The Denver Half Approaches

I can honestly say that I’ve never been less prepared for a race than I am for the Denver Half Marathon this Sunday. The good news is that I’ve never been more prepared for failure than I am this time around. For the first time ever I won’t be going into a race with a time expectation or a goal in mind. Given my lack of preparation for this race I think it would be futile to have big expectations.

For me the ‘fun’ in racing has always been in achieving faster race times and in proving that I can perform at a certain (albeit mediocre) level. The race itself has never been the part that I enjoyed. The race itself is a punishing, physical exertion that I endure to get to the fun part, which is stopping my watch at the finish line sooner than I have ever stopped it previously. It’s the happy ending, if you will. The happy ending is realizing that I have accomplished what I set out to accomplish, that I have run faster than ever before. The happy ending is the improved race time which is the payoff of all the hard work that I put in during the weeks and months leading up to the race. However, since there has been little to no hard work leading up to this race it would be idiotic to believe that there is going to be a happy ending.

My challenge this Sunday will be to enjoy the race. I’m not looking for a happy ending, I’m looking for a happy beginning and middle. Instead of waiting until the end of the race to be happy, I’ll be happy right from the get go. Prematurely happy, if you like. On Sunday I will run just for the love of running, I’ll run for the camaraderie, and for all that other sappy, feel good crap that other people talk about. Perhaps it will be the shot in the arm that I need to get myself back on track. At a minimum it should result in some good race pictures, at least that’s what the Chic Runner says will happen when you ‘run for fun.’

I have no doubt that the future holds more PRs for me. I am certain that there will be many more races where I endure the pain to capture the glory, but Sunday will not be one of them. Sunday I will run to enjoy running. I’ll be the goofy idiot that’s smiling and chatting with anyone who will listen. I’ve always wanted to be that guy.

Denver Half Marathon

If you happened to stop by Half-Fast late on Friday or at some point over the weekend then you know that Candis and I ran the Denver Half Marathon on Sunday, and you also probably ought to find some more fun things to do on your weekends. Seriously, even I don’t stop by Half-Fast on the weekends (blatant lie). As you read on Friday evening, or whenever you stopped by (you loser) the plan was for me to pace with Candis since this was her first ever attempt at this distance.

Despite knowing better, we both decided that we needed new race shirts on Saturday evening so we headed down to the local running store and we both purchased some new shirts to run in. Fortunately there was no new-shirt chafing on Sunday morning. I bought a nice new neon yellow shirt that is actually painful to look at, because nothing screams “look at me, I crave attention!” like running in day-glo yellow. Unfortunately I chose not to run in this shirt on Sunday so you’ll have to wait until a later race for pictures. Your retinas will thank me.

After having read so much about negative splits lately, Candis wanted to try and use that strategy for the half marathon and printed out a customized pace band for me to wear so that I could keep us on track. The pace band indicated a final time of 2:17:15, and we crossed the finish line with an official time of 2:17:14 (10:28 pace). BAM! That’s how good I am at pacing! I brought Candis in 1 second under her ideal time. That’s why this post is not so much about how Candis ran her first ever half marathon, nor about how her fastest mile was her last, this post is all about me! I am a freakin’ awesome pacer. Seriously, just give me some balloons and add me to the Clif Bar Pace Team. If you want to hire me to pace you for your next event then be sure to let me know. All you have to do is pay my airfare (I prefer to travel first class), pay my hotel bill (a nice big suite), pay my race fees, and pay my “official pacer” fee (I’m thinking we’ll start this out at $1,000 and then increase it when the demand gets to be too high).

Candis ran a great race, but really how could she not when she had me at her side to pace her and give her unwanted advice. When we came to water stops, she ran on through and I slowed to get Gatorade and then caught back up to her (quite easily, I might add). I carried her sport beans and her inhaler and gave them to her whenever she needed them. I even took a picture of us running with my camera phone (see below). When someone got in her way I tripped them up, when someone tried to pass her I elbowed them in the throat, when someone tucked in behind us I assumed it was to stare at her butt and ran behind her to block the view. I was like a one man race support team, and I was good at it.

