Bolder Boulder Race Pictures!

You know what’s a good idea for your blog when you don’t feel like writing? Pictures. Lots and lots of pictures. Pictures take up more space than words so they make the post seem fuller. Also, they are colorful and shiny and they distract readers with short attention spans. Should you be offended that I just suggested you have a short attention span? Probab... Look PICTURES!!

That guy in green is waving goodbye to me because that’s the last he’d ever see of me.

Sprinting, yes SPRINTING to the finish!

Congratulating the guy that SPRINTED with me.

Candis sprinting to the finish. (Lowercase ‘sprinting’ because she’s not as fast as I am… or as boastful.)



That guy in orange is directly behind Candis in so very many of Candis’s race pictures. Why I oughta’…

There’s also video of me finishing at this link here (6 seconds in, right side of the screen). It must have been slowed down so runners could pick themselves out because I know I was running faster than that, especially at the end when I was SPRINTING. I think it’s pretty cool that they’re showing that video in slo mo.

This is Me Enjoying the Race

Race pictures from the Denver Half Marathon have been posted and the good news is that they took a ton of me and Candis. The bad news? Despite the fact that I was taking it easy and tried to smile at every photographer I saw most of my pictures came out looking like the one you see on the right.

Before we get to the rest of the pictures, Candis wanted me to share the best part about the race with all of you, which I guess means that she’s not going to write her own race report (lazy!). As we were walking back to our car from the post race expo (interesting that the best thing about the race occurred after it, no?) we walked past an elderly couple on their way to church. The lady noticed Candis’ medal and not so quietly whispered to her husband “Oh look at that, she must have won something!” Candis was so delighted that she quite literally leapt for joy... and then promptly doubled over in pain.
“I shouldn’t have jumped like that,” she told me as she attempted to stretch “my legs are too sore for jumping.”


Here we are at the start of the race. I wonder why no one else has their sunglasses on?



Here’s Candis ‘enjoying’ the race.



Here I am coming down the final stretch to the finish. I’m practically euphoric.



Here’s some visual evidence that some poor guy got chicked by Candis. Notice the guy ahead of Candis in the black shirt and white visor.



Look, now there he is behind Candis as she crosses the finish line. That’s right buddy. That. Just. Happened.


Candis apparently likes to run with one hand up in the air. Maybe she’s practicing for running with the Olympic torch just in case she ever gets asked.

The Allure of Race Pics

I was poking around the Georgetown Half website trying to find race pictures and then I began to wonder why I was doing that. Why would I even want to look at my race pictures from what is potentially one of the worst races of my life? What would make me think that the race pictures from a race I crapped out on would be worth looking for? Even my pretty face can’t save some things. I’ve stated previously my firm belief that no one looks good in their race pictures and yet I still go looking for them after each and every race. It’s like driving by an accident and thinking ‘boy, I hope no one was hurt’ as you slow down and try to see if you can see any blood on the wreckage. You can’t not look.

On the front page of the website I noticed that it said in big bold letters “Mark your calendar next year’s race will be held on August 14,” and so I did. I grabbed my calendar, turned to August 14th, 2010 and I wrote down “Find something else to do this weekend.” I hate that stupid race. Some people might be overcome by competitive spirit and want to go back for a third attempt in order to finally conquer the course, but not me. I live by the words that W.C. Fields once said: “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then give up. There’s no sense being a damn fool about it.”

This race is my nemesis. The kryptonite to my Superman, the David to my Goliath, the internet to my newspaper business, the Pat Garrett to my Billy the Kid, the Google to my Yellow Pages, the Gigli to J-Lo’s acting career, the overly long analogy to my otherwise quality blog post. In other words it is my curse and the cause of my defeat. Of course, this could be said of several of my recent races but it I think it applies more to this one than any other. I’m not planning on attempting it again, or being so melodramatic about it in the future.

