Backroads race report.

Yesterday was super-sweet.

The race went really, really smoothly, from first wakeup to post-race bubble bath. Now that my husband is officially 34 (as of Saturday!) and much older and wiser than me, he made sure I had coffee in hand before I rolled out the door with my sandwich and race gear around 6:25 a.m.

I was expecting some major traffic snafus at the Boulder Rez, since last year it was rather time-consuming to get in and out of the parking areas. What a pleasant surprise to basically roll up to the park entrance and be motioned into a spot approximately ten minutes later! Race start time was 8 a.m. and I was there and parked by 6:45, well ahead of my expectations.

Packet pick-up was also a supremely organized area. There were perhaps 75 other people in the vicinity getting their stuff, but I was in and out with my racing chip, commemorative pint glass, and t-shirt within five minutes. (One small complaint: not a technical shirt? for a $75 entry fee? Do better next year--I loved my tech shirt from this race in '06 and was disappointed to get a plain white T with a rather unattractive logo.)

That brought me to 7 a.m., and whitecaps were forming on the Rez. It was about 50 degrees out but the wind was cold, and coming from a direction that meant a good chunk of the first half of the race would be run into a stiff headwind. People were huddling in their cars and trying to decide how many layers of clothing to run in, whether to keep their warmups on and throw them over the fence by the starting line, how to dress, how to warm up, what to do...since I was by myself I had plenty of time to observe other people's decision-making processes. And to go back to my car and enjoy that cup of coffee. I was not envying the marathoners their 7 a.m. start.

By 7:45 I headed out of the car toward the starting line. I'd been dithering myself about how many layers to wear, and decided to go with the fleece-over-tank-top-and-shorts approach. This heavy-on-the-top, light-on-the-bottom approach seemed common among my fellow runners. Chip on, hydration down, last pit stop at the the portable toilets, and I found my place near the middle back of the pack. I had no real idea what time I'd finish in but basically hoped to run without walking except at aid stations for as long as I could keep that up.

About 7:59, just as they called runners to the line for the final time, the sun came out from behind the clouds. The start was on the northeast side of the Rez and the winds weren't nearly as bad as in the parking area so it seemed almost pleasant as we all began in one huge pack.

The pack stayed together for almost two miles, which made it hard to hit much of a stride. On the positive side, though, since I was moving with the group and not trying to pass anyone, I barely noticed the first two miles of the race. About a half-mile after the first aid station, the course changed direction and we started running into the wind. I still had enough company that it wasn't too bad though, and I started to find a good rhythm. I had no watch, no cell phone, no GPS, and no idea of my own speed, but wow, was it a beautiful morning.

Around mile 5, I caught up with a gentleman who was clearly also out for enjoyment. I asked him what his goal pace was and he said "around ten-minute miles." He'd been injured the previous week and his main goal was just to finish. I asked how the rest of his season had been and he told me about the other races he'd done--practically every marathon in Colorado this year, so I was privileged to hear about a lot of fun races around the state. We ran together for about a mile when the half-marathon leaders started coming back the other way. (The race was on an out-and-back course.) This huge cheer travelled along the whole race path--you could hear them coming in front of us, and you could hear the cheers like a big sound wave behind us as they sped into the distance. Really inspiring. He and I played tag for most of the race before he pulled away out of sight in the last mile.

Around mile 6, the wind changed direction and the sun began to warm up the course. By the turnaround just after mile 7, I knew two things that made me very happy: 1) I would have a tailwind for most of the way back. 2) The better part of the next three miles would be a gradual downhill. These two pieces of knowledge helped me cruise through miles 7-10. I felt great: the day was beautiful, the weather was beautiful, I was well over halfway, and still running which was a pleasant surprise.

After mile 11 I could feel that I didn't have much left to give. There was one big hill on the way, right before mile marker 12, and I had to walk about 100 yards of the uphill to get to that "one mile to go" marker. After that mark, though, I started jogging back downhill and felt like I would be able to keep the pace until the end.

Zoom! I was passed on the left by a guy running, I don't know, incredibly fast, and being paced by a guy on a mountain bike who was yelling at the runner in Spanish. The marathoners had arrived. After that I was passed about every 30 seconds by people who were clearly in amazingly good shape and within a mile of a much more ambitious goal than my own. Three of them were running together and apparently considered 7:30-minute miles to be a conversational pace because they were chatting and having a fine time. Seriously impressive. I had to walk about another 100 yards with about a half-mile to go--note to self: consider nutrition planning of some sort next year--but got it back up to a run for the last half-mile into the chute.

My official race time hasn't been posted yet but I believe I finished somewhere around 2:13:00. That's about seven minutes slower than last year, but given how far I fell away from my training plan, it's a time I'm really, really happy with. I actually enjoyed myself on a long run, something I wasn't sure was even possible before yesterday.

Post-race, I went home to a fabulous bubble bath and storytime with my daughter before heading out to the Rio in Boulder for a tri-blogger meetup. I met both Bolder in Boulder and AJ of Little Miss Runner Pants, as well as several of their friends and other half-marathoners. The Rio's new deck on the third floor provided a view of some awesome scenery, and it was so much fun to meet people whose writing I've been reading for at least a year or so. We swapped race stories and talked about our plans for the year ahead. I'm still working on mine, but have some great food for thought as well as a mandate to blog more often. AJ had her camera along and pix were taken to commemorate the meetup, so hopefully I'll be able to provide some photographic evidence of the day before too long.