.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Cowtown's not, it's nice, but it's not flat.

Heidi Swartz: No, it's not flat. One year you guys it more interesting, right? I

Chris Detzel: agree. I love it. I like, it's funny because I've never PR, PR it on that course. As a matter of fact, in general, it's usually not a great course for me to do well, but I love it so much.

I've done it a few times out of the nine times I've 10, I don't know how many, but it's rare that, I'll hit, [00:12:00] cause I think my best is like a 133i, but that was, I've hit 133 on a lot of courses, I've never done it twice on Cal Town and not even close, like one times 1 37, sometimes 1 47, 1 times 1 45.

I'm like, man, this casino weather and it just hilly. Depends how good shape I'm, so it's just been interesting, but I keep going about it. And that's interesting info there. One year you guys did this, so mile nine, I think there's a hill that you could just see, oh yes, everybody knows about it.

And you did this thing that I liked. I don't think you do it anymore, but. That you timed it and you said, there's going to be a prize for whoever wins it for more, maybe it was motivation or whatever. What happened to that? Was it just Oh, it's just.

Heidi Swartz: Yeah, we just stopped doing it.

We should resurrect it because it was a lot of fun. It was from the base of the hill to the top of the hill. Whoever was the fastest. It's just.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Yeah. Like I think something like that is my own personal opinion is that it could take a little bit of time to market that.

So you do it one year, but then you do it four years [00:13:00] in a row. That fourth year, everybody knows about trying to sprint up the hill, and that's everything that they're going to talk about, so I think,

Heidi Swartz: all right, you've got me convinced. So for 2026, we'll add it back in. How's that?

All

Chris Detzel: right. No, that's not the spot. I was like, can I do it? That's mile nine, but we'll see and no, I think it's really cool. So talk a little bit about All the things you have to do to prepare me because from my understanding you guys don't have do you guys have a lot of events?

Beforehand there's a 5k doing this. I mean talk about that and then Yeah, no,

Heidi Swartz: We do a few races during the year, but Cowtowns are biggie. We do a 5k, 10k in October. We do a one mile 5k in December. We produce for some other nonprofit organizations throughout the year, but they're all small races.

So Cowtowns, Cowtowns the big one, but we start. I start working on Cowtown in March, so as soon as the race is over, I'm our fiscal year ends in March, so I'm writing the budget right now for 2026 in the middle of putting on a race. [00:14:00] But,

Chris Detzel: beauty about budgets, ,

Heidi Swartz: The process starts in March where I'm getting bids, I'm getting bids for shirts, I'm getting bids for metals.

I'm getting all the different, barricade company bids. All of that is in March and April. I order our shirts in June, so I'm really fortunate that my screen printer for my shirts works with me and he has been working with me for over 20 years and he prints as I need. So I order from the manufacturer all of our blanks and I order them in June for them to arrive in September because they get sewn.

I have my own pattern because I want our shirts, our runner shirts to stay consistent year after year. So we have a pattern that we've used for the last 20 years of printing. And the manufacturer cuts and sews those, ships them to us in September, and as we get registrations. My screen printer prints so that I don't have a lot of leftover so he'll be printing the week before the race my top off order of Runner shirts [00:15:00] finisher shirts.

That's a different deal Those are what they are when I run out but the runner shirts And then I if I don't print on these blanks, I use them for other we have a training program That's year round. So we work on that All year, we train runners for fall and winter marathons and half marathons, and then we train runners.

Do you

Chris Detzel: manage that too, or?

Heidi Swartz: Yeah, I've got staff, so I have a training coordinator that does that for us. But yeah, we have to manage all that. We have a speed training class. We have a 10 mile club. And we do those things year round. And then we have our charity that is a year round program.

So we're training kids. We have a summer camp for kids. We have a youth training program that's six week sessions year round. So there's a lot happening. It's quite the

Chris Detzel: organization. It's

Heidi Swartz: not just February Countdown.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, that, I knew that, but I didn't know all the things that you had under kind of that Caltelm brand, oh yeah,

Heidi Swartz: so in our new facility that we have now, we have Pilates classes, we have yoga [00:16:00] classes, we have mobility classes, we have CPR classes. So it's not just, it's just not just a running event.

Chris Detzel: How many staff do you have overall?

Heidi Swartz: I have, let me count, I have five. Five full time and then I've got a couple of temporary staff that work with us in February.

