Playing catch up

Being so new to this blog I actually forgot I created it! Oh well, I'll keep it short and consolidate the rest of the week. The entire week pretty much flew by. Had the hard 'race' down Lookout. On Wednesday I had a good track session in the 90 degree weather. The longer intervals consisted of 2 800s and 2 1000s interspersed with a bunch of 400s between. First 1000 covered in an easy-ish 3:27, with the first 800 covered in 2:36, followed by another 800 in 2:35, and finally the last 1000 in 3:18. Pretty good for me but I'm looking to go sub 2:30 and 3:15 respectively to be able to bring my mile down.

Thursday was an easy jog around the neighborhood followed by a day off on Friday. Hit up the 'Film on the Rocks' showing of Blade Runner, the director's cut. No narration and a different ending which was cool (not enough people read the blog to spoil it for anyone...). Saturday I ran 2 miles easily with a few sprints here and there.

Sunday was the day I was waiting for. I was registered for the Evergreen Town Race 10K which is a rolling downhill course of which I ran last year. I forgot how much flat and rolling there is in the race which is something to heed since most first-time runners think it's all down hill. Nope. It'll humble you if you don't beware. This year we ended up starting about 10-15 minutes late due to buses that were continuing to shuttle people up. What happened to "last bus at 8:00am" and "miss the bus, miss the race"? Oh well, it's for a great cause - the Alpine Rescue Team who does search and rescue every single day of the year if needed. The problem was that the temperature lately has been really high and this morning was no exception. It was already in the 70s when we got dropped off by the bus. Then its warm up, drop of the drop bag, and then up the hill to the beginning of the race. Quite a bit of the run was in direct sunlight so it was even tougher, and combined with an significant breeze we got down right toasty.

First 5K was decent but nothing blazing because I was already feeling the effects of the heat - 17:40-ish. The final 5K was brutal and I did everything in my power to just gut it out. After all, it was only a 10K so its only a relatively short amount of pain. And since it was a race that is part of the Colorado Runner Magazine series all the contenders for each age group showed up. Richard Paradis, who is a great friend and training fiend was there to blast the 40-49 year age-group away, and that's exactly what he did, finishing in 35:17. The next two followed him fairly closely behind, and me, way back in 4th for the AG and about 50+ seconds behind the third place masters. And just to think, last year I won the AG. But with the heat factor I can't be too disappointed in my performance because I ended up running only 5 seconds slower this year. I'm sure had it been better conditions I would have gone under 36:00 easily.

The 50-59 year bracket had some great AG competitors. Simon Martin, Heath Hibbard, Bob Kessler, and John Victoria, all of which are phenomenal runners. Heath ended up winning the AG, with Bob closely behind. Heath is really racking the series points up.

Scott ran well in the 5K considering he didn't wear a watch because his Garmin didn't charge. Same exact time as last year - 16:59. And our visiting Californian friend, Chuck did pretty well too. The winning time for the 5K however was 14:44 by a 26 year old Kenyan named Josaphat Keino (no, no relation to Kip). A few days ago he was second in the Pearl Street Mile with a 4:18.

Enough for now... going to take an ice bath. Peace out!