Notes
Boulderthon Half, 5th place, 1:11:37. It was a messy morning with a delay while riding the shuttle, the bag drop-off was confusing and rushed and finally, when we went to the line there was a hold-up with the all-clear on the course. Still, through all of it, I was feeling calm and confident in the effort I was capable of. The course was merciless, however, and that part was more brutal than I'd expected. We ran the first 4 miles going out and back on the Rez roads so it was nothing but rolling hills, really for the first 6 miles as we made our way to Jay Rd. I started my watch at the start but didn't want to check it during the race so I could run on effort, and who knows, maybe if I looked at it I would've known we weren't actually going very fast at all, but it felt hard running on the dirt and hills. I got the throat tightness I'd experienced on that last tempo around EBRC and pushing through was creating a mild side stitch so I let Will and the other 3 racers get a gap on me as I tried to manage the discomfort. I was in no-mans-land once we were on Jay and I put up a fight for about a half mile or so before getting to the bike path. It was incredibly hard to try to run fast or stay engaged once I was on the winding and it didn't take long before I said "fuck it, I'm not able to close the gap, and the next guy back is a long way back, I'm done." I started running into the back of the 10k field and had to dodge groups of people on the narrow bike path. I finally got the last 2k and could tell that the 4th placer was fading but the gap was probably too big to make up so I just kept marching along up Mapleton. I was almost shocked by my overall time, I knew I was running poorly but didn't realize I was that slow. Part of it was the course, we ran over rollers for the first 4 miles then it was a net uphill climb for the next 5, a drop to mile 11 then flips back uphill for the last 2 and change. The other part was going to the line thinking this would be an easy money race and I ended up getting punched in the mouth without a plan. I didn't have a fighting spirit, I was just out there running totally unengaged. Devastating morning, hopefully, I can use this to propel good habits, good engagement in future workouts, and a little fuel to the fire instead of interalizing the objective time result.