That was an awesome race! The midpoint was 800 ft. elevation higher than the start, so basically we ran up a mountain the first 3 miles and back down the mountain the second 3 miles. There were some extremely steep sections where I couldn't even hold a sub 10:00 mile pace. I really enjoyed the course because it was different than anything I had ever raced, and very thick forest of shade and turns. The only somewhat annoying thing about the race was that they decided to start the women 10 minutes after the men because they had more entrants than they had ever had and they didn't want the trail to be too bottlenecked. So I had to pass a LOT of men throughout the race and I'm sure it slowed me down some..but whatever, I wasn't going for time anyway. Just wanted to have fun and hopefully win...so both goals accomplished! Here is my split breakdown: mile 1 (uphill) 8:03, Mile 2 (steeper uphill, started passing men) 8:50, Mile 3 (extremely steep scramble up the mountain passing many walking men) 9:49, Mile 4 (flat for a bit, then starting the descent and passing more men) 6:50, Mile 5 (more decending with lots of sharp turns and passing men...one guy took a turn too tightly while I passed him on the outside and he slipped down...he'll have a nice bum bruise tomorrow...sorry man), Mile 6 (only .75, I guess they decided to make it shorter than an official 10K because of the insane amount of climbing) I'm not sure my pace on the last .75 because I forgot to stop my watch at the finish...but it was probably around 6:30 pace. I think my overall time was around 45 minutes, but I'm not exactly sure since I forgot to stop my watch. I'll check the results when they post them. Good Times! UPDATE: Went to pick up my prize later this afternoon and found out that the male winner came in at 38 and change. My official time was 44:24 and the 2nd place woman was 46:36. Got a free North Face backpack for winning. On another note, my husband, Aaron did the Firecracker 50 mile Mt. Bike race today in Breckenridge too. It was the USA Cycling Marathon Mountain Bike National Championships for the pros. Aaron was entered in the open clydesdale division! Haha. 190 lbs, might as well compete against guys your same size, right? Anyway, he had a blast and I'm happy he did it. He has been pretty overworked in his business lately so I think it was nice for him to take a fun 50 mile supported mountain bike ride through the beautiful mountains of Colorado.
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