Bolder Boulder

I realized I never told you about the Bolder Boulder this year!
The Bolder Boulder is the 10k race that leads up to one of the largest Memorial Day celebrations in the country at Folsom Field at the University of Colorado and I'm convinced it is the most fun you can have while running!
This year I ran the race with like 50,000 of my closest friends (read: by myself). The reason the Bolder Boulder is so fun is because it's in the city of Boulder which is an amazing place all on it's own. But the people that live in it are so incredibly interesting that some people do the race just for the people watching! Some people get teams together and dress in costumes, some people are wearing their regular clothes but you would assume that it is a costume, and some people are just interesting all on their own.

This year was my second Bolder Boulder and I decided I had to take part in the crazy! So I woke up early, pulled on my tu-tu, laced up my sneakers and was ready to pound the pavement! Last year, I finished the race in 1:07:05, so my goal this year was to finish in exactly one hour. By the time I got to my wave's starting line, I'd already had a conversation with Thing 1 from Dr. Suess (Thing 2 was in the bathroom) and met Superman (complete with cape)! After the Call to the Post was played Call to the Post" we were off!

I finished my first mile in 9:32 moving to the beat of Lady Gaga and Florence and the Machine on my iPod. This would be the point where you'd think my brain would hone in on the beat of the playlist I created for the run, so I could zone in on the goal, finish in one hour! But you'd be wrong, there is far to many things to look at along the way. Somewhere between the first and fifth mile-markers, as you wind your way through the neighborhoods of Boulder, you come across hundred of locals, set up for a brunch picnic in their front yards for optimal people watching. Some people are there to enjoy the show as they work their way through a round of certified organic mimosas and a delicious tofu "omelet". Which is all well and good. But the real fun can be had with the people watchers that are determined to be a part of the show! These are families that wake up early to fry 50 pounds of bacon so they will have something to throw at the runners as they pass their homestead. Others have made Costco runs so they can provide the best mid-run snacks! The options include: Nacho Cheese Doritos, giant marshmallows, and beer. But there is always one house that takes their involvement in the Bolder Boulder to another level. Each year this house, rented out to college boys I'm sure, transform their front yard into a water park, complete with slip and slide for the runners to partake in!

Not everyone is totally crazy about their involvement in the race, there was one guy there standing with a piece of art he'd completed and a sign that said "virtual rest stop, enjoy the art!"

The last part of the race is the hardest, because it's uphill, but also, in someways the most fun, because this is where you can find the die-hard race fans standing along the track holding up signs to encourage the runners. This year's winner for best signs of encouragement, was actually a tie! The first one read, "Keep going! Keep going! (That's what she said)" It made me laugh so hard I thought about stopping to take a picture! But I still had the one hour goal in mind, so there was no time for photo ops! The second sign I didn't actually see until I was walking away from the finish line at the end of the race. It was being held by what looked like an 8-year-old boy and read, "Your feet are hurting because you're kicking SO much ass!" Excellent words of encouragement to help all runners make there way past the finish line!

In the end, I finished in 1:01:17, I didn't make my goal, but I was pretty close and I had a great time trying!

Rural Running

The past month has been a runners dream for me. My partner, Tyson, has been doing his rural rotation for medical school in Granby, Colorado a small town in the mountains between Winter Park and Steamboat Springs. While I had to stay in Denver during the week, somebody has to pay the bills, and even on most of the weekends so I could work summer outreach for work, I got to head up to stay with Tyson on my days off!

Tyson was housed in an over-the-garage apartment on a beautiful ranch with an amazing view of the resort in Winter park. Since I was mostly in the mountains on Mondays and Tuesdays while Tyson was at work I explored the ranch and neighboring towns and also got to run at an even higher altitude than normal. Denver's at a mile-high (5280 ft) but Granby is just below 8,000 feet above sea-level.

You don't really think about it when you're a Colorado native, but it is hard to exercise at that altitude. The first time I decided to take on the county road the ranch was built of off was the day after I ran the Bolder Boulder. Not really thinking about it I assumed that if I could run 6.2 miles in 1:01:17 (my goal was one hour even) then I could take on the five mile round trip no problem. This would be the point where someone should have smacked me across the face to knock some sense into me! But since Tyson was at work, I was by myself and started running on the side of the road.

I was doing pretty well, it was still really cool in the mountains so I wasn't too hot, and every single person I passed (read 3) waved and said hello! SO friendly! And the view was amazing, I felt like I had somehow found my way into Mary Poppins and was able to be a live person working my way through a piece of art, the only thing that proved to me that that was not the case was that Dick Van Dyke was no where to be found, and dancing penguins were out of the picture all together!

It's when you start to get comfortable that things start to go down hill! I started to feel really tired after what I thought was about 2 miles and maybe 20 minutes of running. So I turned around for what I thought would end up being a 4 mile run. On the way back home I started to see black spots blurring out my once picturesque view and it seemed like the way back was much longer than the way out!

By the time I got back to the ranch I was a wreck. So much so that the ranch dogs, Listo and Lacy, gave me one of those looks that says, "If I could actually speak I would tell you to sit down right now, because you are a hot mess!" So I went up to the apartment to find out that what I thought had been a quick 40 minute run was actually 1:15 run! Those four miles kicked my ass and left me with little other than the ability to sleep afterwards.

This was one of those tough running experiences, that would make a lesser woman curl up in a ball and cry for mom (which I did, at least once) but each time I went up to the mountains to visit Tyson, I got my run in, and each time it got a little easier!

My next challenge, a half marathon from Georgetown to Idaho Springs more than 8,000 above sea level the whole way! Yikes!