Fans on the Field 10K

– 42:15 (6:49 pace, Avg HR 177)

Earlier in the week on Wednesday I had a failed speed workout and I knew right from then that I wouldn’t be racing this one but using it as a workout. On race day I decided on something in between race and workout, pacing my friend on his time goal. On Saturday my daughter’s friend had a birthday party at Jump Street and being the active parent I am I jumped with the kids for a couple of hours, which I still felt on race day.

Mile 1 – 6:44 (Avg HR 165). My legs felt like crud right from the start. This first mile felt way harder than it should have.

Mile 2 – 13:24 (6:40 mile split, Avg HR 177). As the excitement of the start wore off this mile felt like work, not fun. My quad felt like they were going to rip off of my hips and my friend that I was pacing was now pulling away from me.

Mile 3 – 20:07 (6:43 mile split, Avg HR 178 ). At the start of mile 3 we ran through the Pepsi Center and along the arena were the Avalanche and Nuggets play.

Mile 4 – 26:55 (6:48 mile split, Avg HR 178 ). I started to hit my stride and the pace just felt easier (quads feeling better). I caught up to my friend and took the lead as pacer again. Also on this mile we ran through Coors field (Rockies Stadium) and a short section along the dirt from home base to 3rd base and then out the back of the outfield.

Mile 5 – 33:56 (7:01 mile split, Avg HR 181). Back on the streets of down town Denver the tall building made nice shade. My friend and I were running with a small group and all of us really hit started to run out of gas and the pace slowed.

Mile 6 – 40:58 (7:02 mile split, Avg HR 184). Huge traffic jams as the 5K race merged back onto the same course. My friend says he is done and not to wait for him and go for it. I held the same pace be he and the group we were running with dropped way back.

6.2 Miles – 42:15 (6:25 pace, Avg HR 190). I picked up the pace a little for the final stretch but I still held back because my quads were burning up (and this was a flat course). The race finished on the sidelines of the 50 yard line of mile high stadium (Broncos). I felt like a star running out of the same tunnel onto the field.

I really did have a lot of fun and this was one of the coolest races I have ever run. But it was hard holding my pace through the halls and 90 degree turns inside the stadiums. I finished 35th out of all the men and 5th in my age group. My friend only fell behind by 0:20 in the last mile and finished with a PR by over 2:00 (he was pretty happy).

2011 Colorado Relay

Over the weekend I ran with 9 others from my work in a relay race. The race started in Breckenridge and finished near Aspen. Our team finished the 195 miles in 32:10:34. I had a lot of laughs and a lot of great stories to tell, I won’t bore you with all of those non running stories. Here is a description of each on my runs. (kind of long but you should at least read about the last run)


Leg 10 – Frisco to Copper mountain Friday 5:35pm, 6.5 mi @ 8:22 Pace, Avg HR 177, Elevation Gain 690’
I left my house at 5:30 am and basically sat in the car for 12 hrs straight. I ran a 1 mile warm-up to try and loosen up my muscles but my quads felt terrible. I start off at a sub 8:00/mi pace which was fine for the first mile. Miles 2, 3, 4 @ 5 were all up hill, about 2%-3% grade. It was also hot and during these miles my heart rate averaged in the 180’s! The last 1.5 mi flattened out and I was able to resume a pace near 8:00/mi to the end.

Leg 18 – Eagle to Gypsum Saturday 2:40 am, 6.5 mi @ 7:36 Pace , Avg HR 160, Downhill Course
I was unable to sleep between this run and the last one. My quads felt bad before the last run and then I ran a hard uphill, my quads were now really hurting before this run. This leg was mostly downhill and I planned on taking it easy and saving some energy for the last run which was going to be my hardest. Right off the bat I started with a pace in the 7:30’s. I ran very even splits within 10 seconds faster or slower than the average. This run had my lowest average heart rate so I guess I did take it easy.

Leg 30 – Snowmass Golf Course to Snowmass Ski Area (trail run) Saturday 2:40 pm, 8.4 mi @ 10:58 Pace, Avg HR 163, Elevation Gain 1,540’
Since my last run I was able to nap about 30 min and my quads were really sore. I started on the golf course but in less than 5 minutes I was on the side of the mountain. I ran most of the first mile but then I had to walk some and run some the next 2 miles to the peak of the climb. The view at the top was amazing and the tail descended along some cliffs. There were times when I was only a few feet away from a really steep cliff it was really neat. But the fun was short live as I soon start ascending the second peak of the run. I really had a tough time on this climb, one mile was over 14:00. I came over the peak and again ran along some cool cliffs. Then I started my final decent to the finish line. At the very top I could see way at the bottom the finish (1.5 miles to run and 600’ decent). Also at the bottom I could see and hear my team cheering me on and making a ton of noise with some cow bells. I can’t describe what happened but it felt like I grew wings. I sprinted down the side of that mountain like a madman. It seemed like every switch back I could hear them get louder. I was going so fast that I almost didn’t make on a few turns. I ran that last mile in 7:29 on some pretty sketchy terrain. I met up with my team and we all ran the last 0.1 into the finish line together.


This will go down as one of my best running experiences ever especially that epic trail run. In the future I am going to imagine my teammates cheering me in whenever I need a boost.