Chris Detzel: Good. Wow. It's quite the organization. I love it. But I was talking to, I think it was Logan Sherman about Dallas and stuff like that. But they only have three staff, right? It's Marcus and two other people or three or something like that. So you know, so it's actually less staff than you, but you have more programs that are going on.

We have a

Heidi Swartz: lot of programs. Yeah. Yeah, so we've got our cadence youth running program going on right now. We time it So we had one in the fall as soon as cross country ended We started a six week program to keep those kids running and then As soon as Christmas was over. We started another one so that they start running this [00:17:00] one until February So they're they'll run in a cow town and then they'll start their track season soon as track seasons over We start another one so that they stay Training in this, the summer and get him trained up for cross country in the fall

Chris Detzel: So do you see some of the same kids showing up, you know for tall of those sessions or at least?

Yeah, it's

Heidi Swartz: really cool to see him I mean we just started that program this year in our first session that we only had 20 kids. Our second session we had 40 kids. This time I think I've got 80 kids in it. So I think it's definitely a need. There's no real good long distance training programs for kids and over on the Fort Worth side.

Chris Detzel: It's probably the same here. Yeah. There's some programs. There's some. Yeah.

Heidi Swartz: And then we've got our Trailblazers program, which is our adult training. And we've got any, it ranges from session to session, but anywhere between 150 to 350 per session. And that goes year round, just different sessions.

Is [00:18:00] that kind of

Chris Detzel: different programs Hey, here's a 130, 140, 150 for half and goes on up and then same thing with the full and then you just pay to be with the group and a pacer

Heidi Swartz: that. And then we do the long runs and we set out, we set the course every Saturday, set out water stops every Saturday.

We have seminars every, Saturdays we have people come in to speak to them. And then in the spring we'll do a speed class to help people increase their speed, and then we'll do a 10 mile for those that wanna meet. That's mean that you

Chris Detzel: do that over the summer. Yeah, you, it's just really hard to run that fast over the summer.

Heidi Swartz: Yeah. Our speed training ends in beginning of July. Soon as it gets really hot, we stopped this. We, but we do start our fall and winter training in July.

Chris Detzel: The only formal program that Dallas has, DRC, I'm sorry, say that again. The only formal program that we have in Dallas that I can think of is DRC.

Yeah.

Heidi Swartz: Yeah,

Chris Detzel: there's lots of them. And that's a big one.

Heidi Swartz: That's a great one. Yeah.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. No [00:19:00] I've run it several times part of it now but I'm just thinking what's formal in Dallas. And the only thing I could think of is to pay for, maybe Luke's, I don't think Luke's has anything anymore.

Heidi Swartz: If Luke's does or not Fort Worth running company did for a while, but I don't know if they have it anymore. I'm not sure if Fleet Feet does. I don't know. We have a lot here at Cowtown. It's a good group.

Chris Detzel: I love, I like that you thought about every part of the running aspect of, you have a race, a few races, the big one, you have a training program for adults.

You have a training program for kids. And I like, I was thinking about this is, you mentioned that you had 20, then 40, then 80 kids, that's the beauty about getting kids involved. You get 20 kids show up, right? And you think, oh man, I was hoping like 60 would show up.

Once they, those kids do it, their moms and dads are telling their other friends about it. It just takes off. That's exactly what happens. That's what I did when I have a parent would tell me that, Hey, there's this [00:20:00] thing that you can go do with your kid every Saturday, and just drop them off and they can get exercise, whatever.

I'm going to that. Yeah. And that's what happens.

Heidi Swartz: Yeah, I think our kids program will really blow up. We've been doing summer camp with kids for years and we do have that. We'll do two sessions of summer camp with the kids. The whole goal is because of our, I don't know if you know a lot about our CAF program.

Have you heard of it?

Chris Detzel: I've heard of it. Yeah, so

Heidi Swartz: CAF stands for Children's Activities for Life and Fitness and we started it back in 2009 because we found like a lot of kids that were coming with their school teams to run our race just they weren't getting proper training, and we wanted to make sure that these kids didn't show up and end up getting blisters and hate it, and then never come back.

We want them to learn to love the sport, because obviously these kids are going to grow up to be adults, and they're going to be the people coming back and running our halves and our pulls. We wanted to get the kids to learn that running isn't a punishment, that it's a lot [00:21:00] of fun. Our CAF program, we'll go to schools all through the Metroplex, we work with about 14 different school districts, and we go and meet with the running clubs at the schools, or the P.

