I ran the Rock and Roll Marathon yesterday in Denver and it was AWESOME!
Ruger was not happy though. He saw me getting my running clothes on and started dancing around and having his usual pre-run freak out, so Seth had to take him out to the bathroom while I snuck into the garage. Ruger is super chill about everything except his runs. God forbid I drop him off at home in the middle of a long run if he is still able to move. He has to be 100% exhausted or he’ll lose it if I head back out to finish a run without him.
Backing up to Saturday; I had to drive to Denver to pick up my race bib so I took the two terrors with me. We stopped at Chipotle for lunch and sat by the window so that we could critique my sloppy parking job. Yes, the silver car by the dumpster looked even more sideways in real life.
The boys stuffed their faces with rice, beans, and chips and I prayed that they would decide to be little angels at the expo.
Fortunately, they were both very sweet and even held my hand at the expo making it much easier to keep track of them.
The expo was downtown in the civic center and after finding a parking garage, we followed the crowds and the signs pointing toward packet pickup. At some point, I continued to follow the people in front of us and didn’t realize that we were going the wrong way until the boys and I ended up in a huge room full of tween girls, moms and praise music. Ummmm…..yeah, so we bought a smoothie and went on our way.
Once we actually made it to the right place, I got my bib, a shirt, and a swag bag with some random junk in it. I was on the verge of changing my corral and estimated finishing time, but chickened out at the last minute. I had originally put down my estimated time as 4:45 but wanted to switch to 4:25 and then decided not to since I prefer to run my first 2-3 miles slow before speeding up and I was afraid that I would go out too fast if I started in an earlier wave.
The boys stayed with Papa and NeNe that night so that they wouldn’t have to suffer the injustice of getting up early enough to leave the house at 5:30 with Seth and I.
The morning of the race, we drove to Denver in the dark, Seth dropped me off near the start and I hopped into a line for the bathrooms. I have never in my life seen bathroom lines as long as the ones that I saw that morning and would have skipped them, but once I start running, stopping sucks, and I really had to go.
So there I was, standing in line for the bathroom with the start time getting closer and closer and the announcer counting down the minutes and the bathroom lines were moving slower than anything that I’ve ever witnessed. Literally, paint dries faster than those lines were moving. But, eventually, I got my turn and then started the long walk past the first corrals to mine near the back.
It wasn’t until the race had started and it was almost my wave’s turn that I realized I had somehow ended up in corral 13 instead of 12. I was right on the edge, so me and a couple other people slipped by the people holding the rope and joined the back end of our group.
Here we are slowly walking toward the starting line off in the distance. The building excitement was definitely noticeable the closer we got.
The first mile was really slow and I was trying my best not to trip on or run into the people around me. I was passing a few people, but trying to hold myself back for the first mile in case they were all running faster than it seemed. The pace was so slow that by the time we reached our first mile, and it was close to 12 minutes in, I knew that I needed to speed up and just try to hit my goal pace in each mile for the rest of the race.
By mile 2, I had dropped my throw away shirt and passed Seth who shot a very embarrassing clip of me towering over the people around me and trying my best not to trip on anyone. It was kind of frustrating.The tripping, not the clip. That was just downright embarrassing. I didn’t see him, so that was kind of a downer but I knew he would be waiting at the finish.
The runners doing the mini marathon (6.5 miles) helped to thin the crowd a little when they finished, but there were a ton of half marathoners so it was still pretty crowded and we were all wedged together.
Kind of like this guy’s shorts.
Somewhere between miles 3 and 4 (course map here) I started following another girl who looked like she actually knew what she was doing and was running 8:30-8:50 minute miles which was a little faster than I had planned on, but with the exceptionally slow start, helped to make up some time.
Everyone seemed to speed up as we got closer to the half marathon split and, once the half runners split off, there was suddenly a lot more room. It seemed like a good time to find a steady pace so I passed the girl that I had been following and ran just under 9:00 minute miles passing the 4:30 pacer around mile 14.
