Success in Colorado!

Colorado was awesome! Some great running out there. I flew in bright and early Wednesday morning, hit up my favourite breakfast place then off to Fort Collins for a brewery tour. Brewery tour turned into a beer or two after along with an amazing maple and bacon waffle. Then back to Denver to rest and hydrate.

Thursday brought another wonderful sunny morning. Had breakfast and then headed out for a run. There's a great park in Stapleton, on MLK boulevard. It's on the site of the old Denver airport. The tower is still there. Lots of paved trails and open spaces. That run felt really good. I only ran about 2.5 miles in 22 minutes. Fairly steady pace. It was fairly warm, great running weather. Not even 24 hours there and I was moving. Not even winded. Went back to my hotel room and got cleaned up for what ever the rest of the day had in store for me.

Stapleton, CO.

Saturday morning came. It was cold, about 20 degrees when I got to the venue. But the sun was out so that helped. Met a family also from Wisconsin who was out there on vacation and their 9 year old daughter was running in the 5k as well (it was also her first Colorado race). After the national anthem we all walked down to the starting line, formed some sort of blob and started. The course was fairly narrow, think two lane bike path. For the first mile or so it was a lot of passing off of the path. The first mile went by fast. Soon things got sorted out and I found a comfortable pace. No huffing and puffing from me, but there sure was from quite a few other people. The course followed a creek, and was quite scenic. Overall I'm very happy with how I did. Finished 197 out of 777, 14th out of 28 in my 35-39 mens group, with a time of 28:58.