Recovering

Holy Cow!

We did it!

We actually finished a 10k.  My feet and legs are telling me all about it, too, with every step I take.

I've never seen anything like it - 50,000 people at one race.  Apparently, the BolderBoulder (or the organizers) invented the wave start; a new wave is started approximately every minute, with the fastest waves going first and walkers bringing up the end.

Waiting on our wave line-up

RCC, me, Kyzzer, Nebalee, Autobot, Mr Nebalee

It was easy to get caught up in the pre-race excitement.  Even as much as I hate crowds and easily become claustrophobic, it wasn't an issue.  Probably because it was outside and there was so much to see.  I had no idea runners were so crazy.  We saw the X-Men, The Avengers, The Lego Men, a whole gaggle of Waldos, a ballet-company's worth of tutus, and costumes we just couldn't figure out.  The worst dressed award goes - easily - to the group of three males running in nothing but their boxer briefs.  Of course, I didn't get pictures of any of the costumes because I was just in awe of everything going on.

The show didn't end with the runners. Oh, no. The show - circus might be a better term - continued along the route.  They had thirty bands stationed around the route and in-between, neighbors made a party of the race.  There were keg stands for runners, free shots, a slip-n-slide, lots of free hugs, and my favorite...people with garden hoses soaking all of the runners down as they went by.

Our goal (by our, I mean mine that I was holding us to) was to finish in 1:47:00, so I estimated that we'd have to keep about a 17:00/mile pace.  I didn't figure that would be too hard, as it's just slightly faster than a walking pace and I've been doing Ease into 5K for the past five weeks.  Turns out, we were able to do better than what I had hoped.  We didn't do nearly as well as Nebalee's family, who ran it the entire way, but we didn't embarrass ourselves either.

Because we were slightly ahead of schedule, I didn't feel too badly about stepping off the course at the summit to take this picture...

Summit: 5,391 feet above sea level
As they say, "Sea Level is for Sissies" :)

Believe it or not, the first half of the race wasn't bad at all.  All of that work with Ease into 5K definitely helped.  RCC and I alternated walking and running, only I got sick and tired of getting my ass kicked every time we did a run interval.  His strides are so much longer than mine that he was finishing our intervals a few seconds ahead of me.  It pretty much pissed me off, so about halfway through the race, I said to myself, "Self, I'm tired of getting my ass kicked.  Eff this shit, he's not beating us again."  And myself said, "Damn straight chickadee.  Kick it into high gear and kick some RCC arse!"

It took full-on sprints to keep up with his longer legs, but I managed to tie or beat him on every interval we ran in the second half.  That made me very happy.  Things started getting tough after the fourth mile, but that's when my conditioning really started to pay off.  It was still going fairly well, right up until the 9th kilometer.  That's when RCC pulled his hip flexor and I started losing some steam, but after completing 9K, what's one more?

We shuffled along, forgoing running intervals, during the last kilometer and then the stadium came into sight.  Whoever dreamed up the notion of running into a full stadium was a genius, even if the last bit into the stadium is uphill.  I told RCC that it reminded me of traveling in Italy - uphill and lots of people.

Walking into the stadium, and around the track to the finish was indescribable.  Touchy-feely alert: RCC and I crossed the finish line holding hands.  Seemed like a good idea at the time, now seems a little mushy.  Damn it.  Don't tell anyone.

I'm pretty soon the smiling was due to relief of
still being alive.
Or hypoxia.

The only drawback to the race is that some idiot, who we all know and love, forgot to put sunscreen on and now her skin is the same color as the shirt she ran in.  And, the shirt she chose to wear didn't completely cover her new tattoo. 

I don't know for a fact, but I'm pretty sure that my tattoo guy wouldn't have told me to be careful about putting sunscreen on it if sun was good for a brand-new tattoo.

Sorry for the bluriness of this picture...
I kind of ran with my phone tucked into my bra
and this is what dried boob sweat does to the camera lens.
Oops.

Because I'm so thrilled with finishing - and beating our goal - I'm going to leave you with our splits.  They make me happy.

GunDiva's splits:

• Mile 1 = 0:16:11
• Mile 2 = 0:15:34
• Mile 3 = 0:16:35
• Mile 4 = 0:16:41
• Mile 5 = 0:15:23
• Mile 6 = 0:17:09 (<-- actually 1.2 miles, so we did come in sub-17s for each mile)
• Total time = 1:41:28

RCC's splits:

• Mile 1 = 0:16:10
• Mile 2 = 0:15:28
• Mile 3 = 0:16:41
• Mile 4 = 0:16:40
• Mile 5 = 0:15:23
• Mile 6 = 0:17:09
• Total time = 1:41:27

Yep, we'll be doing it again next year.