I just spent the morning running through the streets of Boulder with almost 50,000 of my closest strangers. Average pace (not counting the warm up): 7:44.
This was my 2nd year running the Bolder Boulder. I ran it last year in 62 minutes, so this was a 14 minute PR for me. I was advised not to run this race this soon after my marathon, and I'm sure that was good advice. However, I just couldn't resist running the Bolder Boulder. Last year I was in an open wave and it was very crowded and I spent a lot of time dodging between people. This year I ran in a qualifying wave. There were fewer people in the wave and they were all running fairly fast, so it was easier to run at a decent pace. The earlier, qualifying waves are definitely better if you want to try to set a PR, but I'm sure the later, open waves have more people in costume and that kind of thing and generally have a more festive atmosphere. There were several bands along the route, three groups of belly dancers, and one Elvis impersonator. I ran past one couple where the woman was dressed in a white singlet and a white running skirt and had a white veil on her head. She and the man both had signs on their backs, hers saying "Mrs. " and his saying "Mr. " and one of them said "Tonight" and the other said "6:30." So I guess they're getting married tonight. I said "congratulations" as I went past them.
I tried to take water at two of the stops (I passed up others - they had a lot of them), but it was more an exercise in pouring water on my face, because I didn't want to slow down. In the marathon, I felt like it was appropriate to walk through the aid stops and take a decent drink, but here I just wanted to keep going. I think I got a little water in my mouth.
The timing system for this race is excellent. They have timing mats at every mile and you can sign up to get a text message of your split times. I got the text message with my splits and final time about 15-20 minutes after I finished the race, and official results are already posted. And that's with over 40,000 runners.
I just told myself that I didn't feel as bad as I did with the same amount left in the marathon, and kept pushing. I went a little slower on the 2nd and 3rd miles for some reason. Maybe I went faster on the first mile because it was the start of the race, then I slowed down a bit because it wasn't the start of the race any more, and then I sped up because it was getting to the end of the race. I struggled a bit at the very end because that's when the hills come. Otherwise, the course is pretty flat. I did manage to pass some people at the end. In any case, my splits were 7:44, 7:57, 8:01, 7:42, 7:27, 7:36.
Because there are so many runners, each year is a separate division. So my division is just 40 year-old women, of which there were 429. I'm pretty happy to have gotten 16th out of 571.
It occurred to me recently that the average pace for my 5K and 10K PRs were slower than my average pace for my marathon. I've now done something about that 10K PR. Now I've got to do something about that 5K PR. The next 5K that I'm thinking of doing is on the 4th of July. | 