On August 12, I ran the Boulder Rez Marathon in Boulder, CO. Deb likes the Denver area, so Deb and I built a short Colorado vacation around this race.
Wednesday, August 9
We flew to Denver in the
early afternoon. We stayed at a hotel in
Broomfield, which is about halfway between Denver and Boulder.
We had dinner at Beau Jo’s. Beau Jo’s is a restaurant Deb discovered on
one of her previous visits to the Denver area.
They have what they call mountain-style pizza.
Thursday, August 10
The race wasn’t until Saturday,
so we had two days to do fun things in the area. On Thursday, we did things in the Boulder
area. On the drive into Boulder, there’s
a scenic overlook where you can get a nice view of the mountains.
On our way into Boulder,
we made the obligatory tourist stop at the house that was used for exterior shots
for the “Mork & Mindy” TV show.
Next we went to the Pearl
Street Mall. We got there before the shops
started opening, so we started out by walking up and down the four-block pedestrian
mall to view the flowers and statues.
They have a train that goes around the mall. It’s meant as entertainment for children, but Deb was in touch with her “inner child.”
When the shops opened, we
window shopped until we were ready to stop for lunch. For lunch, we went to the Boulder Dushanbe
Teahouse.
After lunch, we visited
two city parks. First, we went to
Boulder City Park and explored the Boulder Creek Path.
Next, we went to Chautauqua
Park, where we got a view of one of the Flatirons. There are trails into the mountains from
here, but it was getting to be too hot to go hiking.
After Chautauqua Park, Deb
dropped me off at the hotel, so I could go for a run. While I was running, Deb went grocery
shopping for fruit and beverages.
I ran a little over six
miles. I knew my route would have me
starting uphill, but I wasn’t quite prepared to run uphill continuously for the
first two miles. The elevation in
Broomfield is about 5,400 feet, and I did 500 feet of climbing in the first two
miles. At this elevation, I tire quickly
going uphill.
After that, I had about a
mile of downhill running, followed by two miles that were rolling. That was a little easier, but I never
recovered from those first two miles.
With about two miles to
go, I was starting to heading back toward our hotel. I could see dark clouds to the west, and it
looked like it was raining just a few miles away. I had doubts about whether I could make it back
to the hotel before the rain started.
With just under a mile to
go, I started feeling drops. The last
mile to the hotel was downhill, so I did my best to pick up my pace. My concern was getting my shoes too wet. I needed to wear the same shoes for the race
on Saturday, so I didn’t want them to get so wet that they wouldn’t dry in
time.
The rain and wind picked
up a little as I was running through the hotel parking lot, but I finished before
getting my shoes soaked.
Later in the afternoon,
we returned to Boulder. Deb wanted to
visit an antique jewelry store in the West End.
Then we had dinner at a farm-to-table restaurant in the West End.
Friday, August 11
We went for a scenic
drive through a canyon to get to Nederland.
Most of the time we were driving alongside a stream.
When we got to Nederland,
we started going north on the Peak to Peak Scenic Byway. After a few miles, we had to stop, because
Deb was having difficulty with the elevation.
Her allergies were causing her to be congested, and when you’re
congested, your ears can’t adjust to differences in air pressure. We were at an elevation of about 8,200
feet. Had we continued on the scenic
byway, we would’ve gone higher. Already,
her head felt like it was in a vice, so we turned around and went back.
On our way back, we
stopped by Boulder Falls. We parked the car, and I hiked in a short distance to get a view of the falls.
After taking a brief rest
break at the hotel, we had lunch at a brunch spot in Louisville called The
Huckleberry. If you’ve never been to
Louisville, CO, it feels more like a small town than the surrounding
communities.
Between the elevation and
the intense afternoon sun, Deb needed to spend the afternoon relaxing at the
hotel. I drove back into Boulder to
locate as many of the murals as I could.
There are at least 90 murals in Boulder.
I focused on the ones near downtown, so I could park the car in one
place and walk around. Some are in
alleys, so you really have to go out of your way to look for them.
When I got back to my
car, I drank a full bottle of water.
Everywhere we went, Deb and I had water bottles with us, but no matter
how much I drank, I always felt dry. I’ve
run other races at similar elevations, but I usually arrived the day before the
race and flew home the day after. Being
in the area for two extra days, meant I had two extra days to get
dehydrated. Drinking enough was a
continual challenge.
When Deb and I were in
Louisville for lunch, we noticed other restaurants that looked good. I was planning to go to a pizzeria in Louisville
for dinner, but it was impossible to find a parking space anywhere in the
downtown area. There was a street
festival of some type going on, which didn’t help. I eventually gave up and had dinner at a pizzeria
I had driven by earlier.
Saturday, August 12
Saturday was race day. The course was four laps around the Boulder
Reservoir. The marathon started at 7:15
AM, but I needed to get there earlier for packet pickup. It takes about 30 minutes to drive to the reservoir,
so I had to leave by 6:00 to ensure I had plenty of time to get ready for the
race.
Before this race, I had
never heard of this race, so I didn’t know how large it would be. As I got within a mile of the reservoir, I started
to see signs for the race. Then there
were volunteers showing us where to park.
