366 days later - ramblings & Evergold 5k race report

1 year and 1 day ago, I went out for my first run.   It was a whopping 2 mile run from my house.   I thought I was going to die!   Seriously, do you know how long 2 miles is??  It's LOOONG.    

this was painful and felt like I was out there for over an hour - not 22 minutes.

I was in fairly good cardio shape from mtn biking, but all kinds of stuff hurt while I was running.  My tailbone hurt, my left hamstring felt like it wanted to cramp, my right vastus medialis hurt like hell and both of my calves were screaming at me.  

I thought it was a bad idea, but I figured...what the heck - I'll run for 4 months to help keep my cardio fitness up and then it will be back to the mtn bike.  But a strange thing happened - I fell in love with running.

Here's my running stats - 366 days later, I have run the total of 338 times. I've been on my mtn bike a whopping 8(!) times this calendar year.

In the 366 days - I've run a whopping 338 times, cranked out 909.99 miles in 170 hours - whew!

New friends and new adventures

My mtn biking friends are waiting for me to "get over the running silliness"...but I believe it's here to stay.  I just got to find a way to marry my 2 extracurricular activities.

As with mtn biking - I have made some awesome friends with running.   I stalked Terzah and her blog for a while - I loved her perspective on things, her love of running, realist attitude and she's not full of hype.  On her blog she comes across as a real and genuine.    She's my favorite running friend  and we've enjoyed pancakes, margs and hanging out with Scott Jurek.  I've stalked a few more blogs, but that's a subject for another post.

Every race I go to I end up chatting with other runners and meeting the coolest people.  Just today - I noticed a very fit and attractive girl wearing my favorite brand, Oiselle.   I shouted out (as I often speak without thinking) "Ohh!  I love your shorts! - I love that brand".    She said "thank you".

Later when she saw me before the race and saw me wearing my Oiselle Rogas (my Rogas are my "go-to" racing short), she mentioned that she's sponsored by Oiselle.  I was in awe.  Allison is very nice and I enjoyed talked to her.   It's so nice to meet pro runners that happen to be happy and nice people.    I now have a new girl crush on Allison.  Oh yeah - and I have to mention that Allison was the overall female winner of the 5k with a time of  33:28 - very impressive!

Allison Krausen - i'm her newest fan.  Matching shorts - just wish it would they would make me as fast as her!

I also met another new person at the race, Heather Balogh.   I read her blog and she had a good race and finished up 3rd in her AG!

The Evergold 5k race

This was my last weekend in Breck as my summer rental ended this weekend. (so sad)   I had originally wanted to race the Oktoberfest Breck 5k on Saturday, but Dave was running 30 miles and it was more important to me for to support him on his run.    

I was itching to get one more trail race in before the Golden Leaf next weekend.   I saw that the Vail Trail series was running their last race - an 11k and a 5k.   I seriously thought about the 11k, but thought it might be too much for me to recover from in 5 days...so the 5k it was.

The aspens are in full on color change right now.   And the 5k course was ALL glorious, techy, tight singletrack...my favorite!

The 5k was very small - smaller than the Breck 10k a few weeks ago.   Steve (Allison's husband) and I left a gap between the fast people and the rest of us mortals.   I didn't want to start off too hard - so when they said "go!" - I went, but at about 70%.   

We were quickly bottled necked on the singletrack.   It stayed fairly bottle-necked to the turn around - I made my way around people and most were very nice to let me pass.   Again - I was pleased with my descending.   

hilly course - they billed it as 950 of climbing...not quite what my garmin showed tho...

The singletrack was through the apsens and very beautiful.  I was having so much fun!  It's just like being a little kid again.  I passed Steve around a half mile before the turn around and he was very encouraging.  As we reached the turn around and made our way back - the 2-way traffic was a bit tough, but manageable.  It finally opened up.   I felt i was cruising fairly well on the descents, but then I fell...twice.   Both took me by surprise...no major damage and I was able to shake it off and keep going.

It seemed like mile 3 clicked by a LONG time before the finish.  I ended up with 3.26 on my garmin and I really struggled up that last hill.  I was trying to catch the guy running totally barefoot, but he finished 4 seconds ahead of me.  

My official time was 42:40 at a 13:04 minute mile pace. (which actually I'm very happy with my time).   I finished 1st in AG (out of 2 of us 50+ers) and 5th woman overall (but before you are impressed - please note there were only 20 women in the race - I think the faster 50+ers were running the 11k).    

blood!  my little boo-boo.

The Vail Trail running series seems like a wonderful series.  I hope to run more of their events next year.   One of my favorite parts was the shirt!  I'm often not crazy about race shirts, but this one looks GREAT and to top it off - it fits well.  I wish all race shirts were this good. 

go team!

I drove home to Boulder on an incredible high from the run and hanging around with great people.   I live a charmed life!