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 a 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!
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