On May 8 (Mothers’ Day as you might recall) I ran my 3rd Title 9K. And on May 15 (one week later) I ran my 5th Half Marathon, The Colfax Half Marathon. These are their stories (dun, dun).
Title 9K
Distance: Contrary to the event title, this is actually 9.9K, or about 6.1 miles (I didn’t know this last year and was slightly livid at the 9K mark to find that I still had 1K to go).
Course: trails, with a bit of up and down and a short section of paved road
Company: I ran this with a bunch of girlfriends and my sister … my friend Holly and I actually ran the whole thing together and thank GOODNESS I had her … I wanted to walk from the 7K mark.
Weather: The weather was hot hot hot … 85+ degrees and no shade whatsoever. I made every water stop. I felt like I was melting.
Results: Course (gun) time – 1:05:11, 10:38 pace … there was no chip time in this event though it’s not a big event anyhow and would likely not have made much difference (under 1min) … I also felt terrible the rest of the day. Aside from the girlfriends, the best part of this race was the swag, an awesome WOMEN’S FIT t’shirt and a really cute necklace.
Colfax Half Marathon
Distance: 13.1 miles on the course, 13.23 on my Garmin
Course: all road running, mostly flat, though Matt swears it was as hilly as Nashville (the first one. where i sort of wanted to die)
Company: I ran this mostly with Matt, though he took a potty break around mile 4 and I didn’t see him again until mile 8 … he was quite instrumental in keeping me going the last bunch of miles – I was wheezing like mad. I also ran completely without music. My good mp3 player is missing (I will find it soon, I’m sure) and I had to run with my backup Mp3 player which displays in Farsi or something so I had no idea that it had crashed and had no music on it until I was around mile 2. I also later washed it with my pants … not it really doesn’t work, in Farsi or any other language. Honestly, the no music thing wasn’t as bad as I might’ve thought.
Weather: This time the weather was FREEZING. It probably never got much above 40 and it was misting pretty much the entire time. Matt and I both seriously considered a DNS when we were having trouble finding parking. But really, it’s great running weather once you get going. No chance of over heating and you don’t need all water stops.
Results: My chip time was 2:12:34, a 10:08 pace and a new PR (hollllla!!). My garmin clocked me at 2:12:49 for a 13.23 miles and a 10:02 pace. Victory was pretty sweet. I got to go home and have a nap and then to Smash Burger for lunch. I also got a very nice (Women’s fit, also) tech tee and a cute finishing medal.
So what did we learn from this, boys and girls?? It’s much better to run a race in cool weather … unfortunately, in Colorado, you have no idea when that will be.