We crossed the finish line together and learned that Candis’ Dad had come down to watch us and we totally missed him. He was at the final turn before the finish and I think we were both in full tunnel vision mode by that point. We found him at the post race expo and thanked him for coming, I know it meant a lot to Candis that he came down to watch us. Candis has been downright giddy ever since. She just called me this morning at work and told me: “It’s Monday, the house is a mess, I’m cleaning, the boys are misbehaving, I’ve got a huge pile of laundry staring me down, but I just put my medal on and I couldn’t be happier.” It’s as though she’s proud of her accomplishment or something but I have to keep reminding her that it was really all because of me and my pacing.

Pick-Up Friday

So it occurs to me that I haven’t said anything about the Denver Half Marathon which is Sunday morning before sun up, literally. Sunrise is at 7:15 am at which point we’ll have been running for 15 minutes, unless we’ve already stopped for a walk break, in which case we might have been running for 12 minutes and walking for 3. You might be noticing that I keep saying ‘we’ instead of ‘I’ and that’s because Candis and I are both running this race, it will be Candis’ first half marathon.

Several months ago when I talked Candis into signing up for the half marathon I promised to run with her and pace her for the entire race and apparently Candis is one of those women who is all into keeping the promises that you’ve made. What. A. Drag. Anyway, this is probably the reason that you haven’t heard me talk about this race these past couple of weeks. I won’t be attempting to PR at this race I will be attempting to push Candis as fast as possible so that she can feel as miserable as I felt when I ran my first half marathon. Our goal time is somewhere around 2 hours and 20 minutes.

Today we went to the expo and picked up our race packets, but that’s not all that we picked up. Oh, no. We also picked up the following:

• We picked up some new cow bells for the boys.
• We picked up our free shirts and goodie bags.
• We picked up every possible free energy drink sample.
• We picked up every possible free energy bar sample.
• We picked up our energy levels. Way up.
• We picked up some more free samples.
• We picked up some unwanted junk mail when we registered to win a new car!
• We picked up our pace when the guy at the Larabar booth yelled “Hey, didn’t you guys already take a handful of those?”
• And finally, we picked up that that was our cue to leave.

Can I just tell you all that it’s not a good idea to let your children try all those energy drink/energy bar samples and then give them cowbells. Let’s just say the buzz we all had going in the car on the way home could have powered it. I think I know how Flubber feels.

Finally, I have to share the conversation that we overheard while we were busy imbibing Clif Shot Bloks like water. A guy walks up to the Clif Pace Team girls and after some pleasant small talk says:
Guy: So... how long is a marathon?
Girls: [Giggling] 26.2
Guy: Miles?
Girls: Uh... yeah.
Guy: And you run it?
Girls: Are you sure you’re at the right conference center?
I LOL’d. It turns out the guy was just there to help set up one of the other booths. He was not a runner, but you had probably picked up on that.

Official Race Pictures

My apologies for not posting anything yesterday. I spent the better part of my day trying to purchase World Series tickets from the Rockies website, only to discover that ticket sales had been suspended due to the sheer volume of requests. At this point the Rockies may as well just hang up a sign saying Red Sox fans and Scalpers Welcome.

The official race pictures from the Denver Marathon have been posted on brightroom. This picture to the right is me running down the final stretch. I remember being extremely happy about being close to the finish, but this picture doesn't really capture much happiness at all. I look like I'm in pain. On a positive note you won’t see any of the marathon finishers in that picture with me because I finished ahead of them. Come to think of it Haile Gebrselassie recently set the marathon world record at 2:04:26 which means that even he wouldn’t have finished ahead of me. It also means that while he can almost run a marathon in the time it takes me to do half of one he is NOT twice as fast as me. He’s maybe only 1.98 times as fast as me. Strangely enough I take a lot of pride in that.

Many of you have asked what race I’m going to sign up for and to be honest I’m really not sure. I’m leaning towards the Rudolph’s Revenge 10K. Viper pointed out a while ago that the 10K is becoming an endangered distance and I have also noticed that there seem to be very few 10Ks to run. A 5K is too short to motivate me to train hard, I just finished training for a half marathon so I don’t want to do that again just yet, and as for Ali’s suggestion that I run a marathon... I'm laughing so hard right now that I can barely type. You crack me up Ali!

