Not sure why I decided to run colfax half again this year. I forgot about the 6am start and the 'need to be parked by 4:45am'. Ugh. Left the house at 3:30 am and drove on the very slushy canyon road down to Denver (it snowed 5-6" up at our place on Saturday night). Arrive without too much issue and parked. They changed the set up of the course a bit this year and it is terribly dark at 4:30am in City Park. They didn't have great signage directing runners to the start or to the port-o-potties. I saw lines of people just waiting to use the standard park restrooms, likely because they didn't know where the POP's where. It was a chilly morning, temps probably in the upper 30's, low 40's with some drizzle. I opted for tights, long sleeves mid weight shirt with a light weight t-shirt over it + gloves and running cap. Brought along the hand held amphipod water bottle with First Endurance EFS and a Gu (no caffeine) (only drank 1/2 the EFS and ate less than 1/2 gu). Ran 5 mins of warm up to get to POP's, then over to start. Stretched a bit on the starting line. Probably could have warmed up a bit more.
They used corrals this year and placed runners w.r.t. anticipated finish time. I'd say about only about 1/2 the people in my corral were actually suppose to be there. Many were from slower corrals (supposedly not allowed, but no one was checking). Of course, one of my biggest pet peeves in these larger races is 1) people that run with ear phones (because 9/10 times they have no idea they are cutting people off left and right) and 2) slower runners and/or walkers that start in positions that do not in any way represent where they will finish in the pack or even what their paces are. Anyways, I digress, somewhat... The start was pretty long and it took a while for the pack to thin out enough to even run. As expected, within the first mile people were walking and breathing so heavily that it sounded like they would pass out. It just seems to me that if you are going to walk in the first mile, you should be in one of the last, if not the last starting corral. I have no idea why people do this, it can't be fun or good for motivation. I guess my goal should be to get faster and try to legitimately be located in the first few starting corrals. I bet the faster runners do not have these sorts of difficulties to deal with. I didn't have time to really think about a plan for this race. I had intended to do that this past week, but never found the time. So, as usual, I decided to start slow and try to get progressively faster throughout the nice, flat course, with significantly more oxygen than I typically have available. The breakdown from the garmin: Mile 1: 9:37- really packed, not able to even run at some points.
Mile 2: 8:58 Mile 3: 8:59 Mile 4: 9:08- slight hill Mile 5: 8:53 Mile 6: 8:54 Mile 7: 8:45 Mile 8: 8:31 Mile 9: 8:37 Mile 10: 8:31 Mile 11: 8:19 Mile 12: 7:55 Mile 13: 7:51 Forgot to turn off watch after I crossed the finish line, so I have no idea what my ending pace was. I felt strong on the very last stretch and the last few data points from the garmin were 6:55- 6:35 pace and it didn't feel like a sprint, just a strong finish.
Total (from garmin) time: 1:54:04 Ave pace (from garmin): 8:38 Started raining just as I finished and my hands were freezing by that point. I grabbed a banana and some water and headed to the car to change. I didn't wear my heart rate monitor, and I'm thinking that for the next
race I may wear my watch, but set it into a mode so that I cannot see my
pace. I'm thinking maybe I should try to race more by feel and see how
that goes. I was running pretty easy (I doubt my heart rate was above
150) until about Mile 10, so I think if I adjust my race strategy and
mind set, I'm probably capable of a sub 1:50 right now on a relatively
flat course at lower elevation (5,000-6,000'). Ended up meeting an old friend for brunch down town after the race and it was great to catch up with him after ~5 years! ( I am just terrible at staying in touch.. really need to be better at that). *I just looked back at my stats from this race last year and I ran a ~2:03, so I guess almost a 9 minute better time for this course is a good start to the season. Especially since I've only really been training for the last month after taking care of the IT band/ knee issues this winter.
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