Thought I should finally write about a race. I can't believe it's taken over half the year to even enter one, but I guess I have been unemployed and poor.
I'm still trying to do a monthly race now. I think I can manage. Might have to ask for help here and there, or might just have to sacrifice for other things (re: Norway).
But this one was good. I actually was not super excited about it the way I get with other races. I'm not sure if it was because it was so short and I didn't feel intimidated? Or too intimidated considering it was at 10,000ft elevation with 1200ft gain? I still have trouble visualizing what some of those climbs look like, so it's hard to prepare. When I do them, it usually ends up being easier than I forethought, which is a good thing. Rue the day a race ends up being a lot harder than I imagined!!
I'm still trying to do a monthly race now. I think I can manage. Might have to ask for help here and there, or might just have to sacrifice for other things (re: Norway).
But this one was good. I actually was not super excited about it the way I get with other races. I'm not sure if it was because it was so short and I didn't feel intimidated? Or too intimidated considering it was at 10,000ft elevation with 1200ft gain? I still have trouble visualizing what some of those climbs look like, so it's hard to prepare. When I do them, it usually ends up being easier than I forethought, which is a good thing. Rue the day a race ends up being a lot harder than I imagined!!
So I don't have any pictures of the actual race because I was just focused on running it. I don't actually think I did my best, but I think that's because I had no idea how hard to push myself. And for some reason, when I started up running this year again, I was doing AWESOME at pushing myself because of crossfit, when I went to race this day, I felt like I was holding back in fear of burning out too soon. In retrospect, I think I could have pushed a lot harder and really taken advantage of pushing that VO
2 max. And yet, I finished in 1:01 and that was about 20 minutes better than I expected to do and I got a lot of compliments on my running style, speed, and push up hills. So that felt really good. It's 5 minutes better than was I did on my last trail 10k which was a year ago and under way way way easier conditions. Pretty awesome. I think I wouldn't mind doing more 10k's, especially at higher elevations, and increase my speed and stamina for hills.
I ended up 5th overall and 3rd female. There were only 35 runners! And apparently more women than men. A woman finished 1st overall and was so far ahead of everyone, I didn't even know she was racing until I saw her at the very end and realized I wasn't 4th/2nd. Still, top 3 feels awesome for such a tough run. I thought with so few runners it would be pretty elite and I'd be dead last, so lots of surprises that day.
We also got this sweet headlamp included in our race entry, which is actually needed because Jake lost his. It's actually pretty good! I used it on a night run I did a few days ago. Mine is orange and I love it! A shirt was also in the package and a bunch of other needed goodies. I was sad to miss out on stinger waffles (not provided for the Twilight 10k) and also we didn't get bibs so our results aren't even posted. Kind of makes me wish I did the day 10k - maybe I would have been more excited for that?
All these pictures are from the next day when I ran 14 miles on Peaks Trail from Breckenridge. For my non-Colorado friends/fam, Breck was only 30 min drive from the race in Copper. It's actually a lot closer on the map and might even be easier/faster to bike there than drive due to needed to get back to the highway and then take practically the next exit for Copper. So it was still at 10,000 ft.
I was racking my brain trying to find a good trail for 14 miles, something I could do reasonably and still be god training and yet be done before checkout at 10am. We were staying with Jake's parents at their timeshare on Peak 7 called Grand Lodge. The weekend worked out perfectly for this race (unknowingly at the time of sign-up) and we ended up having a great mini vacation because of it.
Finally at the last minute, I found information on a trail that actually STARTED on Peak 7 and ended up being viewable from our room window! What a coincidence! The best part too, was that it only had a total vertical gain of 768ft, so I knew I could do it fast enough. What I didn't know, was that it would still be rolling hills and according to Strava, I still ended up climbing a total of 4000ft. What was amazing, was that my run time was roughly the same as my half marathon in Ft Collins last August, but here I am doing it at 10,000ft altitude instead of 6,000 and I gained more than double the feet in total climb. I think that's something to brag about too! Especially having just ran a pretty good 10k the night before!
Overall, very successful weekend. I'm excited to do more this weekend and in about 2 weeks I get a full week break!
I was racking my brain trying to find a good trail for 14 miles, something I could do reasonably and still be god training and yet be done before checkout at 10am. We were staying with Jake's parents at their timeshare on Peak 7 called Grand Lodge. The weekend worked out perfectly for this race (unknowingly at the time of sign-up) and we ended up having a great mini vacation because of it.
Finally at the last minute, I found information on a trail that actually STARTED on Peak 7 and ended up being viewable from our room window! What a coincidence! The best part too, was that it only had a total vertical gain of 768ft, so I knew I could do it fast enough. What I didn't know, was that it would still be rolling hills and according to Strava, I still ended up climbing a total of 4000ft. What was amazing, was that my run time was roughly the same as my half marathon in Ft Collins last August, but here I am doing it at 10,000ft altitude instead of 6,000 and I gained more than double the feet in total climb. I think that's something to brag about too! Especially having just ran a pretty good 10k the night before!
Overall, very successful weekend. I'm excited to do more this weekend and in about 2 weeks I get a full week break!