Denver Half Marathon – The Aftermath

Note: This is essentially part 2 of my race report. If you missed part 1 which was actually about the running part of the race you can read it here.


Do I look cold? I am.

The thrill of my accomplishment was quickly stifled by the cold. Not 10 paces past the finish line I stopped while some kind volunteer cut the timing chip off my shoe. I was terrified that she was going to ask me to lift my leg up because rigor mortis had already set in. I was looking around somewhat dazedly at the crowd wondering how long it was going to take her to cut the stupid thing off when I realized she had already moved on to the next finisher.

Hey. Where’s my freakin’ medal? I crossed the finish line a good 20 seconds ago. I followed the other runners to a table where they were handing out bottled water. Not interested. Who’s handing out the medals? Finally I see a guy handing them out and I make my way over to him. Each step is painful but well worth the shiny goodness now within my grasp. He hands me the medal still in its plastic bag and my frozen, wet fingers can’t get the stupid thing open. I thought a beautiful woman was supposed to hang the medal around my neck for me upon completing the race. I’m disappointed.

After the medal ceremony handout, I followed the other medaled runners down some steps (ow ow ow ow) and found myself in line for something. I was a little confused from the cold and the pain and it didn’t even occur to me to find out what the line was for until someone came up behind me and asked “what’s this the line for?” I looked up to the front of the line and saw that it went into a tent.
“It’s the line to get in there,” I answered pointing at the tent.
“What’s in there?” he was clearly not satisfied with my original answer.
“No rain,” I said, as if it should have been obvious. At this point the guy in front of me turned and told us that they were giving out free pairs of dry socks in there. I frowned. What am I going to do with dry socks? My shoes are soaked and it’s still raining.

Next stop was the bag check to reclaim my sweatshirt and pants. Cheer Team Vanilla met up with me there and it’s a good thing too, because I was so sore that I needed help getting into my sweatpants. I grabbed another couple of goodie bags, my free beer and we began the walk back to the car. I was walking so slowly that my wife walked on ahead to start the car despite the fact that she was pushing 2 kids in a stroller.

All in all it was a good race and a really nice course past many of the Denver landmarks. The organizers did a wonderful job and if they keep pulling off world class events like this I bet they’ll even be able to get some celebrities to come run this thing.

Congratulations to Lei who was the closest to guessing what my time would be for the race. Lei if you want to e-mail me your address I will send your prize to you just as soon as I figure out what it is going to be.

Cheer Team Vanilla went up to my office to briefly get out of the rain and snapped this picture of the start.

I'm such a goofball.

This is the shirt I got... and my medal.

This is the vanilla shot that I didn't use... and my medal.

Awww, wook at da' cute widdle 8oz beer... and my medal. Yeah, this beer shot was not going to be enough to make me forget about the pain.

Did I mention I got this medal?

Slippery When Wet

Denver Half Marathon Race Report

Editors Note: This is going to be a long post, so grab a cup of coffee, sit back and relax with your feet up. Tell your secretary to hold all calls and ask your boss to come back at a better time.

I was the only runner not smart enough to wear long sleeves.

I stood with the huddled masses, shivering at the start as the rain drizzled down around us. It was 41 degrees and I was leaning close to the other runners, soaking up as much of their heat as I could. As we breathed into our hands and bounced to keep warm it struck me as ironic that only a week ago runners in Chicago were faced with overwhelming heat and not enough water. In Denver there was so much water it was falling from the sky.

I was stuck at the back of the pack on account of my bladder deciding that it was too full just minutes before we were called to the start. I can see the 9 minute pace corral way up ahead of me but I can’t get to it. It’s OK because my race strategy is to run at a slower pace for the first 4 miles and put myself 2 minutes behind the required pace for a sub 2 hour half marathon. After mile 4 I intended to pick up the pace and make up those 2 minutes over the next 9.1 miles.

The gun goes off and a minute later I’m shuffling towards the start I put my headphones in and select my Denver Half Marathon playlist. I eventually cross the start and immediately find myself leaping over discarded sweatshirts, pants, rain jackets, ponchos, trash bags with arm holes, and even a pair of underwear. I guess they were chafing someone. It only takes a mile for me to become completely soaked which is a relief. I enjoy running in the rain, it’s just the initial getting wet part that sucks. Now that I’ve got that out of the way I can focus on my race.

