MAY 25 BOLDER BOULDER

I survived another 10k race! The Bolder Boulder 10k is the second largest road race in the nation--over 50,000 people ran! It made for some crazy logistical planning...due to massive road closures and limited parking, I had to drive up to Boulder the night before and stay with my cousin's fiancee's brother-and-his-girlfriend (Dave and Julie)'s friends. Follow that? I showed up at the house around 10pm, it went something like "hi nice to meet you, thanks for letting me sleep on your couch, goodnight." They lived in a super key location; the race actually was routed on either side of their street so I could walk to the start line. A crazy scene--people raced in heats according to their pace, starting with heat AA...I was in heat MP. Yeah. Equal amounts of really serious runners as those wearing gorilla suits, grass skirts, and superhero costumes (see Dave and Julie in thier race getup, below). The race was lined with tons of bands, a trampoline crew, elderly belly dancers, people handing out beer to runners, a slip-n-slide station, bbqs....Basically a six-mile long party, that finished in the CU football stadium. I wish I could have brought my camera, but I really didn't want to run with it. In the end, I ran almost the exact same time as my Montana 10k. (Wah! I sort of trained for this one! I'll blame the altitude and the fact I had to dodge and weave the crowds.) The official results: I got 291st out of 581 in my division, and 8775th out of 26182 women. I may go pro soon, with numbers like that.

Finishers of the race got a free goody bag and beer, and we sat in the stadium to watch other finishers and a team of competitive jump-ropers perform in the middle of the stadium (random?). Met with Dave and Julie and collected free samples of food at the promotional tents. Just as I had filled my bag with pounds of giveaway nutrition bars, etc, and we prepared for the mile walk back to the house, it began to thunder loudly and pour rain. After running 6 point something miles, I had to run another mile back in rain so heavy I could barely see--and carrying my bowling ball of a snack bag too! Exhaustion. Below: Made it back to the house soaking wet, but happy!