Monday 031212

Wahoo … Spring!  Can ya’ feel it?

Happened to be in Boulder today, and with the gorgeous weather I took advantage of about an hour window I had.  Decided to continue to ride the vertical train, and so jumped on Sanitas (after coming from the south over Red Rocks).  I took the back route down and off it, into Sunshine Canyon.  Great way to assure you see 20 minutes per mile  for part of your run, and sub sixes for another part.  7 miles with 1700 plus of climbing.  Very different than yesterday as it was STEP UPS, and several sections over 30 percent. 

My climb up Sanitas was hardly stellar (22 minutes! – far off my best which is just under 18!) but I was not looking to tag it … yet.  I was working plenty with the climb.  Plenty of work to do, but I was enjoying seeing that today.

I had a coworker ask if I had ever done Running of the Green (as that race was yesterday).  I had to grin at this memory. 

I did that race somewhere in the early 2000s, maybe 2002.  After two years of getting back into running shape after moving here, my times were getting better.  I’d write down goals, and they would come.  It would be work, but I rarely had big failures.  I had done that entire thing over the winter, where I was convinced I was going to get it ON this next year.  I had recently run under 16 for 5k, so I had somehow convinced myself that extending that to 7k was the next natural step.  I was somewhat disillusioned, as I can recall that I actually occasionally dared to think that I could run under 2:22 for the marathon at some point and make the trials.  Yeah … good stuff.

To make this particular race even more dramatic, some friends of mine suggested that I ought to jump in the “A” race there (they had one at that time).  As they say, “with friends like these” The Bolder Boulder used to have such a thing and I knew much better than to get into that affair, but some A or invite races were not of the same standard.  Sure – I wouldn’t win the ROTG A race, but I was more interested in a fast time.  I made the necessary calls, got into the race and was set to go.

Not so long story made even shorter … the gun went off and I was off the back of the chase  pack almost immediately.  I tried to hang on and still blew up.  I don’t recall being chicked, but I think I was second or third to DFL in the men’s race.  Nothing like running like that in front of a crowd in Denver who is drinking it up on St. Patty’s day.  Yeah, I heard it.   Ugh. 

And oh yeah, fast time?  Nope … I think I wrote down that I wanted to run under 22 minutes (about 3:08 a kilo or just over 5 minutes a mile).  I think I ran something over 23.

Good lesson though.