At 3 miles I check my watch and find that I’m already 2 minutes behind the pace for a sub 2 hour marathon so I begin to increase my tempo. At this point I’m quite happy about the slow start as I have NEVER been able to start a race slowly and then speed up, I’m apparently more of a start-quickly-and-fade guy.

Just past Mile 4 Cheer Team Vanilla is waving, yelling, taking pictures and ringing those annoying cowbells. Who got those things for them? Not only did they stand out in the rain and meet me at the finish they were also willing to carb load with me the night before. Way to take one for the team. Shortly after this point my bladder (which I’m thinking about having removed) decided that it needs to be emptied again, but it will have to wait.

Having already run through the first two water stops without taking any liquids I decide that I had better grab some at mile 5 despite my bladder’s continued pleas to be emptied. By mile 6 I’m running through city park, where I am no longer sheltered by the high rise buildings. The wind is biting through my wet clothes and I pretty sure that my nipples could cut glass at this point. I check my watch and I’m only 1 minute behind a sub 2 hour pace, which means that I’m making up time nicely. I reach out to take a Clif Shot and the girl hands me three. I glance at the flavor to see what I’ve been handed and it’s Vanilla. It may sound stupid, but cold and wet and 6 miles deep into a half marathon I felt like it was a sign. It was like the sun was bursting through the clouds and angels were singing “Hallelujah! Hallelujah!” Only there was no sun, only rain. I downed one of the shot gels, put one in my pocket for later and tossed the third one back towards the girl who’d handed it to me.

By mile 7 I wasn’t paying attention to my MP3 player, I wasn’t thinking about how cold or tired I was. I was simply weighing the pros and cons of peeing my pants. The fact that running can put you in a situation that allows you to even consider this as a viable option is probably grounds for quitting. My shoes were already soaked, and if my shorts would have been wet enough to hide it I would have probably just peed myself.

I reached mile 8 and had almost dropped back to 2 minutes off the pace again. I was extremely disheartened and began to doubt my ability to finish in under 2 hours. Mile 9 had a couple of tough uphill sections and I felt sure that my pace had fallen again. The rain and cold got to me and I decided to stop and pee in Cheesman Park. Hoping to take no more than 15 seconds I found a nice bushy tree, I ducked under the branches and... Holy Shrinkage Batman! 45 seconds later I was back on the course and feeling much better.

‘Come on Vanilla’ I told myself, and yes I actually said Vanilla instead of Ian, because I was trying to remind myself that I’d have to blog about how I failed. I don’t know if it was the fact that I was carrying 7 less pounds of urine or if the 45 second break recharged me, but I was running strong. There was a hill at mile 10 but I didn’t even feel it, I was passing people like they were volcanic lava. I passed mile 11 without looking at my watch, it didn’t matter, I was just running. I grabbed a Gatorade and splashed it up my nose and down my front, it didn’t matter. I was running, I was Forrest Gump.

At mile 12 I did look at my watch: 1:50:06. All I needed was a 9 minute pace. I felt like I was on the verge of achieving my goal. I was willing myself to the finish. With less than a half mile to go I was only conscious of my legs as those weights beneath my hips. I crossed the finish line and stopped my watch at 1:59:42. Initial feelings of disbelief turned momentarily to elation and pride before giving way to uncontrollable shivering and icy pain.

Tomorrow I’ll have some more pictures and more on the post race thaw. Update: Here

Sampling the Denver Marathon Expo

I went and picked up my race packet at the Denver Marathon Expo this afternoon. When I first walked in the doors to the hotel ballroom where it was being held I was struck by how many older folks I saw milling around. ‘Wow, this is fantastic,’ I thought. ‘I had no idea that there’d be this many old people (we’re talking 65 years old and up) running the marathon and half marathon.’ And I had no idea that AARP was sponsoring this marathon... oh... crap... I’m in the wrong ballroom aren’t I? Yup. I’m the only person in the room that doesn’t have a good first hand story about what I was doing when JFK was shot.

