Bolder Boulder 10K

Finished 2nd place female in the Citizen's race with a time of 35:50.  This is my 10K PR!!  Well, actually I may have run faster than that in a Deseret News 10K back in high school or college but that doesn't count since that race is super downhill.  The Bolder Boulder is much more legit.  The finish is actually higher elevation than the start.  Not to mention the whole thing is over a Mile High elevation.

Picked up the babysitter at 5:50 a.m. (what a Saint she was to wake up so early on her holiday).  Drove to Boulder and parked at Scott Carpenter Park in between the Start and Finish lines.  Jogged 2 miles with Aaron and wiggled our way through the crowds to the start.  Didn't have time or space to run strides but stretched out a little as we waited 5 minutes for the start.  The race went out fast since the first three quarters of a mile is downhill.  I had to restrain myself to not go faster because I really wanted to run even splits (the most efficient way to run).

Mile 1 in 5:42

I had no idea how many women were ahead of me at this point but I assumed it was a good handful and I didn't really care either because I was just running my race at my pace.

Mile 2 in 5:46

Felt pretty good, starting to get into a rhythm running with all men around me. Passed one gal that obviously went out too fast.

Mile 3 in 5:54

Some elevation gain in this mile.  Just trying to keep my effort even.  Passed another woman.

Mile 4 in 5:43

Coach D caught me near the beginning of this mile and seeing him motivated me to keep pushing forward.  Passed another woman somewhere in here.  The elevation went up some and down some. The elevation profile for this course is pretty much never flat.

Mile 5 in 5:41

Caught another woman just as we reached the highest point of the course but she did her best to stick to my tail.  I visualized this mile in my head last night as I was falling to sleep because I really wanted to push through this part and knew the downhill could help me, so it ended up being my fastest mile at 5:41.

Mile 6 in 5:52

The girl I caught is still hanging on to me for dear life and at one point someone yelled to us, "Good Job!  You're the 2nd and 3rd women!"  I was pleasantly surprised because I didn't know we were that high up.  The 1st place woman was nowhere in sight, but I just kept pushing to the finish giving it all I had.

Final .2 in 1:12 (6:00 pace)

Just trying to hang on at this point.  One last steep hill up to the stadium pretty much wipes out my legs and a dying sprint to the finish on the track is all I have left.  Whew!

Found out that the leader came through in 35:12 and 3rd place was 36:02, all three of us local Coloradoans!  Touched base with Coach D (35:20, 1st in AG) and Jeff (35:37) while I waited for Aaron.  I'm super happy with that time considering it is a PR for me and it was a challenging course at altitude.  I gave it all I had and feel really grateful that it went so well.  Aaron had a great race too, finishing under 40 minutes with basically no road training for this race (and running in his VFF sprints!)  We saw Scott afterwards too, and Aaron took this pic on his cell phone.  Now I'm looking forward to the team BBQ this evening at the De Reuck's to share race stories and hear how all the RRBs did.  Good times!

Dinner and a hike

A.M. 8.5 miles in 7:38 pace

Legs feeling pretty good.  Aaron and I went on a fun date in Boulder last night.  Went to dinner at The Mediterranean (highly recommended delicious restaurant) and hiked Mt. Sanitas (nice little 3 mile loop).  Mt. Sanitas is a pretty rocky climb for the first mile up and second mile down, then we ended up running the last mile or so down the smooth (but pretty steep) path. Super fun date; way better than the boring old dinner and a movie idea.

The speed is coming back!

10 miles in 7:31 pace

Met the group at East Boulder Community park

20 minute warm up, stretching, strides

4X45 seconds in 5:25, 5:19, 5:32, 5:27 pace w/ 75 seconds recovery jog between each

4X2 minutes in 5:45, 5:58, 5:27, 5:33 pace (first two were slight uphill, second two slight downhill) w/ 90 seconds recovery jog between each

2X4 minutes in 6:16, 5:47 pace (first was slight uphill, second was slight downhill) w/ 2 min. recovery jog between each

4X60 seconds in 5:25, 5:13, 5:42, 5:11 pace (every other slight up or downhill) w/ 60 second jog in between

20 minute cool down

Colleen lead the group again today and she did the workout in full effort with us instead of taking it easy.  Dang she is fast!  I stayed somewhat close to her on the 45 second intervals but I was a good 20-40 strides behind on the longer intervals.  Simon, the tri coach who brings his tri group to workout sometimes was there too.  He is coming back from injury and this was his first interval workout in a few months.  It was fun to watch him kill himself to stay with Colleen.  I guess he was being a gentleman to run ahead and open the gates for the group but surely he pushing it so hard so as to not let a woman beat him too.  It was funny, near the end of the intervals he started walking on the recovery jogs and Colleen reminded him that he should be jogging.  He was obviously spent.

I felt pretty good.  The speed is coming back.

Crested Butte

9.5 miles in 7:12 pace

Got my run in first thing because I always feel the best right when I wake up.  20 minute warm-up, stretching, strides.

7 X 1000M repeats in 3:41, 3:39, 3:44, 3:40, 3:40, 3:47, 3:44 (5:50-6:03 min/mile pace)

The cool down was all uphill back to my hotel at the resort and I was about ready to stop my watch and walk up the final half mile of 12% grade slope when Aaron came to offer me a ride after he had finished his mountain run.  I gladly accepted.

We did some Yoga X (I only made it through about 15 minutes before I decided to just roll out on the foam roller and relax).  Then we took a little nap and afterwards drove 30 minutes to Gunnison for some SWEET mountain biking.  Biked for an hour and a half or so.  I was pretty tired near the end, as you can see in the video.  Its always the last run of the day when things like this happen.

Beautiful Saturday to enjoy Boulder

10 miles in 7:29 ave. pace

Met my team at Fairview High School track for some track intervals.

Warmed up 20 minutes, stretching, strides

4X (400 M w/ 1 min. jog, 800 M w/2 min jog, 400 M) 2 min jog between sets

400 M intervals were between 79-87 seconds each

800 M. intervals were between 2:51-2:59 each

20 minute cool down

Took a nap this afternoon and then took the kids hiking in Boulder around 4 p.m.  They LOVED being out in the wilderness exploring.  Afterwards we went to an Ethiopian restaurant for dinner just to try something new and different.  I was pretty impressed with the fact that all three of my kids actually tried and liked some of the food!

Did some push, pull, sit-ups when we got home.

Push: 4X25

Pull: 4X10

Sit: 4X50