There were apparently enough runners that we needed to park in a large
field rather than in the parking lot for the reservoir. From where I parked, it was a five-minute
walk to the start/finish area.
When I finished picking
up my race packet, it was just after sunrise.
I saw the sun over the reservoir, and I also the mountains in the glow
of the morning sun.
I don’t usually drink
much before a race. This race was an
exception. I brought two bottles of
water with me. By the time the race
started, I had finished one bottle and started in on the second one.
In all, there were five race
distances. The 5K race had an
out-and-back route that only went partway around the reservoir. The 10K race did one full lap around the
reservoir. The half marathon, ¾ marathon
and marathon all ran a modified version of the loop. To make the distance come out right, we had to
do a short out-and-back in the middle of the loop. The longer races did this modified loop two,
three, or four times.
About a quarter of the
loop was paved. The rest was a
combination of dirt road and dirt trail.
The route has a few hills, so I wasn’t expecting a fast time. Even on a flat course, running at this
elevation will slow me down by 5-10 minutes.
On a hilly course, I expected to be much slower. It’s on hills that I really feel the effects
of the elevation. My training run on
Thursday was a reminder of that.
It's rare that I do a
race without bumping into someone I know.
This was one of those rare occasions.
Although I didn’t know anyone, I still struck up conversations with a
few of the other runners. One of the runners
I met before the race was Josh. I didn’t
know it at the time, but this was his first marathon.
Another runner I met
before the race was a local runner who was doing the ¾ marathon as a long
training run. When I mentioned how much
difficulty I had been having staying hydrated, she said the humidity was
actually much high than usual. Normally,
the humidity is only about 10%. Lately, it’s
been about 40%. To her, it felt humid,
but to me it felt dry.
On the elevation profile,
I noticed two large hills. One was near
the end of the first mile, and the other was near the end of the second
mile. She assured me that those hills
aren’t as bad as they look on the elevation profile, and after that, the rest
of the lap is fairly easy. Since she
lives at this elevation, I had to wait and see how my body would react to the
hills.
The temperature at the
start was in the 60s, but if I learned anything from the previous two days, it’s
how quickly it warms up once the sun comes up.
By the time I finished, it would be in the 80s. I also expected the sun to be intense.
I didn’t feel like I had
a realistic chance of breaking four hours, so I chose to start the race at a
pace that felt relaxed. I wasn’t trying
for a fast time. I just wanted to finish
the race and save my best effort for the next one. I lined up near the back. When I started running, I kept the pace nice
and slow, even though I felt like I could be going faster.
We started out on
pavement, but almost immediately turned onto a dirt road. The first mile seemed to have a slight
downhill trend, but I didn’t allow myself to pick up speed.
Lately, I’ve been
training in the afternoon, and I’ve often run with temperatures in the 90s and
high humidity. That has forced me to run
at a nice relaxed pace, so I’m not in danger of overheating. I started this race at the same relaxed pace.
Toward the end of the
first mile, I saw a hill and realized this must be the first of the two big
hills. It wasn’t as bad as I thought. It was slightly more tiring, but at the pace
I was going, it wasn’t going to wear me down.
Just before the top of the
hill, I finished the first mile. My pace
was just under 10 minutes. That
surprised me. I felt like I was starting
slower than that.
After cresting that hill,
I had a nice long downhill section before the road leveled off. Then I reached an aid station. There were five aid stations in each lap,
including one in the start/finish area.
The aid stations had water, Gatorade, and gel packets. I drank Gatorade at every aid station. I wasn’t too concerned about my time, so I
slowed to a walk while I drank.
It was during the second
mile that I saw a faster runner go by.
He looked like he was fast enough to win the race, so I wondered why he
was behind me in the first place. My
initial thought was that he must have been late for the start.
Toward the end of the
second mile, I encountered the second of the two largest hills. This one seemed longer than the first one,
but it still wasn’t that big of a deal.
After the two-mile long hill at the beginning of my training run on Thursday,
these hills weren’t a big deal. It was a
relief to know that.
Before the top of the
hill, I reached the two-mile mark. This
mile was faster than the first one, but it’s worth noting that much of this
mile had been downhill.
During the third mile, I
reached the out-and-back section. By the
time I finished the out-and-back, two more fast runners passed me.
Next, we turned onto another
dirt road that went along the north edge of the course. We were well north of the reservoir, and
there was farmland on either side of the road.
The road on this side was nice and flat.
As more fast runners
passed me, I finally realized where they came from. The ¾ marathon started just five minutes
after the marathon, and the half marathon start wasn’t too much after
that. I was seeing all the fast runners
from the shorter races. I would continue
to see them go by for the rest of my first lap.
At the northeast corner
of the loop, we turned onto a paved road, which was also nice and flat. Here, I inadvertently sped up. After running the third mile in 10 minutes, I
sped up to roughly 9:30 in the fourth mile.
After that, I settled down again.
Next, we left the road to
turn onto a gravel trail. The trail was
initially serpentine and had a small hill.