When I eventually found the right ballroom I grabbed my race packet and made several trips around the booths, sampling everything I could as many times as possible. Of course being a marathon expo all of the samples were things like energy drinks and energy bars and shot bloks and shot gels and why am I typing this post so fast? I feel like I am flying weeeeeeeeeeeee look at how fast I am typing this post!

The expo was pretty good, but I was beginning to think to myself ‘you know what this expo needs? -- More cowbell!’ That’s when I came across the table pictured to the right. All the cowbell that you could possibly want. I grabbed 2 cowbells and shoved them into my goodie bag, one for my 2 year old and one for my 4 year old. If that isn’t a recipe for noise then I don’t know what is.

Check back tomorrow for the Weekend Splits, but in the meantime “I’ve got a fever, and the only prescription ... is more cowbell!”

Denver Marathon Waives Entry Fee for Chicago Runners

I’ve been playfully bagging on the Denver Marathon lately over their Celebrity Auction, but I think that this is a really cool thing to do. I received an e-mail from the Denver Marathon this morning with the following message:

The Denver Marathon, scheduled for October 14, 2007, announced today that it will waive marathon entry fees to runners who were registered for the Chicago Marathon but were unable to finish.

The downside for those runners is that the Denver Marathon is only 3 days away which leaves very little time to make the trip out here to Denver. The predicted high temperature for Sunday here in Denver is 56 degrees with a 40% chance of showers so I don’t think heat will be an issue, but the altitude might if you’re a flatlander.

“As a former professional athlete, I know what it takes to train for a big race and the disappointment of not being able to finish due to circumstances outside of my control,” said Denver Marathon Executive Director Anton Villatoro.

Awesome. I had another post lined up for today which I’ll post this afternoon, but I thought that this was too cool to leave unmentioned.

Source: Denver Marathon

A Goal To Fall Short Of

With the Denver Half Marathon less than 5 days away it's probably a good time to start thinking about setting a goal. Actually a good time for setting a goal would have been 6 months ago when I could have trained towards that specific goal, but that's just not the way we do things in the procrastination business. When it comes to getting things done, I drag my feet more than Keyser Söze.

Over the past few weeks I've had some really good runs that have left me feeling like a world beater and some pretty crappy VW Jetta runs. I've changed my mind on what I think my goal time will be every other run and the times have varied by as much as 15 minutes. There's a good chance that I'm indecisive. An indecisive, procrastinating employee who is blogging from work? They're lucky to have me, but in typical corporate fashion they keep promoting me up the ladder. Enough with the procrastinating, on to the goal.

My FIRST training plan indicates that the pace I've been running at should allow me to complete the race in 2:02:42. The annoyingly accurate McMillan Calculator indicates from my last race that I'll finish in 2:04:37. Going off of these numbers and taking a guess at what my time will be I'd say it's going to be 2:06:57. I've kind of been hoping that I could finish with a time under 2 hours but given my history in predicting my time I doubt that will happen.

Let's hear your predictions for my time in the comments. Maybe I'll even have some Half-Fast memorabilia for the person who comes the closest to my official time, like a keychain, or a bracelet - something really useless that you'll never use.

More Celebrity Goodness from the Denver Marathon

A little over a month ago I managed to offend super-sensitive commenter Daniel when I called out the folks at the Denver Marathon over their somewhat exaggerated use of the word "celebrity." I sure hope that Daniel is not still reading this blog because I just received an e-mail from the Denver Marathon with the remainder of the "celebrities" who will be running.

In case you missed my first post on this subject, or missed Daniel's comment you can find them here.

The complete list of "celebrities" (new to the list "celebrities" are bolded):

• Rowdy Gaines - gold medal-winning Olympic swimmer.
• Bill Romanowski - former Denver Broncos player.
• Alex Smith - cast member of MTV's Real World Denver.
• Scott Elrod - cast member on ABC's "Men in Trees."
• Jake Schroeder - lead singer of Opie Gone Bad.
• Marni Rachich - "Peekaboo Screech" on the Denver Roller Dolls.
• Vic Lombardi - CBS4 sportscaster.
• Maggie Ireland - Miss Colorado 2007.
• Chris Anthony - extreme skier and star of 17 Warren Miller films.
• Ami Cusack - cast member of CBS' "Survivor 9 Vanuatu".
• Whitney Gustafson - Broncos Cheerleader.
• Stephen Keel - a Colorado Rapids defender player. (Their phrasing, not mine.)
• Dave McGillivray - Race Director of the Denver and Boston Marathon.