April Snow

Guess who got to run in the snow this morning…

Wall papering my workspace

Unless it’s already on the bib I will write the race name, date, time & distance. Then I hang it on my wall at work, eventually when I run out of room I will take the older ones down and store them somewhere.

Evergreen Town Race (10K)

My goal for today’s race was to run 41:59 so 6:46 pace. The race is at 7,500’ elevation but almost all downhill it was a really fast course. The biggest downhill was in the first mile and most everyone went out too fast. I ran the first mile a little faster than I wanted and I spent most of the second mile recovering. In the early miles I had already tossed my goal and traded it in for a faster pace. I came through the first 5K at 20:40 which felt great and way under my goal. But things were just getting started and I was going to pick up the pace. I had been running alone for a while with the same pack of runners about 100 meters down the road. I decided it was time to chase them down which took about a mile to cover the distance. I caught them near the 5 mile mark and went straight though the pack. It felt really good zipping past this pack of 10-15 runners. I really turned on the gas in the last mile, it hurt a lot but at this time I was running on a runner’s high. At the 6 mile marker I could see the finish line and I nearly went into a full sprint from there. My Garmin says I ran the last .2 @ 5:22 pace. I passed another few people in the sprint into the finish line. I ran my second 5K in 20:04 almost as fast as my best 5K this year.

Garmin Stats
Mile 1 – 6:34 (Avg HR 165)
Mile 2 – 6:43 (Avg HR 171)
Mile 3 – 6:34 (Avg HR 174)
Mile 4 – 6:39 (Avg HR 178 )
Mile 5 – 6:28 (Avg HR 182)
Mile 6 – 6:19 (Avg HR 185)
Last .27 – 1:27 (5:22 pace) (Avg HR 191)


This was an extremely competitive race.  I finish 68th overall and 16th in my age group. Lot of fast people showed up to this race today.

Scavenger Dash

This adventure through the streets of Denver was part scavenger hunt part running race. Each team had 2 runners plus an optional pit crew to help solve clues. There weren’t any teams without a pit crew in the top 3, I am glad we had are ours.

All together there was 12 items.
3 – Challenges. Cryptic clue would lead you to a location where you had to complete a task.
5 - Pictures of statues. Cryptic clue would lead you to a unique statue that you needed to take a picture of
3 - Find one of these and take a picture next to it. Find an Elevator, Cigar smoking Indian & a Mannequin with a head.
1 - Crayon rubbing. The clue sent us to get a crayon rubbing of the seal that’s on the 13th step of the capital

The race started at noon and it was 80+ degrees out and I was sweating buckets the whole time. While getting lost or not running the direct route we ran 9.25 miles in about 1:52, we finished 2nd place overall. The best route we could have taken to find everything would have only been 5.9 miles.


Here are a few of the better pictures and some comments (not the actual clues):

My teammate and I prior to the race, I passed on the pre race beer


Take a picture inside this sculpture


Take a picture with a mannequin that has a head (Terrible picture of me by the way)


Find the dancing ballerinas sculpture and imitate their pose for the picture


Find the fat lady and take a picture with her, she was at the opera house

2011 Estes Park Marathon Race Report

Start and the first big accent (miles 0-10)
It was a really beautiful course but I think scenic = tough at least in Colorado. Around mile 2 we started a steady climb all the way to mile 6. Once at the top my muscles felt dead already. Also at the top of this climb I ate my first gel and it made my stomach queasy. Then it was long decent back to Estes Park. The downhill felt almost as bad as the uphill, I am not sure why downhills tear my quads apart. I ate half an orange at mile 9 which made my stomach feel even worse.

Around the lake (miles 11-16)
We got back into town where it’s actually flat and I ate my 2nd gel at mile 11. I almost puked, I didn’t although I wish I had. My legs were in terrible shape, my stomach hurt and I was getting hot. I came really close to giving up here, my car wasn’t far and I could have easily hopped in and drove away. I have given up on a marathon once before and that was way worse than any pain I was feeling. During this time I kept drinking liquids but I had given up on solid food.

Second loop out of town (miles 17-22)
The second loop started with 2.5 miles of steady climbing. The nice thing was as soon as we climbed a bit there was a light breeze and I felt cool again. My altitude had changed to “I will finish” and I was cooling down so things were looking good. The climb peaked at mile 20, here I looked at my total time for first time in the race. I wasn’t happy with my current pace and I was thinking the 5hr goal was gone. Running down the other side of this loop I picked up the pace a bit but my stomach seemed to be the limiting factor. I still hadn’t eaten anything since mile 11.

Back into town and the finish (miles 23-26.2)
At mile 23 I decide to eat a banana at a water station. This time it went down fine and a mile later I starting to feel a lot better. I looked at my watch for the second time in the race and saw that I there was still hope for finishing under 5hrs. I ran nonstop the last 2.2 miles at a 9:23 pace and a bpm 170-185.

Results and the big picture
I finished in 4:52:23 just under my medium goal of 5hrs. Which is not a great time, I am pretty sure that I could run it a lot faster if I was fresh. I showed up to this race pretty beat up and mentally exhausted having run 2 marathons in the previous 9 weeks. The real goal behind this was to join the marathon maniacs club. The entry requirement is 3 marathons in 90 days. Now that I have met this goal it’s time to take a break from marathoning and see some shorter distances.