For the first time since those two early hills, I was breathing harder.
This trail brought us
across a levee on the east side of the reservoir. It occurred to me that it was the first time I
had seen the reservoir since leaving the start/finish area.
A runner next to me
noticed my sunglasses and asked me if they were the Goodr Boston Marathon sunglasses. They were. That started a long conversation. Her name was Angela, and we run the rest of
the race together. Like me, Angela has
run the Boston Marathon several times, and she also does ultramarathons.
The last part of the loop
was on a paved road, which eventually brought us around a building and back to
the start finish area. I forgot to check
my watch at the end of the first loop, but I knew my average pace was under 10
minutes.
In the second lap, we continued
at the same pace until we reached the first hill. Angela wanted to walk the hills, and I saw no
good reason not to. At this point, I
could’ve easily run up the hills, but I was enjoying our conversation.
Other than walking the
hills, we ran the second lap slightly faster than the first one. I was much more comfortable than I thought I
would be. I was expecting the sun to get
hot, but it was staying cloudy.
At the halfway point, we were
still averaging less than 10 minutes per mile, but we started to slow down in
the third lap. The biggest difference
was taking more time at aid stations.
In the fourth lap, we
slowed down substantially. We sometimes
got as slow as 11 minutes, even in miles that didn’t have hills. This was also the first lap where I felt like
I was breathing harder, even on flat sections.
Maybe is just took time for the higher elevation to take a toll on me. Or perhaps it was the heat. It was still cloudy, but the temperature was
climbing.
About halfway through
that lap, we came to an aid station, and someone said, “Are you David?” At first, I thought it was one of the volunteers,
and I wondered how he knew my name. Then
I saw it was Josh. I didn’t notice him
at first, but he had been sitting down at the aid station. One of the volunteers said he had been sitting
there for an hour.
Angela was able to
persuade Josh to get up and start walking.
We both walked with him. Knowing
how long Josh had been sitting there, I assumed he was still on his third
lap. When I asked him, he said he was on
his last lap. That meant he only had to
hang in there for about three miles. It
also meant he must’ve started much faster than we did.
After we turned onto the
paved road, Angela suggested Josh try running for short distances. There were traffic cones separating the driving
lanes from the shoulder. We ran until we
passed two cones and then walked until we passed the next two cones.
We kept this up for a few
minutes, but then Josh needed to just walk the rest of the way. He told us to go ahead, and he assured us
that he would be able to power walk the rest of the way. We said everything we could to encourage him,
and then we went on our way.
In the last two miles, we
were going slower than before, but I was still breathing hard. We eventually finished, but that last lap was
slow. I finished the race in
4:30:56. Angela crossed the line right
next to me.
At the finish line,
volunteers were handing out bottles of water and Gatorade. I don’t usually want to drink more Gatorade
after a race, but the Gatorade was in a larger bottle, and I thought I should
drink as much as I could. Even though I
drank at every aid station, I still felt dry.
While I was drinking my
Gatorade, I saw Angela go over to the timing truck. The guy in the truck looked at her bib
number, but said he only had splits for her first two laps. I told him we finished at the same time and
asked him to look up my time. He didn’t
have a time for me either. It turns out an
ethernet cable had come loose. Times
were getting recorded at the finish line, but they weren’t making it to his
laptop. After he restored the
connection, we learned that Angela had placed second in her age group, and I
had placed third in mine. Our awards
were tumblers with the same artwork as the finished medals.
Post race food included
sub sandwiches from Jimmy John’s. They
had turkey sandwiches and veggie sandwiches.
After we ate our
sandwiches, Angela and I both went to start watching for Josh. We watched for a long time, but we didn’t see
him. It had stayed cloudy the whole time
we were running, but now it was sunny, and it felt much hotter if you were in
the sun. I felt bad for the people who
were still on the course, including Josh.
Angela and her husband had
to leave, but I kept watching. When I still
didn’t see Josh, I felt conflicted. I
wanted to keep watching, but it had been 30 minutes since I finished, and I wanted
to call Deb to let her know I was done. My
phone was in my car.
I walked back to the car,
so I could call Deb. I was sitting in
the car with the windows open when I heard the finish line announcer calling
Josh’s name. He finished in 5:09.
I rushed back to the
finish area, so I could find Josh before he left. I congratulated him on finishing his first
marathon. He introduced me to his family
and told them that I had helped him get moving again. Angela actually deserves most of the
credit. She was the one who persuaded Josh
to get out of the chair and start moving again.
Had I known before the
race that this was Josh’s first marathon, I probably would have given him
advice. First on the list would be not
starting too fast. He ran the first 23
miles in three hours, sat for an hour, and then ran the last three miles in about
an hour. That’s not ideal, but the
important thing is that he didn’t give up.
This was my fifth marathon
or ultra in Colorado. I’m still working on
my fourth circuit of marathons in every state, but I’m also making progress on
my fifth circuit whenever I can.
Later in the day, I had
dinner with my friend Chavet and her husband Tim. We talked for about two hours. I enjoyed that conversation as much as the
one I had during the race.
Well done as usual.
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