Terrible start. There were just too many people. I'm sure my first mile was crap. Of course, I was concentrating on picking off "the next guy" so I missed the mile marker. This ended up being the theme the entire run. The first aid station seemed to come up very fast. I grabbed a cup of water and managed to drink it comfortably while maintaining my pace. Pretty soon there after, I caught up to Rachelle since she had started a few waves ahead of me. Just as I passed her, I realized I missed mile marker 2. At that point, I pretty much quit worrying about the mile markers and just focused on trying to run at a cruising speed which means I was breathing just hard enough to make talking a little difficult.

From there, up to mile 5 was a semi conscious blur of runners. Strangely, I think I found "the zone." I felt my legs turning over underneath me on the flats, shortened my stride and increased my turnover on the up hills and relaxed my legs on the downhills to let gravity to it's work. I went through at least one aid station and grabbed some Gatorade and stayed in my zone.

I lost that "zone" feeling just about the time I saw mile marker 5 stretched over the road up in the distance. The last mile took some considerable effort as I tried to pick up the pace. I could feel my left IT band tightening and it really hurt on the slight up hills. I settled into a hard cadence and was promptly passed by a dude wearing a blue and white flowered sundress. WTF!!! I tried to stay with him but he was just too damn fast. (So, I'm admitting that a guy in a dress outran me) I kept pressing the pace until and as we headed up the hill towards the stadium and the dress guy turned the corner never to be seen again. By this time, I was really breathing hard and just tried to hold my pace. As I entered the stadium, my stomach wanted to empty it's contents, but I refused. Turning curve in the stadium, I saw a girl on the inside of curve w/ her hands on her knees getting rid of every last ounce of Gatorade she had consumed during the race (Nice!). I sprinted as best I could to the finish line and hit the stop button on my watch. (Glad I at least got that one right.) I walked through the chute, began my cool down and enjoyed the rest of the race atmosphere.

Get my mile splits. As far as race performance goes though, I'm very happy with a PR - 45:36

Grabbed some post race food and a beer on the way through the CU Fieldhouse. Finished 16 oz of water and an orange while I did some stretching. I had a Michelob Ultra because it was cold, but the fact that it was cold was really the only good thing about it. Rachelle and I met up after she finished and we wandered through the expo gathering our free crap.


Training? I haven't been as consistent as I'd like to be, but at the same time, I've trained more consistently this year than any other time in my life.


The BolderBoulder is one of the most enjoyable races I've ever run. The variety of entertainment along the course combined with the range of fitness levels for the participants almost make this a required race for any runner.