Same Time, Same Channel

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.

No running today. I'm supposed to be recovering from that marathon and I ran kind of hard yesterday, so I thought I better take today off.

I would have gotten up this morning and done a workout video, but I've got to get these memory quilt/wall hangings done for the 6th grade by tomorrow morning. I was up until 11:30 last night finishing the first one. The second one is done except for the binding, so I should be able to finish it tonight. I'll take pictures and post them when they're done, though they're really nothing special.

Easy run. Average pace: 9:28.

Weather: 42°F, 87% humidity, wind 4 S.

Just an easy run on my standard 4-mile route. I have nothing exciting or even remotely interesting to report about the run.

I had a busy morning after the run because I had a conference call from 8:00 to 9:00 and then I had to get over to the elementary school for 6th grade graduation, which started at 9:30. My meeting went over by about 10 minutes and I would have been able to sit down during the graduation if I'd gotten there earlier. Oh well.

They gave me special recognition during the graduation for making the quilts. I was up there with the Queen of the Room Mothers. That was weird. I did pretty much nothing all year, then spent a bunch of time and money the last month of school, while this other woman has been room mother extraordinaire all year every year. But whatever. I got a hanging plant of some variety.

So as requested, here are pictures of the quilts. In the pictures they are hung in front of the climbing wall, which is covered in pads. The hanging things in the middle of the quilts belong to the wall covering, not the quilts. Each quilt has 5 loops for hanging, but they used only the two outside ones when hanging them today. They say 2008 instead of 2009 because they went to Outdoor Ed in the Fall.

Easy run. Average pace: 9:32.

Weather: 48°F, 66% humidity, wind 9 SW. It felt pretty windy.

I felt a little sluggish today. It's probably because I ate a fairly large quantity of ice cream last night. I've really got to stop that. We were celebrating the last day of school. Now I'm in this no-mans-land where my kids are out of school but my husband is not. His school district goes through all of next week. So I've got to do this juggling thing where I work at home part time and work in the office part time so that my kids aren't home alone all day every day and my work is not too neglected. I'd like to start riding my bike or running to work, but I can't do that until after my husband finishes school, because when I'm doing this part-time working at home I have to transport my laptop between home and work all the time.

I've been thinking about something. It seems like when I talk to non-runners about my running I get two responses, often from the same person in the same conversation. The first is that they act impressed and say that they used to run but now they have bad knees or else they say that they can't run at all, or something like that. The second is that they say that they've tried running and they hated it and it was boring. I figure if they hated it because it was too hard, they were trying to run too fast. But I'm a little bothered by this common refrain from non-runners that running is boring. It's as if they're saying that runners must be simple-minded or something to be content to do something that's so boring. As I think about it, I think that quite the opposite is true. We must be pretty interesting people to be able to live inside our own heads during long runs. What do you think?

No running again today. I did No More Trouble Zones instead. That is one kick butt workout. I decided that for my marathon recovery plan I would run 3 days the first week (that was last week), 4 days the second week (this week), 5 days the third week, and 6 days the fourth week. That's why I didn't run today. I'll run tomorrow and that will be my 4th day this week.

I have another thought that's tangentially connected to my topic from yesterday. I have talked to a handful of people who said they don't run now because they have bad knees and most of them seem to claim that their bad knees are a result of running when they were younger. For example, they say that they ran cross country in high school. I did not run cross country in high school. In fact, when I was in high school, I would do just about anything to avoid running or any kind of physical activity. I don't know what was wrong with me. I did a short stint of recreational running for a few months in college, and then ran for about a year in my late 20s, then ran for another year in my early 30s, and then started up again when I was 38 and have been running since then (the last two years). I don't have knee problems.

So the question is, does doing a lot of running when you're young, perhaps as a teenager, frequently result in injuries that prevent you from running as an adult? Or is that something that happens to a few people but not most? Did any of you who run now run when you were a teenager? Can you run when you're young or when you're old, but not both? Or can you do both? I'm just curious about this.

Easy run. Average pace 9:08.

Weather: 62°F, 42% humidity, wind 5 WNW.

I slept in a little bit this morning and so I didn't have time for my run before it was going to be time to take my son to work. So I did the No More Trouble Zones video and then took him to work and ran after that. The result was that it was a little warmer when I ran than it would have been if I had run first thing. I'm going to have to make sure I get up early on Saturdays as well as on other days to run when it's cooler. I suppose 62° today wasn't too bad, but it will get worse and would have been worse if I had had a longer run. I should probably also start wearing my fuel belt. I haven't done that for quite a while. I didn't take it today, but I make a little detour and ran through some sprinklers just before the end of the 4th mile, and then stopped at a Walgreen's and got a drink from their drinking fountain just before the end of the 6th mile. I actually passed 3 Walgreen's during my run today. I can stop at any of them for a bathroom or water, but only if I run late enough. They don't open until 8:00 am. There is one that is open 24 hours, but it is down by my office and I go by there only if I do my office loop.

I felt sluggish at the beginning of this run, but got feeling better. There's a fairly big hill in the 2nd mile that I always struggle with and today the song Allergies, by the Barenaked Ladies came on when I started the hill. It's not one of my more favorite songs, but it's got a good tempo and I matched my cadence to the song going up the hill and got up the hill a little faster than usual. But it's a short song and so it didn't last the whole hill. I like running fast up a hill because I can usually keep the faster pace with less effort once I crest the hill and am either on flat or downhill. Splits were 9:52, 9:24, 8:54, 9:06, 9:09, 9:08, 9:00, 8:41.

I had my mp3 player on all songs shuffle and a while later it played Be Still, My Soul by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. This is actually the song and arrangement that my ward choir is working on. So even though it's not exactly a peppy running song, I listened to it twice and figured I was doing some preparation for tomorrow's choir practice during my run.