Things was going smoothly until I decided to take a picture in Washington park at mile 17 to send to my sister and my phone spontaneously shut off. The combination of music, mile counting, pace counting, and picture taking must have been too much for it. It would have probably turned on again, but would have died before the finish, so I didn’t try to mess with it since I would need to use it to find Seth.
People were definitely starting to slow down by this time. It made me a little nervous that they either knew something I didn’t and that I was going too fast and would burn up before the end, or that I had definitely started in the wrong wave and they were all planning to run this slow.
Around mile 18 I ran with a girl from Boulder who was also running her first marathon. She said that she ran in high school and was hoping to finish around 4:30. She also said that she had to replace the carpet and sheet rock in her house from the flooding last month. We were both running at about the same pace so we stayed together through the park and talked a little while we ran. It was a nice break, but by the time we left the park I was pulling ahead so she told me to have a good race and fell back.
I kept waiting for signs of a sudden onset of fatigue, but they just weren’t there so I must have done something right in the days leading up to the race.The swedish fish were starting to taste way too sweet so I grabbed a gel at the GU station and hung onto it for another mile before trying some. It was okay, but tasted too sweet also.
Halfway through mile 22, I saw the 4:15 pacer and passed her.
My intention was to just run, enjoy the atmosphere and see how well I could finish. There was no hard running on my part by any means, but it felt like I was flying because so many people had slowed down or were walking. I handed some swedish fish to a woman who looked pretty happy to have them and then kept going.
The crowd support started to pick up closer to the finish line which was nice as the last few miles had been relatively quiet. Someone commented on my skirt which stroked my ego immensely and another person was holding a sign that said, “you run better than our gov’t”. Two girls in purple who were running together were a little hard to pass, but it was fairly easy to pass everyone else. I was never a runner or very competitive, but I’m not going to lie: passing all of those other runners felt awesome. It would have been a completely different story if I had started in a more appropriate corral though.
When I came around the corner to the last hill at the end of mile 25, it was steeper than I had thought it would be, but not very tall so I knew that I could make it up easily without walking. The girls in purple passed me part way up, but otherwise, I passed everyone else. I came around the corner at the top and saw people cheering and the 26 mile sign ahead, so I turned my phone back on and saw a text from Seth asking what mile I was at. Just as I was about to answer, he suddenly appeared cheering and smiling and running next to me. It was the best thing ever and just what I needed. At the last corner, he turned back into the crowd and I went down the hill toward the finish as fast as my legs could go. Halfway down the hill I started to get scared that I would fall and land on my face (been there, done that) but it was a short hill, and I didn’t fall. Just as I was reaching the finish, the announcer said that I had a new Facebook photo and even pronounced my last name right, which seems to be hard for a lot of people. Talk about feeling like a rock star!
It would have been nice to finish feeling like I had pushed hard and really couldn’t go much further, but that was definitely not true. I felt great and so excited to have finished strong. The weather was cool, the only hill worth talking about was just before the 26 mile mark and the whole experience was incredible.
I would do it again in a heartbeat!
And, all of those dark, early morning runs with Ruger before work were worth it.
My finish time was 4:01:46
Too bad, I had no idea how close I was to under 4 hours. I was estimating around 4:10-4:12 after I passed the 4:15 pacer so it was still a very nice surprise.
Now that I’ve done it once, I’ll know how much to push next time and I have a goal to beat. The cool weather definitely helped me to run fast though, so there’s that.
On our way home, we stopped at Culver’s and got burgers and cheese curds. They were delicious, but I wasn’t too hungry. I ate them anyway because they were nice and salty and all of my body’s salt was in a nice crust on my face.
Ruger was happy to have me home, but a little pouty about being left behind. I had to let him on the bed for some snuggles to make him feel better and then he immediately forgave me.
I would say that the boys were really happy to see me, but they were mostly happy to be home with their precious Wii and had to concentrate extra hard on their game.
