A lot has been going on since my last race and most of it
involves my dad. I had completely written
off this race and was planning on spending time at home this weekend. As the race approached my wife and I talked
about going camping with the kids at the race site. It sounded like fun but then some issues
came up with my dad’s ex-wife and we didn’t feel comfortable leaving our house unattended
for the weekend. My wife suggested I go
alone and on the night before the race I still hadn’t decided. I was
really stressed with life in general and needed some alone time so I finally
left Denver at 8pm for a race in New Mexico. After the 3hr drive I arrived at
my campsite sometime after midnight. Less
than 5 hours of sleep and it was time to get up and make it to the 6am race
start.
0-20 miles Avg 8:46 pace
My goal for this race was just to get in a long training run
and be able to get some running done the next day with my trail club. I started off very conservative running the
first 20 or so miles a little under 9:00/mi pace. Surprisingly it felt really easy just like
another long run with my friends back in Denver. Despite the slightly higher elevation of 7500ft
and the warm temperatures I was never out of breath or in any difficulty once. One neat thing about this race was that it
started in Colorado and then crossed into New Mexico. I liked seeing the signs welcome to Colorado
and welcome to New Mexico. I wanted to
run faster but I kept thinking of my trail run the next day so I kept it under
control.
21-26.2 Avg 8:15 pace
Most of the race was overcast which was still pretty warm
but the last few miles the sun broke free and it really started feeling hot. When I hit mile 20 I let myself speed up a
little. From my really consistent 8:45’s
I pushed the pace up into the 8:20’s for the last few miles and then really
picking up the pace and ran the last mile in 7:38. All while keeping my cool and never getting
much out of breath or being in any real trouble. The best
thing about this race was for that nearly 4hrs I didn’t think about any of the
crap going on back in Denver.
