Colder Boulder

The Colder Boulder was my "A" race this fall, the cummulation of my 8 week training program, and also an apt description of the weather this week. This whole week I've not been feeling on top of my game. On Tuesday, my workout was 15 seconds sprints. The last time I did them I was running around a 5:00/mile pace, and this week it was more of a 6:00/mile with the same perceived effort. It was harder to tell how my easy Wednesday run went, as it was freezing and snowing and slippery, so I was naturally slower but my velodrome class felt harder too. I took Thursday off, then did a treadmill workout on Friday. I was supposed to be doing 400 repeats, which seemed treacherous on icy streets but doable (if not boring) inside.

This morning, we had a bit of a heat wave. It's been about 5 degrees this week in the morning, today it was a balmy 19:



Becky and I posing like we did for the Bolder Boulder 6 months ago.



We did manage to get to the race on time today. I KNEW it would help being 2 miles away. We did a 10 minute warm up jog to the start line and I had time to go to the bathroom, do some running drills and some warm-up sprints.

The race itself was hard. Well, the first mile was pretty easy, it was mostly down hill. I saw my fastest mile time yet, 7:57. Which is exciting, but not how I planned on racing today. I was actually shooting for negative splits, but I ended up with 7:57, 9:11 (I swear this mile was straight up hill) and 8:50. My final time was 26:46, one second off my Brighton time. And I would have gotten that last second if I hadn't been following a girl ahead of me who made a wrong turn and didn't go down the finish chute. I didn't come close to meeting my goal of 26:23, which would be an 8:30 pace.

Becky ran the wave that started 10 minutes after mine so I had some time to get my wonderful camera phone ready. She's in the green shirt, about to take out the small girl who literally stopped at the finish mat:



Becky did an awesome job, getting a PR and going under 29 minutes.

And now, I have a pause in my training. I need to make some goals and re-evaluate what the next 8 weeks will bring. Running is still my weakness by far, so I'll probably do another running block. I could even see training for a late spring half marathon, but I don't think there are any races in Colorado. Stay tuned...