On Friday I was just minding my own business and wrapping up work for the week when my buddy (we’ll call him… Eric Phipps) busted in on IM and said:

Eric:    I am running colder boulder this weekend.  Are you?
Dave:    nope.  no run for me.  didn’t even know about that.  i could do it though
Eric:    well if you do let me know – were having beers afterqwards probably at lazy dog on pearl streeet mall

What is the ColderBOLDER you ask?  It’s the little brother of the BolderBOULDER 10k.  A 5k race, this run is part of big brother’s race training series.  Normally, the weather this time of year would be pretty chilly thus the Colder moniker, but this morning I found myself sitting at Buchanan’s Coffee Pub staring at gray skies and 52°F at 8am.  Not bad.

The race course runs through and around the perimeter of the University of Colorado at Boulder and, like the 10k, is impeccably organized.  I did a walk in registration with no problem.  The race is run in waves according to your most recent 10k time, so you can go out and shoot for a official PR quite easily.

Now, I haven’t been running a ton lately; 3 days a week around my neighborhood 4.5mi loop plus pick-up soccer on Saturdays when the weather is nice, thus my expectations were for about a 25 min time.  Where did I finish? 21:43.  And I didn’t throw up (but it was close).

Afterwords, I rolled home to observe Julie and the kids trimming our Christmas tree , but that’s another story that’s probably never to be told.

BolderBOULDER 2008 has come and gone in the race’s 30th anniversary addition. I once again competed, but unlike 2007, this year I ran my own race just to see what would happen and achieved a much faster result. In fact, I was only 37 seconds slower than 2002. I guess this means I’ll have to do it again next year and see if I can pull off a PR.

I didn’t train particularly hard this time around, averaging only about 11 to 13 miles per week over the past 3 months plus a few Saturday morning pick-up soccer matches. I did “cram” the last week before the race, cranking up the distance to near 20 miles and slipping in a couple sessions in the pool, but not sure if the final week’s push helped or hurt me. Still, I exceeded my expectation of a 5:00 min / km average pace, so I’m good with that. Citizen’s Race winner? 31 year old Clint Wells in 30:52. Maybe next year will be mine? (yeah, right.)

As in the past, the course was packed with goofballs, families, first time racers, old warhorses and everything else in between. The spectator side show was entertaining once again and the race organization was brilliant. Even the weather was to my liking, with an overcast 60ºF topped off by a few sprinkles around 9:00am.

Congratulations, BolderBOULDER, on another year in the record books.

Dave’s BolderBOULDER Race History
(I seem to be re-setting the trend in the right direction.)

Every year I try to do an athletic event of some sort that gives me a goal, an objective, a reason to work-out, a reason to bust off the flab. Last year it was the Colorado Marathon. This year, I haven’t really picked one yet despite a near religious fanaticism for the gym… pick two of the following each day: lifting, swimming, running or biking (typically 5days per week plus occasionally something on the weekend). So when I was invited to run BolderBOULDER07 by my sister Kris and her friend Gina (who also happens to be the mom of one of the girls my youngest daughter’s soccer team), I jumped at the chance. I hadn’t run it since 2002 and thought it would be fun. Run each year on Memorial Day, the BolderBOULDER is a world class event and one of the largest 10k races anywhere. This year there were over 50,000 runners and walkers registered. What makes BolderBOULDER somewhat unique is their wave starting system where they put you into groups of roughly 1,000 racers based on your projected finish time. Each group starts a couple minutes apart to give each pack a chance to break-up before the next wave rolls out. This allows you to race with others that will have a similar pace and makes it one of the better mega races to take a shot at an “official” PR.

Gina had never run a BolderBOULDER before and was shocked at its magnitude. It really is an amazing bit of logistics to close off 6mi of Boulder city streets (including major arteries like 30th, 28th, Pearl and Folsom), get 50,000 people lined up in the right spot, staff a half dozen aid stations, line up enough port-a-potties and then get everyone a goody bag and a beer at the end. Plus clean-up the whole thing and get the streets back open by late in the afternoon. Epic. Even though this year was the 29th running of the race and the organizers have had plenty of time to perfect their processes, it’s still a spectacular thing when you realize what it took to pull it off.

Long story made longer, I finished in just over an hour. I’m certain I could have run it much faster in my current state of tune, but this year it really was just for the experience and to enjoy the run with Kris and Gina. Unlike in the past when I pushed much harder and didn’t really observe much of what was going on, I really had fun checking out the bands, belly dancers, yard parties and random folks tempting you to pull off to the side (“LAST BACON STOP BEFORE THE FINISH LINE!!!!!”). All in all, a good time and I highly recommend this race to anyone who wants or needs to do a 10k.

Dave’s BolderBOULDER Race History
(I seem to be setting a trend in the wrong direction.)