E. classes at the schools, and we teach them You know, how to take their resting heart rate and then we run with them and then we have them take their heart rate again so they can see the difference. We teach them, stretches cool down, stretches, warm up, stretches, proper running form, and then in the winter, the coaches can, or in the fall, the coaches can submit a grant and request

Chris Detzel: for

Heidi Swartz: us to pay for the kids to to.

The kids only have to pay 10 to run Caltown, basically. We're giving them a grant so that they get 30 off their entry fee, and the kids pay 10. But they also get shoes and socks, because we found out a lot of these schools, these kids are low income, and they May be out there exercising, but they're running in, canvas shoes that are two sizes too small or, [00:22:00] something that they shouldn't be running in.

So all these schools that request grants we give them grants. And then in January and February, we go back to the schools and we fit each child with a pair of shoes. And we give them a lot of work. It is a lot of work. Oh my gosh. We've got a team out right now delivering to five schools today. So we'll do, as soon as school starts in January, we'll go to four to six schools, Monday through Friday, every day, up until the week before Cowtown.

And we'll deliver shoes to about, this year, to 5, 200 kids.

Chris Detzel: Wow.

Heidi Swartz: And that's where people don't realize when they're paying their entry fee for Cowtown. Yeah, they're paying their entry fee for Cowtown, but they're also helping us pay for entry fees for 5, 200 kids. And socks and shoes for 5, 200 kids because we don't get the shoes donated, we purchase them.

This year, the kids are getting Asics shoes that I've been able to buy through Asics. They sell them [00:23:00] to me at a vastly discounted price. But we're still buying shoes, 150, 000 worth of shoes

Chris Detzel: that we

Heidi Swartz: give to these kids. And then the kids come and run the Cowtown Kids 5K. And they get to see from the fall all the way to February what they've done.

And that's the whole reason Cowtown exists, is to be able to get the kids out exercising. Because they're our future, and they're the ones that are going to be out there running when, we're not here anymore.

Chris Detzel: What a great organization, like, just to, and I like your long term thinking around, Hey, these kids are going to become adults.

And that is true. You guys have been around since what? 1970 something. 79. So if you've been around since 1979. I think the Dallas was 1973 or four. So they did their

Heidi Swartz: 50th anniversary last year and we'll do ours in 2028. So

Chris Detzel: not too long ago, a few years ago, you guys had the Olympic. [00:24:00] And what was it?

The United

Heidi Swartz: States track and field half marathon championships.

Chris Detzel: How'd that go? From inside, sure. Did your job change a little bit on some of the, when you think of like some of the athletes, demanding certain things and, or, certain qualifying or course kind of things you had to do it.

Cause I remember the course was slightly changed.

Heidi Swartz: Yeah, we had to adjust a few things. Myself and my partner here, Cindy Peck, she handles all of our course here in Caltown. So between the two of us, we had to adjust a little bit. It added some work. But it was so worth it. It was pretty cool to be able to have all those athletes come to Fort Worth.

And to see our city and to run our event it was a challenge, but it was a good challenge.

Chris Detzel: What was the biggest challenge there? I'm just curious.

Heidi Swartz: I think the challenge was just to make sure that our course was just so clean and precise and to make sure, That we got them off started correctly and [00:25:00] everybody made, it's just more of a nervous factor for us to make sure that everything went perfectly,

Chris Detzel: perfect as possible,

Heidi Swartz: so many pieces, parts to erase that people don't realize.

And then. When it all comes together, it's great, but, one thing slipped up, it could be a domino effect. It's just a challenge of making it happen and making it happen smoothly. And Marcus came out from Dallas. He came and helped us at the finish line. Again, we all kind of stick together when we need the help.

It's A great family to have to help.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, I've been trying to get him on the podcast, but he just keeps ignoring me, but then I was like, Hey, you think you can get Heidi, an introduction? Yeah, no problem. He responds quickly. So I don't really get that. I keep asking. He's I'm still busy.

I was like, he's not busy.

Heidi Swartz: Hey, he's not busy. My race is in three weeks.

Chris Detzel: And you're here. What did that do for your race? Did that do anything like prestige wise or anything like that? Or did you think it helped? I

Heidi Swartz: think it helped put us on the map for some of these more elite [00:26:00] athletes because they'll talk about it They had a great event, they had a good experience they're going to talk to some of the runners that they run with and It just gives some more exposure to us.

