No sooner did I arrive in Denver and get my rental car, than the rains let loose. Lightning, thunder, rain, hail. Thanks Colorado, great to see you too. Didn't do too much the first day. Went to the Wings Over The Rockies air and space museum, a must see if you've never been there. They have an actual B-1 bomber in this huge hanger with other amazing aircraft and space memorabilia. There's even a B-52 outside! Of course, no first night in Denver is complete without a stop at one of my all time favourites, Hapa Sushi.
Saturday was supposed to be a nice drive up to Fort Collins to tour the New Belgium brewery. Well, things didn't go quite as expected. When I got to my car, the battery was dead. I can neither confirm or deny that I left the lights on. Needless to say, having to wait an hour for AAA to show up to jump start me killed any chance of making the tour. That's ok. I still made the drive there, while dodging the severe weather to the south. The weather was really crappy this trip, rain, rain and more rain.
Mid afternoon, I started making the trip back to Boulder. Time to pick up my race packet, get some of the most amazing protein powder (Silver Star Nutrition), and just roam around the Pearl Street Mall. If you've never been to Boulder, Pearl Street is a pedestrian mall with all sorts of shops, restaurants, street entertainers and great people watching. I'm glad I pre-registered last June, the walk up registration line was huge. For a race with 50,000 people, they really have this thing down to a science with the registration, both online and in person.
After pickup, drove around a bit, then headed to my cousin's apartment. One of the benefits of knowing people is having a place to crash for the night, that is right on the starting line. Really, they are right there! A step out of their patio door and down a step, I'm on the the sidewalk, then just a short walk to the end of the block and I was ready to find my start wave. It was kind of an interesting night sleeping there. None of us knew what to expect, would it be loud, would there be a lot of distractions overnight? Nothing like that. Every once in a while, if you were up, you could hear the quiet clanging of the fencing going up, but other wise it was really quiet. I got up around 3:30, and took a look out the window. Sitting in the middle of the street was the start line banner. How cool is that!
Ok, so on to the real reason you're here, the race details. This year is was a 7:07:30am start time. Nice and early. The morning was beautiful. Some high clouds, sun, cool, and a very light breeze. Exactly how I like to run. Staying so close to the starting line afforded me a few extra minutes to get myself ready. I got to my wave group, and about 5 minutes after that, the first groups started. It's amazing how well they have this race timed out, but I suppose after 30-some years, they know what they're doing. Shortly after that first wave set out, we slowly made our way to the start.
After not having run much for the last few months, I wasn't sure how things would feel. I've been dealing with shin splints, but today things felt good. Soon it was time to run. The gun fired, and we were off. Right away, I found a pace that felt good to me. A pace that I thought I would be able to hold for most of the race. Things were good for the first couple of miles, but then I started to feel the fatigue set in. Running at an altitude like this isn't ease, especially when you haven't had a lot of time to train, even for the distance. No matter how hard it got, I just kept pushing along. Wearing my regular shirt and hat for the run, I got a few "Go Packers" and "Go Team Munky"s along the way. That was really uplifting. There were kids along the route with their hand outstreatched to give runners high-fives, and I took full advantage of that. There was a firehouse along the route, and the firefighters were at the end of their drive drinking their coffee, so I decided to run by and thank them. It's funny how just the words or high-fives of strangers can really make a difference. It just gives you an extra push when you need it. You don't know them, they don't know you, but they're out there to watch and support the runners. That's the one thing I love about this race. The whole city of Boulder just embraces it. So what if the city closes down for half the day so that 50,000 people can run in their streets, they really seem to love it. Boulderites and the people of Colorado are some of the warmest, most welcoming and relaxed people I have ever met. I guess that's what keeps me coming back.
Ok, back to the run. Things were tough at parts, but I kept on pushing on. Soon, the turn on to Folsom came. This is the final stretch before entering the stadium, and a good part of it is up hill. After 5.5 miles, going up hill isn't easy, but I did my best not to slow. I was able to save just enough so that when we entered the stadium I could give it all I had left. I made the final sprint around the stadium to the finish. It felt great. I knew I had not done as well as I had expected, but I did it. As it turned out I was 4 seconds slower than last year, but that's ok. For what I've had to deal with in the past few months, finishing in under an hour was an accomplishment. Finished with an official time of 57:39.20. In my division, men age 36, I placed 192 out of 432. And out of 20,931 men, I finished 6578. And, if we really want to get into it, I finished 9,731 of....well, close to 50,000. I'm still very excited to have placed so well in all of the groups.
So that's about it. As I sit here in the airport having a wonderful New Belgium beer, waiting for my flight to head home, cheers BolderBoulder! Thank you again for a wonderful race!
