Race Report

How do you like my badass baby blue bandana?
(Heather made it out of an old button-up oxford shirt for extra nerd points)

Before the start.

6:00am: We left the house, and drove through steady rain to Manitou. I was thinking that it would have been nicer to stay in bed than to run in cold rain for 4 hours. As the sun rose, Pikes Peak was wrapped in clouds, and it looked very intimidating.

7:00am: There was no rain as the race started.

9:20am: Two other runners and I were at timberline, with three hard, steep, oxygen-deprived miles to go, and the following exchange took place:

Runner 1 - The winner is finishing right about now.
Runner 2 - So, we don't have a chance then.
Runner 3 - Yeah, it's a tight race for second.

10:10am: There was a little girl standing by herself, cheering all of the runners on with about a mile to go. The guy in front of me told her, randomly, that she had the bluest eyes he'd ever seen. A couple of minutes later, he turned back to me and said "she did though, didn't she?" I asked him to consider the possibility that he was hallucinating.

I couldn't summon
up a brief running spurt
for the photographer.

10:15am: With a little more than half a mile to go, there was a man sitting by the trail with a plateful of Nilla wafers, saying "Have a vanilla thin, it'll get you to the finish. Guaranteed to take several minutes off your time." I grabbed one.

10:24am: Ty Shesky* finished.

Nearing the finish

10:30am: I finished.

Overall, it was a dream race. I was aiming for 3:45, and I got 3:30. Can't complain about that. My main impression this year was that I was surrounded by hardass runners all day, not like last year, when there seemed to be lots of twangy lowlanders around.

I'll put together some graphs and charts tomorrow, because I'm a little bit OCD about graphs and charts and spreadsheets, and I'll post them because Robyn demanded it.

*Ty Shesky, if you're reading this, I don't have anything against you. In fact, you're one of the good weathermen. But I wanted to beat you. One should never refuse the opportunity to beat a celebrity at something if one has the chance.