It gave us some more national press, which is great for the city. For Fort Worth's name to be out there nationally and people to realize that we have these events going on here in Fort Worth. I remember when I first started I became executive director. We never traveled to visit other races or travel to go to other expos.

The only expo we, we'd ever gone to was Dallas. And when I became director, it was like, that was one of my goals. We need to go and visit other races. And have booths at other races. And I remember going to Houston and Austin, San Antonio, and people would come by our booths and they're like, Oh, are you Dallas?

And we're like, no, we're Fort Worth. We're the city that's over here. People didn't even know where Fort Worth was. And now we go to those expos and they're like, Oh, it's Cowtown, it's Fort Worth. So it was, bringing awareness to where we are is real important.

Chris Detzel: I agree. And it's [00:27:00] funny, something that caught me, my ear was, you said it helps Fort Worth as well, right?

To get exposure to Fort Worth, like you say, so you're thinking not just the race, obviously the races that they draw, but it also talks about Fort Worth and evangelizes the city. So I love this team aspect of things.

Heidi Swartz: Oh, for sure. Because. Fort Worth helps us so much. I want to make sure I'm helping them right back.

Let's get some exposure to the city and let the tourism industry see that this is a great place to visit.

Chris Detzel: I think it is, people. So I have traveled all around the world and people have traveled here from different friends and stuff like that or work or whatever.

But then, they're like, I want to go to Fort Worth, and so they want to see the cows and the downtowns and all kinds of different things like that. And so one thing I want to talk about is COVID. So I ran your race during kind of the COVID time and they changed everything.

How is that? And you still pulled it off, but that was a

Heidi Swartz: challenge. That was a challenge. So [00:28:00] we would, we were actually, our race was one of the last races in the United States to happen. And then two weeks after our race, everything shut down. I needed to make sure that I could still keep my staff employed.

I wanted, I did not want anybody's paycheck to stop because of COVID. So we did a ton of different virtual things. We did scavenger hunts. We did, all sorts of different events in 2020 spring, summer, fall, because I needed to make sure I could keep my staff making a paycheck.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Heidi Swartz: And. At the time, we had it in our mind that we could pull off co Cowtown in 2021 in February, but then it just decided, we decided it was just too risky to do it in February, but we still wanted to make it happen.

We didn't want it not to happen. We needed to have. given people a goal to be able [00:29:00] to get outside and run. We opted for that May date. It was warm. We also, that's why we eliminated The hat, the full and the ultra, because we knew it was going to be too warm to be able to manage that in, in May in Texas, because you just don't, you never know what the weather's going to be.

And we also limited the amount of people because we didn't, we wanted people to be able to still participate, but have some distance. So we did our drive through packet pickup, which runners loved and we loved, but and it would be fun to keep doing it. Yeah. February, it won't work too well. You never know what the weather's going to be, but in May, it was great.

You just drove through and picked up all your stuff and,

Chris Detzel: I do remember that.

Heidi Swartz: You remember that?

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Yeah. I ran the race and that year as well. I remember the experience. I remember the course was completely changed. Yes. backwards or something. I don't remember. It was backwards.

Heidi Swartz: It was backwards.

It was a completely [00:30:00] different course.

Chris Detzel: It was cool, it was just different than what I was used to.

Heidi Swartz: I think the hardest part of that race was the finish area because people were so happy to be out and running a race. They wanted to stay and talk. And we promised the city we would keep pushing them out and they'd just get their food bag and leave.

And nobody wanted to leave. That's right. And it was like, you have to leave. That was the hardest part. We spent a ton of time creating the corrals for them to go through to get to the start line. We spent hours marking it and making sure we had distance. People didn't want distance. That was our biggest challenge.

But it happened. We had about 6, 500 people do it. And then we had the rest do it virtually. Yeah,

Chris Detzel: It's a lot of time and effort for, it's going to be really difficult for this year. Yeah, for this year. I'll be running the half as usual. So

Heidi Swartz: you're already registered.

Chris Detzel: Oh, yeah. [00:31:00] Of course.

Heidi Swartz: Okay. Good. Because there's no more.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. I always register for the cheapest. Because I already know right when you open it up, in general, that's when I'll register for both Dallas and CalTown and Dallas I usually pace. CalTown I've never paced CalTown, but but that, that one I always sign up for before.

