With push from former UTA runner, Denton coach wins Cowtown 5K 28 years after first win
James Jackson wanted it and Grayson Birka cheered him on.
Jackson, 53, won the Cowtown Marathon 5K on Saturday morning 28 years after winning the Cowtown 10K.
Jackson was 25 then, about the same age as Birka now, a former UT Arlington track and field runner who grew up in Arlington and also attended Martin High School.
With about a mile remaining on Saturday, the runners were well ahead of the pack and Birka suggested they finish it together. But he could tell Jackson was in it to win it. Jackson kept surging, trying to pull away.
“I was like, I need to try to win if I can with an opportunity like this,” said Jackson, who runs Jackson’s Elite Training, Racing and Running Club in Denton. “He’s a great kid, I could tell. He could probably have taken off any time he wanted.”
Instead, Birka urged him on down the stretch.
“I’m thinking, he can’t be 25 at the most,”Jackson said. “I’m an old man, I don’t want it to come down to a sprint. I’ve got to do whatever I can to give myself an opportunity against the young bucks.”
As the pair approached the finish line just north of Dickies Arena in the middle of the museum district and stock show complex on the west side of town, Birka started yelling, “Sprint!”
Jackson wasn’t sure what Birka was doing. Was he challenging him? Was he attempting to pass him?
“So I was giving it all I had. I didn’t know what he was doing. I was scared to death,” Jackson said.. “It was awesome. I’m very happy with it. I can’t believe it.”
Birka, who was part of UTA’s Sun Belt Conference champion cross country team in 2015, has done something similar before. He let a high school sophomore finish first at a Mansfield 5K in November.
“I could tell [Jackson] wanted it really bad,” he said. “I told him you got this, I’ll run you in. And he went ahead. I feel bad the last 800 or 400 meters just blasting them. It’s not that important [to me]. If I was competing with a bunch of guys like me then we would start going at it. I just wanted him to get it.”
Jackson remembers how it felt to run at 24, when he typically finished a 5K in about 13 minutes, 30 seconds.
“He’s a super nice kid,” he said. “As I’ve gotten older, it’s obviously a lot more difficult. At 53, I’m very excited.”
The Cowtown Marathon, which is celebrating its 42nd year, includes a Half Marathon and Ultra Marathon, which all start at 7 a.m. Sunday.
Virgilio Martinez, 26, of Waxahachie, was the men’s 10K winner on Saturday with a time of 33:36. Frisco’s Judah Alexander-Macias, 14, finished second at 35:22 and Grapevine’s Dustin Wernicke, 33, finished third at 35.40.
Gabriela Deleon, 24, of Coppell won the women’s 10K with a time of 35:27. Stefanie Flippin, 30, of Evergreen, Colo., and Esperanza Lopez, 29, of Fort Worth, finished second and third with a 36:58 and 39:53.
Jessica Smith, 42, of Trophy Club, won the women’s 5K with a time of 18:22. Neringa Kaulinaite, 37, of Fort Worth, placed second with a 18:51 and Katy Cranfill, 28, of Austin, finished third with a 19:18.
Angel Sanchez, 14, of Fort Worth, won the boys 5K with a time of 18:15, just ahead of Isaac Garza, 14, of Joshua, at 18:16 and Dominick Barrera, 13, of Fort Worth, at 18:17.
Madison Larsen, 11, of Aledo, won the girls 5K with a time of 19:37. Micah Neal, 10, of Aledo, finished with a 20:43 and Cate Werth, 11, of Fort Worth, finished third with a time of 22:21.
This story was originally published February 29, 2020 at 7:06 PM.
