Left the house without the garmin, so drove ~mile back to grab it.. Made it to Georgetown Lake, picked up the bib and hopped on the bus that took us to Loveland ski area parking lot- also the start of the race. We were the first bus to arrive and ~an hour before the start. Took advantage of the lack of lines for the port-o-pots and then stretched for the remainder of the time near the creek. The start was actually up the two-track dirt road just west and off the dirt parking area. The starting area was grouped into 'fast', 'medium', and I assume 'slow'- although I didn't walk back to find out. Since I usually always finish in the top 1/3 or top 1/2 of all runners, I always place myself in the middle of the pack or between the 9 and 10 min pacers. I am going to assume that many people run this race as their first 1/2 and therefore do not know their pace- because it was really frustrating to finally make it to the starting line only to find that even though there is sufficient space to begin running- people are still walking. Maybe it's too much to ask, but it would certainly be nice for races with tight starting areas to make more of an effort to corral runners into what they believe will be their average pace.. at any rate- finally start running! Mile 1: 9:24- the first mile was very difficult to maintain any sort of legitimate pace due to the tight nature of the course and joggers/walkers stopping in the middle of the road-etc. I may try to start nearer the front of the pack next year if I decide to run this race again. Mile 2: 8:41- crowd is starting to tapper out and starting to get into a nice pace. Almost rolled my ankle twice during mile 2 by stepping off the gravel road to pass groups running 4-5 across.. at any rate, the gravel road was nicely graded, but the sides were very loose and made passing a delicate operation. Mile 3: 8:43, Mile 4: 8:39, Mile 5: 8:24
Mile 6: 9:16, I think I may have walked a bit at the aid station where I took some gatorade. Been running with the hand-held water bottle.. it's okay, but I think it makes my arm positions vary and might be adding to upper body and neck tightness after long runs.. however- I would rather deal with that than add to the waste of all those paper cups! Ack- I hate seeing the amount of trash generated from races. Slight uphill here as well, many people walking it. Starting to get a bit warm
and I think the course moved onto the asphalt frontage road- less shade
during this section of the race. Mile 7:8:24- back on the downhill, feeling pretty good- was wondering here if I should start to push the pace, but decided to run conservatively since I didn't know how steep the course would get and if my knees could handle it- while my lungs may perfer going down- it seems like my knees prefer going up. Mile 8: 8:51, Mile 9: 8:30 Mile 10: 9:02, fairly flat with slight uphill at the end of this mile- lots of people starting to walk, I felt really strong- but again didn't push it. Really wanted to get back into the shade though- despite lathering on sunscreen, I was feeling like my arms and legs were getting burned. Mile 11: 8:17, Mile 12: 8:15- two very steep miles on paved bike path just off I-70. These two miles were probably the most painful for me despite being the fastest. They blew my quads and the balls of both feet were screaming. I was really wanting some flat ground and maybe an uphill. Mile 13: 10:05 finally got that flat section with some very slight uphills and to top it off- a mostly dirt road! However, I think I really did blow the legs on the last two miles- my lungs felt great and the breathing was under control, but I just didn't have any push left. However, no one passed me and I passed numerous people that were walking the uphill sections, so that made me feel a bit stronger. Average pace for the entire race was 8:42- not too bad, but not as fast as I had hoped.
Overall, I think perhaps I ran too conservatively early on, then pushed the downhill a bit more than I should have and didn't anything left for the last mile.. immediately felt like I could run another 4-5 miles after the race, but opted to drive home and help the sig. other lay the concrete footers for our new deck. Set a PR-but definitely not a legitimate one..
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