And you guys do have pacers. I know a lot of people that have paced. We do. Cal Jones Hope. Do you use your own pacers to do that?

Heidi Swartz: They're our own pacers. They have to apply and have certain restrictions and what, make sure.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Heidi Swartz: And they're really good. Our pacers are great and they pretty much hit their mark every year.

Chris Detzel: Every year. You got to. That.

Heidi Swartz: Yeah. I'd feel bad as a pacer

Chris Detzel: that, if I didn't hit that number, you know. We try to have

Heidi Swartz: two pacers for every pace. So that if one of them has issues, the other one can,

Chris Detzel: I remember so usually Dallas would have three or four pacers and this year they're like, no we can only have two this year because, just too many people are registered.

So we can't just take those spots away. So this year, so in [00:32:00] February, this is just a few weeks out or less, what are you excited about this year?

Heidi Swartz: Oh gosh, I'm hoping that the, I'm excited that maybe the weather forecast looks good, but we don't, you never know with Texas. We'll see.

Yeah, I'll see. Right now it looks good. I'm excited that our kids race seems to be back. COVID really made it so it was slow and coming back, but this year it's just, The kids are back, so we should have about 8, 000 kids there, which is so exciting for them and for us, it's a little crazy, it's like herding cats, they're just like everywhere, but that's fun and that our race, our registration is just huge this year, so our biggest race we ever had was in 2015 when we had to cancel everything, but the half and we had, yeah, we had 28, 000 runners registered that year and we're getting back to that number this year.

So that's really exciting that we're, that the numbers are coming back since COVID and back to [00:33:00] where they, they should be. Our half marathon has hit its capacity. We've sent out a press release. We are opening it up for 350 more spots. That's all I can do this year, because I don't want to open it up to so many spots that I don't have parking for them.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Heidi Swartz: I think parking this year is our biggest hurdle, because Every

Chris Detzel: year, it feels like a, it's really hard to go park over there for some reason. It's

Heidi Swartz: very, yeah, and UNT Health Science Center this year is charging for parking, which makes it harder, and for 20 years they didn't, and so now they are.

And so we're having to pre sell parking passes for all the different lots over at UNT. So parking is a challenge. That's, I would say that would be my biggest challenge this year is parking. The best thing about this year is great numbers. Lots of runners. We have every state represented. I think I have 14 countries coming in.

I have 19 people coming from Nice, France through sister cities. [00:34:00] Which is so cool. They started running with us virtually in 2021 during COVID and this group in France, and they ran with us virtually 2021, 22, 23, 24. This year they decided they're just making it a trip and they're offline here to run it in person.

So that's so exciting to have all those folks that have been doing it virtually for four or five years now to be able to come and

Chris Detzel: actually experience it in person. That's pretty impressive. I love that. And that's, see, those kind of stories, you could tell me out of those 28, 000 or however many runners you're going to have this year, there's a lot of people from all over the world, all over the United States, that, that are coming to these races, and to this race, which is a great story.

Heidi Swartz: That's, I think the best thing about Cowtown is there's always really cool stories happening. There's so many different things, hurdles that people have gone through to be able to participate or be here. That's what makes it so exciting. This year we have a wedding that's going to take [00:35:00] place after the race.

Some, a couple is going to get married. I'm not quite sure. I have to figure out where near the finish line. But

Chris Detzel: say, how's that going to happen?

Heidi Swartz: I'm not sure yet. I'm still working on that. But yeah, they're going to get married after they finish their half marathon. So that's fun.

And then the sister cities group from France is fun.

But again, every year it's something different. I had, I have this one guy from years ago, back in the early thousands, he was registered for our full marathon and he got sick and he was in San Antonio with a brain tumor and he had to. He was diagnosed with this brain tumor and his father called me a week before the race and said, they say he's not going to make it.

Can I come get a marathon medal to put in front of him at his bed to give him motivation to, to fight. And so we, I don't remember how we got the medal to San Antonio. We got it there, he survived, he [00:36:00] came back and ran our race the next year. And those are the stories that keep us motivated to do it every day, because there's so many stories like that every year that are just, they motivate you to make sure you do a really good job and make it a great experience for the runner because they've got a reason they're running.

