Monday was my third year in a row running the Bolder Boulder 10K race. I love this race. The spectacle, the course, the ceremonies...it just all combines to make an incredible event. I was really nervous heading in to this race since I
hadn't raced since February...it was like I'd forgotten how to get
ready! Plus I honestly had no idea how I was going to be able to do. I was hoping that I was at least mostly recovered from my post-marathon burnout, but like I said, I hadn't raced since February. I had an idea of what I would like to do, but had no idea if it was even remotely possible.
I took the bus up and was at the start a good hour before my wave
started (the race starts in waves, since there are 50,000+
runners...first wave went at 7, the last went around 10!). I wandered
over to the port-o-potties before the lines got long and took care of
business so I could go about pinning myself into my blindingly bright Brooks ID uniform.
As I was sitting on the curb, my friend Lindsay found me (her: You
weren't kidding about how bright that thing is! me: I TOLD you! :-P) and
helped me pin the back part. We chatted as I finished getting ready and
then she went to warm up a bit and I went to go check my bag. Where the
line was already TWO BLOCKS long. At 6:50! Unbelievable. I mean,
the lines are always long, but this was ridiculous. Every one of my
friends that checked a bag either barely made their wave, or missed it
and had to run with a later wave. Luckily, I ran into Erica and Liz
who were in line and let me cut in with them. (Them: BRIGHT Me: I KNOW :-D) As we
were standing there, my friend Shannon and her friend found me...guess
how? LOL) I find it hilarious that in
past years, I've been in the same wave as friends and not been able to
find them, but this year, almost everybody I knew who was running found
me! ID uni, FTW!
I got my bag checked, finally, and we jogged up to the start line. So
much for my planned 5-10 minute warm-up jog. Oh well. I slid into my
wave with about 3 minutes to spare. Next thing I knew, we were off! My
"goal" was to run 9 minute pace, but I
honestly had no idea how realistic that was. I really would have been
happy with 9:30 pace. My goal was to go out at or close to my goal pace,
since I've learned the past two years that if I go out easy and try to
drop my pace later, it's probably not going to happen! The first couple of miles were
tough, my legs felt heavy and like they didn't really want to go, but I
was still right around 9:10 pace. Mile 1 brought us the Blues Brothers,
belly dancers, and Elvis. The first bacon sighting was at mile 2 (with
additional sightings at miles 4 and 5). Mile 3 brought us beer and
doughnuts, a slip n' slide, and a pretty good uphill. My legs were
starting to loosen up and feeling pretty good by this point. For the
rest of the race, it felt like my speed was limited more by my cardio
than by my legs. Somewhere in mile 4, the spectators were handing out
Doritos. That one really cracked me up...They had trays with doritos
spaced so that it was easy to grab just one. I LOVE the Bolder
Boulder! The last two miles hurt pretty bad, but yet I had my fastest
pace of the race. The last mile is uphill and sucks, but there's
something SO special about surviving the last brutal uphill into the
stadium and coming in to all those people cheering. I was so psyched to
see my time under 57 minutes! My official time ended up being 56:52, nearly a minute and a half faster than last year, a new PR! I've never been that wiped out at the end
of a race, so I'm pretty confident that I gave it just about everything I
had. I headed a little bit up toward the fieldhouse (where
they collect the timing tags and you get your snack bag and beer and
stuff) and waited for Shannon and her friend Nicole, who started in
the wave behind me.
The only real bummer of the day was that I couldn't get anyone to go get
breakfast with me after the race! All my friends were either heading
home right away, in later waves, or just not interested. Oh well. I did a
walk through the expo, hung out with one friend for a little while, and
then met up with some new friends from Twitter. I'd never met them
before, but they turned out to be really, really cool. The Memorial
Day ceremonies were, as always, phenomenal. The pro race was incredible.
They do a team format with each country having three runners for their
team. The mens race was won by Ethiopia, all three runners came into the
stadium together HOLDING HANDS THREE ACROSS. And STAYED that way all
the way through the stadium and across the finish line! I've never seen
anything like it, it was incredible. They did give them official places
and stuff, but they all said that they were sharing the prize money
equally. How cool is that?! Almost as cool was the fact that Team
Colorado (who is kinda the JV team for Team USA for this race) got
second, placing all three runners in the top 10! The women's finish
wasn't quite as impressive but it was really freaking fast. The first
mile was 4:55! I think the
winner's time was 31:06 or something ridiculous like that. The men's
winning time was 29ish!
Overall, another great day at the Bolder Boulder. I really love this race. I mean,
come on...50,000+ racers, a stadium full of people cheering for running,
of all things, awesome elite racing...it just doesn't get much better!
Skydiver bringing in the flag for Memorial Day ceremonies
With my new Twitter friends, Sarah, Lisa, and Ali
Official race results:
Net time: 56:52
Pace: 9:09 (not quite 9:00, but not bad!)
Overall place: 11428/50421
Gender place: 3478/22964
Division place: 120/643