Marathons and Concerts, How much can be squeezed in a day?

Pic: Team Friends of Cindy Lowery (two others on the team had to leave prior to the end)

Sunday morning I awoke much too early to participate in the Colfax Marathon. Had I done the math, I might have been tempted to sleep in. Much of the fun, though, was watching the girls come in at the end of their legs and go off when that was possible. I started at hour 3 and ~45 minutes after the gun went off. My run began by bolting out of the porta-potty when I heard our team's number called, Jen had just come in. Fortunately, that only put me back a few seconds.

I was sure to start very slowly because I didn't know if I'd survive the 12k...I've probably only run that far once before in my life. The run was so scenic. It went past Sloan's Lake, waaaay downhill right through the heart of Downtown Denver, past the Watercourse (on 17th) and on to City Park. The miles passed quickly (okay, less quickly for me than others, but psychologically it seemed fast as in it wasn't a struggle to keep running). And I did it without the performance-enhancing iPod. The last mile and a half were a little more challenging because I could feel blisters forming on my toes and I was trying to push it more. It was also very hot out and I discovered that it's really hard to drink in the feed zones without walking (and I refused to walk due to the fear that I wouldn't start running again).

In the last 3/4 of a mile, I really started to push the pace and I wondered if I was doing some kind of damage to my poor body. Coming into the finish, a couple of guys were finishing, too, and I figured it would be appropriate to run as hard as possible...they took it as a challenge so it was a flat-out race to the line. That made it fun to have some competition like that...even though they were probably finishing a marathon versus my teeny 12k. It only lasted 1 hr 14 min so it wasn't too bad (half the time of a road race). After analyzing the results, it appears that I need to trim off 14 minutes to have a respectable time.

Next time, I would enjoy training for and completing a 1/2 marathon. Don't think I'm remotely tempted to run a marathon since I'm not light enough for it to be safe on my knees.

That's how the day started. It ended with lots of garlic- and olive oil-drenched pasta at the Gondolier (it moved! I almost had a heart attack when I thought it was shutdown at the old location.) The pasta was as good as ever. After that we (my co-workers and I) went to a Collective Soul concert that simply ROCKED. They were awesome & the Boulder Theater was a pretty intimate venue for such a show. In fact, I'm jamming to their music now as I write this. It fits my mood after spending the evening playing Rock Band.