Chris Detzel: So one thing I love about running is that. is that it can take you all over the world, all over the U. S., or just traveling to different places. And it brings in communities, just like you said the ladies from France, right? And they're a community that's been doing this for a few years now since COVID.

And now they're all coming up as a group to run your race, or to run the CalTown race. It's just running brings people together. It truly does. It's a healthy thing to do. It helps you not just stay healthy in shape, from a exercise standpoint, but as a runner that's been doing this for a long time, it helps me with my eating, and I get, I think about [00:37:00] eating better, not always, for you to provide that platform for runners to either, sometimes people want to compete, to hit PRs, to hit, to win, to just run, just to be out there, just to be with friends, to.

Do a lot of things and you provide that platform and for somebody like you seem to just really have a passion not necessarily just for running but just for the community overall and the people, the kids, the healthiness, I love them,

Heidi Swartz: most definitely some of these kids that we go and give them shoes.

We're taking off shoes that are two sizes too small. I have literally waited for a little girl's toes to uncurl because, we wait five minutes because they've been smashed in the shoe that didn't fit her. And so that's the impact. And all of a sudden the eyes light up and they're like, oh that feels so good.

They had no idea that a shoe should be comfortable. And and you think about that, they've been sitting in school trying to focus on schoolwork and they've been uncomfortable with this. So not only are we helping them get outside and running, but we're helping them be able [00:38:00] to

Chris Detzel: feel good

Heidi Swartz: during the day when they're in school and not have their feet just hurting.

There's just so much that what we do does that affects people and the positive. You're right. It is my passion. Poor family has lived with this for 29 years. My kids started, I started when my youngest was in kindergarten. And my other one was 10 when I started at Cowtown.

Chris Detzel: Do any of them run the cow town or no?

Heidi Swartz: My oldest son, you're just tired of it. My older son does some, but usually I put him to work. And, but my granddaughter runs, and then my younger son, he sings the national anthem at the start line every year. He's an opera singer. Wow. So he sings for me and then he works perks. I put him to work.

My husband's a paramedic firefighter, so he's out on the course being a medical hotshot, so it's a family affair that they've been dealing with for 29 years.

Chris Detzel: That's just, it's just come to know, but they're going to be out there [00:39:00] in one way or another. Oh, yeah. To help or ride or My daughter

Heidi Swartz: in laws, both of my daughter in laws, I told them when they got married that they're now have to help with Caltown, so they're out there.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I've learned a ton just from this conversation. It's crazy. We should have more conversations. Think how much I can learn from you. I think, a lot of race directors can learn from just the passion and the, it's just the longevity in this sport that you've done. So it's crazy.

Haven't done much else. You, where'd you work before and now like for 29 years now you've done this, I

Heidi Swartz: know. I was a legal secretary for a long time and then I worked for the YMCA as the office manager, I guess is what you would call it, for YMCA. I left the YMCA to come to work for Cowtown.

Cowtown's been basically my only job, I worked as an assistant manager at a restaurant in college, but

Chris Detzel: Cowtown's

Heidi Swartz: the only real job I would say I've had, it's my career.

Chris Detzel: How fun. What a great [00:40:00] story. Heidi, is there anything that I missed during this conversation that you wish I would have asked or should have asked?

Heidi Swartz: I don't know.

Chris Detzel: I should tell you, I was going to ask that question before.

Heidi Swartz: I don't know when you're airing this podcast I would just say if it's airing, in the next week or so, if they haven't registered, register really quick, because I think we'll close out every distance this year. What distance are available?

Right now I've got maybe five spots left in the ultra, and I've got ten spots left in the full. It's going to sell

Chris Detzel: out, for sure.

Heidi Swartz: On Monday, I'll open up the half for 350 more spots, but those will be gone probably in A day or two, the kids 5k, I've got 400 spots left and then the adults 5k, 700 spots and the 10k, 600 spots.

So 5k, 10k for a little bit.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Wow. That will sell out. It's is going to air pretty soon just because of the date of [00:41:00] Caltown and it's a great conversation. I think a lot of people will be very interested in hearing about this. Heidi, thank you so much for coming on DFW Running Talk.

Yes, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, and thank you everyone for tuning in to another Dallas, or DFW Running Talk. Please rate and review us, and just know we have a community, it's called DFW Running Group on Facebook of 10, 500 people. Just search it, Facebook, you'll find it. And until next time, again, thanks to Heidi, and we'll let you go now.

Thanks everyone.