To be honest I don't really have anything further to say and probably would have just let this slide by unnoticed if Daniel hadn't commented on the last post, but now I feel like I have to defend the position that I took. I'm guessing that Daniel is actually someone who is involved with the Denver Marathon, because I really can't fathom someone on the list being upset about a blog with a daily readership of under 200. I also find it hard to believe that this actually reached one of the people on the list. Daniel is probably the talent coordinator for the Denver Marathon and was Googling "Denver Marathon celebrities" to see what people were saying about the wonderful job he did of bringing in A list celebrities to run this thing when he came across Half-Fast. It's really too bad because I found Daniel's comment amusing, he seems like a funny guy. I'm quite sure that we'd have been best of friends if we'd have met under different circumstances.

As I stated previously I have no beef with any of the people who are volunteering to run for the benefit of a charity. I was merely pointing out that there are very few of them that I would consider to be celebrities, but hey, what do I know? I'm just some dick with a blog.

Running With Celebrities

I received an e-mail from the Denver Marathon a couple of days ago inviting me to bid on the opportunity to run part of the Denver Marathon with a Denver "celebrity." Apparently 13 Denver "celebrities" will run 2 miles each to benefit a charity of their choosing. Let's take a look at the list so that you stop wondering why I keep using the "air quotes" when I say "celebrity."

• Bill Romanowski - Former Broncos Player
• Alex Smith - a cast member of MTV's Real World Denver
• Scott Elrod - a cast member on ABC's Men in Trees
• Jake Schroeder - lead singer of Opie Gone Bad
• Marni Rachich - "Peekaboo Screech" on the Denver Roller Dolls (you have to click that link, it's pretty high on the unintentionally funny scale.)
• Vic Lombardi - CBS4 sportscaster
• Maggie Ireland - Miss Colorado 2007 (pictured right)
• Chris Anthony - an extreme skier and star of 17 Warren Miller films

That is a pretty sad indictment of the celebrities we have here in the Denver area, I think I'm probably in the top 25. Anyway there is a clear winner in the bunch, and I'd like to ask for your donations so that I can run with... *drum roll please*... Miss Colorado 2007, Maggie Ireland. We have so much in common that we could talk about during our 2 miles together. For example, Maggie is a beauty queen, and I like to daydream about beauty queens. Maggie strongly holds to her beliefs that we can find optimism in the midst of adversity and I strongly hold to my beliefs that Maggie is a smokin' hottie.

If you possess an IQ in the double digit range then you've probably already noticed that there is something wrong with the above list, something other than the fact that they're playing it pretty fast and loose with the term "celebrity." The list only has 8 people on it, which means that there are six... no... four... several people who will be added at a later date. I assume that the race organizers are presently scouring the state for anyone who's remotely famous. Pretty soon the list will be completed and the last "celebrity" that's added will be that guy on his cell phone behind home plate at the Rockies game who's always on TV. If he turns it down, I'm next in line.

If you're so inclined you can view the full Maggie Ireland, Miss Colorado 2007 gallery.

Denver Marathon Capping the Field

The Denver Marathon recently announced that they will be capping the field of runners at 10,000. Personally I think they should be more careful about how they phrase these press releases because on the streets where I grew up, getting 'capped' is slang for getting shot. As in "yo, Slim narced to the po po and got his self capped fo' it." OK, well maybe not 'the streets where I grew up' but not far from there. Like less than 45 minutes away if traffic's good. Look, all I'm saying is that you have to be careful how you phrase things. It reminds me of the time that time I gave myself the nickname fly-head, because I have beautiful swept back features as though flying through the air. I'm afraid some people mistook it for meaning I had a head like that of a fly. I ended up having to get all new business cards made up.

