The Pants, I Wear Them

Bolder Boulder 10k Race Report
Let’s get straight to the point. I’m still the top dog in this house. I’m still the hombre that wears the pants around here. I’m still the one calling the shots. I’m the lead dog, the head honcho, the big kahuna, the top banana, numero uno. When it comes to the Bolder Boulder I still finish before my wife, and yes I like to think that the clarification at the start of this sentence was necessary.

On Memorial Day weekend Candis and I ran the Bolder Boulder 10k in 57:07 and 53:28 respectively. For Candis it was a disappointing time, though still the second best time she’s posted in a 10k. For me it was a major relief, and coincidentally my second best time in a 10k. (Side note: I’m going to start using the term P2B to represent a Personal 2nd Best and I’m going to celebrate P2Bs with the same gusto that I normally reserve for PRs. After all, this is a sport in which we hand out finisher medals and that’s basically just the same as a participation medal. Maybe I’ll eventually start celebrating P3Bs and P4Bs too because that’s the kind of inspirational go-getter that I am!)

The Race
I pulled ahead of Candis in the early stages of the first mile and told myself that I would not turn and look back for her. The entire race I imagined that she was just a few paces behind me waiting to make her move but I didn’t want Candis to think that I was worried even though that’s the only thing that was keeping me going. Whenever I started to tire or slow down I imagined Candis surging past me and I found that visualization exercise to be quite motivational. In fact, I may make Candis run behind me in all my races from now on.

It wasn’t until I crossed the 6 mile mark and headed down into Folsom Field that I began to feel confident that Candis wasn’t going to catch me. I sprinted to the finish weaving in and out of slower runners until some guy accepted my challenge and we sped towards the tape, matching each other stride for stride. We crossed the line in a tie and gave each other a congratulatory handshake, and when I say that we tied I say that the same way a guy who’s just been dumped by the woman he loves says that the decision to end the relationship was mutual. I think in both situations you can probably read between the lines and see what happened but the classy thing to do is just agree with the guy that it was mutual. We finished the race mutually.

Finally, here is the updated chart of our times over the years. This is more for my enjoyment than anything else.