The Bolder Boulder is one of the biggest and most competitive 10K races in the United States, but unfortunately the race is also at altitude, fairly hilly, and has a net elevation gain of around 75-80 feet. The bottom line - elites and near-elites run about 90 seconds slower on this course than they do on a flat and fast race at sea level. Another thing the race has going against it is that it's about a 1:45-2:00 drive for me, so for the past 2 years I have always been on the fence about signing up for this race until the last 2-3 weeks or so. This year, I was undecided until about a month out, but with the fact that a bunch of my friends are running it (some even traveling from sea level) and that the timing seems to make sense in terms of where the race falls in my training cycle, I finally pulled the trigger and signed up.
There was some minor drama race week when the bib assignments came out and I was put in the 2nd wave. When I contacted the race's general race support/questions, some extremely unhelpful girl "Emily" casually replied "sorry you didn't get in the wave you wanted, it was probably full" and proceeded to ignore my follow-up questions on how I might be able to switch into the first wave. I knew that I could probably drive up before the race and pay a $10 exchange fee, but didn't want to make the 3-4 hour round trip if for some reason the first wave really was full. Long story short, I got in touch with some of the higher-ups involved with the race and they sorted out the issue for me. I did end up making two trips to Boulder race weekend though, one to hang out with my buddy Scott and some of the other Newton guys he was rooming with, who all turned out to be pretty cool. On Sunday, I drove up with Maureen and Jason for the race. We were able to crash with Maureen's cousin Lauren, who generously let us stay at her house for the night. We made it up to their house as their party for Lauren's daughter's graduation was dwindling down and hung out for a bit, then we went out to dinner, relaxed a little, and went to bed shortly after.
My main goal for the race as find out where I stood fitness wise compared to last year. Last year I ran about 110 miles the week before the race, finished 23rd in 32:45, and then went on to run 67:44 in Duluth a month later. This year I cut down to about 103 miles the week before the race and was hoping to be around 31:30-31:45, which would give me some hope for running close to 65:00-65:30 in Duluth 4 weeks later.
Anyways, I woke up pretty early again on race day and knowing I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep, tried my best not to wake Maureen and Jason. Around 5:15 or so I ate my standard pre-race breakfast (something small like a pastry or some oatmeal and some coffee), packed up all my stuff, and we hit the road. The drive to Boulder was pretty uneventful until we were a couple of miles away, but we still got there early enough and snuck into one of the parking lots near the race while the volunteers that were supposed to watch the entrances were busy chatting amongst themselves and not paying attention. Jason and I then went out for our warmup, hit the porta potty on the way back, then we got our race gear on and headed to the start.
At 6:55, the gun or start horn went off and we were underway. The lead vehicle for this race is some huge bus, and while I lost sight of that thing pretty early on last year, the fact that I was in better shape this year and the leaders seemed to be running a more conservative pace let me keep the lead vehicle in sight until well past the halfway mark, which also made me a little nervous that I was maybe running too fast. About a mile into the race I caught Scott and Nik Schweikert (or maybe they were just running on the other side of the road as there was basically one giant pack for the first couple of miles). I tried to pack up with them a little bit, as I knew Nik ran right under 32 minutes last year and I would at least like to break 32 minutes as well. However, around 1.5 miles or so I think someone up front made a move and the pack broke up pretty soon after. Scott was 3-5 seconds ahead of me for another couple of miles and we slowly pulled away from Nik. My race plan was to run a race similar to last year - fairly conservative for the first 4 miles through the uphill climbs and then start rolling on the downhill after mile 4. However, the plan quickly fell apart when I accidentally went over the edge around 3-3.5 miles and it felt like a death march to the finish after. I still managed about a 5:03 4th mile, but Scott put about 10 seconds on me this mile and I never saw him again until after we finished. I did manage to control the damage and only got passed twice in the last 2 miles. As we made the climb to Folsom Field with around a quarter mile left in the race, I made one last bid to try to sneak under 32 minutes, but they covered the field with some plastic covering that got ridiculously wet and slippery, so I took one quick look to make sure nobody was going to catch me and cruised in the last 200 meters or so. The race initially had me at 32:08, but I think because it was an "unknown bib" due to the last minute bib switch they later just changed the result to the gun time of 32:10. (I know it doesn't make sense, and 2 seconds don't really matter much so I don't know why I even bothered explaining this). The finish time was technically a 10K PR, although I have run faster than that time about 5-6 times already through the 10K mark of much longer races.After the race, I waited around a couple of minutes for Jason and the other Newton guys. We went around and grabbed some postrace goodies like free food and our "sub-40" shirts and then made the 1.5 mile or so jog back to the start line. We hit the road shortly after and luckily figured out how to get out of there while most of the nearby roads were still closed down for the race. (to make a point of how big the race was, over half of the field haven't even crossed the start line yet by the time we were out of Boulder). We made it back to Lauren's house, took a quick shower, went out for a pleasant brunch with her family, and then made the long trek back home.
Overall, I was somewhat disappointed with the race as I felt it indicated 66:20-66:30 half-marathon fitness, but I felt better later knowing that it was probably on the slow end of what I was capable of running since I was a bit too aggressive early on. Either way, I finished 15th in a pretty tough field and beat some guys who had whopped me pretty good in local races over the last year so it was a solid step forward.
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