The field was restricted this year (see, isn't restricted a much less confusing word) after registrations jumped up three fold from last year. I like to think that this occurred right around the time that I registered and word began to seep out that the suave, debonair blogger, Vanilla had signed up. At least that's the rumor I'm trying to cultivate. If you've only recently started reading Half-Fast then you might not have known that I was going to be running my first half marathon in Denver on October 14th, now with only 9,999 other people. Thus far in my running career (3 years) the only official race I've run is the Bolder Boulder 10K (three times) and it occurs to me that I have never even run a 5K and probably won't before October 14th. How many people can say that they have run a half marathon prior to ever running a 5K? Maybe that will be my thing. I'll be known as the runner who's never run a 5K, I could even have a jingle or something.

According to this article, the field is being restricted so that organizers can adequately meet the need's of all the runners, and I certainly appreciate it. I for one would hate to get to the water table and find them out of water and CLIF shots, or even worse get to the finish line and find them out of medals. You had better believe that I will be taking a medal home with me even if I have to steal it from some kid who finished ahead of me.

So if you want to run with me in Denver you'd better get signed up quickly because the word is out and the registrations are pouring in.

Pace Teams

I was recently on the Denver Marathon's website when I came across a reference to the CLIF BAR Pace Teams at last years inaugural running of the race. I was intrigued by this idea but could not find any information about whether or not there would be pace teams this year. It was at this point that I began the futile, life sapping process that is e-mailing the Denver Marathon. I wanted to know whether or not they were going to have pace teams again this year, because this webpage clearly references last year's race, and also if they would be available for people running the half marathon.

I filled out their 'contact us' form and sent them a message. Four days later I received a response that appeared to be automated which directed me to 'follow this link' to their website for more information. You'll never guess where that link took me? Yup. Right back to the page that caused me to have questions in the first place. I guess that this means that the information on that page applies to this year too, which is good news because they have a 4 hour marathon pace team which should translate into a 2:00 half marathon for me.

The more I think about following a pace team, the more it seems devious, or somehow unethical (those words are both too strong but they’ll have to do because my thesaurus is giving me stuff like 'Machiavellian' and 'depraved'). One of the toughest things about my training runs is being able to judge my pace, and knowing when I need to speed up or slow down. Running a race involves more than just physical strength, it requires some strategy too. Will you try to run even splits the whole way or will you go slower on the uphill sections and try to make it up on the downhill sections? Running with a pace team eliminates that entirely. You just latch on to a group and run. You don't have to think about it at all. While that sounds appealing on many levels something about it just doesn't feel right. It seems too easy.

Fortunately for me I'm too shallow to care about being labeled as Machiavellian or a cheater so I will run with the pace team if the opportunity presents itself. Your thoughts in the comments, is it wrong? Would you run with a pace team?

In the vein of keeping up Video Friday here's a video for all you swimmers out there courtesy of With Leather.

Weeeee! This is fun!
You know that once you get your spot in that wave pool you're not getting out. Not for anything. No, not even to pee. Hey, you were all thinking it, I just said it.

Setting a Goal: Part 2 - At World's End

In the past the Bolder Boulder has been the only race that I’ve participated in, it’s been kind of like my annual self-check of how well I’m running, and since it coincides with my car’s annual oil change it has also served as a good reminder that it’s once again time for my mechanic to scold me for waiting so long. However I find that I’m beginning to take this running thing more seriously, last year my longest training run prior to the 10K Bolder Boulder was 6.2 miles (exactly 10K). This year my longest training run was 10 miles and I even did some speedwork and tempo runs. All this tells me that I need a bigger challenge, which is why I’m going to sign up for the Denver Half Marathon. Apparently they don’t have a logo for the half marathon so I had to make my own, pretty stylish huh? I’ve got mad Photoshop MS Paint skillz!

The half marathon is a great race to run because when you tell someone that you ran it you can kind of cough through the “half” part or say it quietly enough that people will think that you’ve just run a marathon. Then when you tell them that you did it in 2 hours and 45 minutes it will be impressive instead of pitiable. (With apologies to anyone who just ran a half in 2:45:00, you’ve already done more than I have.)

You might be remembering that I made fun of the Denver Marathon in this entry, and their marketing strategy of targeting runners after the Bolder Boulder, or you might be wondering why anyone would actually continue to read this blog after having read one of the posts. Either way it turns out that their marketing strategy wasn’t so bad after all.