Anyway, that’s the only race picture that I’m posting. If you want to see the rest of the train wreck of pictures you’re going to have to put your stalking skills to work, which shouldn’t be too hard given the information in this post.

Marathon Race Pictures

A post in which I debut the Wizard of Oz heel-kick finishing move and the post race Double Guns pose.

The space blanket makes it official.
The race pictures are now available from the PF Chang’s Rock ‘N’ Roll Arizona Marathon over at Action Sports. I’ve never actually ordered an official race picture before but I think I might make an exception for this race. Paying for a race picture will make me feel better about all the times I’ve blatantly stolen race pictures from these sites.

I also put together some pictures and video clips below. The quality sucks, but as soon as the video starts playing you should see a small “HQ” logo in the bottom right corner of the video. Click the “HQ” logo to watch the video in High Quality because it really, really sucks otherwise, but in HQ it only kinda sucks. Either way it’s still mostly images of me so you don’t want to expose your eyes to it for too long... it will make everything else you look at today seem dull and boring.


I think I’ve found my trademark finishing move.
I actually managed to find Razz and his sister after the race and he secretly confided in me that he’s a huge CU Buff fan, I even managed to get a picture of him wearing his favorite CU jersey. You might be thinking that Nebraska beat CU this year which is true, but they didn’t cover the spread. At first I felt bad making Razz wear the jersey since his team did actually win the game, but then I realized that this was all the satisfaction that I was going to get out of the game so here he is:

New profile picture, Razz?

Why am I still running in this picture?
On a recovery note, I think I’m healing up quite nicely. I can go up and down stairs with ease and I no longer groan when I get up out of my office chair. I haven’t run since the marathon, but I’m thinking about going for a short run this weekend, or maybe next weekend, I haven’t decided which yet. I thought I heard that you were supposed to take 2 weeks off after a marathon while continuing to carb load, but I could be wrong. I guess I’ll have to find other things to blog about while I’m not running.

Enjoy the weekend!

Post Race Thoughts

First of all let me once again offer my congratulations to Viper on winning our challenge. He offered a virtual handshake in his post yesterday and I wish to be a good sport and return the sentiment. As much as I’d love to continue verbally assaulting him I’m going to stay classy and take the high road, mostly because I have no ammo left now that he possesses all the PRs and I’d just be reduced to spreading ugly rumors like a catty, middle school girl. Speaking of ugly rumors, I heard a rumor the other day that Viper is hideously ugly. Now I don’t believe it because I’m taking the high road, but has anyone ever seen a picture of Viper? Why do you think that is? I’m just sayin’.

Official race pictures have yet to become available to me but you can see what I looked like 15 yards before the finish line. It’s not pretty, so I guess you can file this under H for hypocrisy because mine knows no bounds.

It Hurts! It Hurts!
Check out the guy and his daughter behind me who are giving me the ol’ hairy eyeball. I was in a pretty comatose state so I don’t remember what I did to deserve that. It could have been any one of the following: farting, cursing, farting while cursing, shouting, spitting, snot-rocketing (it can be a verb), or just generally smelling like a locker room. Whatever it was, I hope that he will accept my apologies for doing it in front of his daughter. If it helps, my kids were watching from the other side of the street so they saw whatever it was too.

Notice the return of the cowbells. Every time we get ready to go to a race, the boys lament that they’ve ‘lost’ their cowbells and then they somehow make an appearance right before we’re ready to leave. Mysteriously, they always disappear again when we get home from races.

Ian's Next Half Marathon in 1:36:30!

[by Candis]

Before I get to my race report let me do a very important projection for you...

Allow me to state Ian’s Georgetown to Idaho Springs Half Marathon goal. (Glad you started this?) Based on Ian’s Bolder Boulder 10k time of 52:07, the McMillan Running Calculator claims Ian could run a half marathon in 1:55:58 (an 8:52 pace). The Georgetown Half is ALL downhill... so we’ll subtract a minute off the pace for that (a 7:52 pace). Ten more weeks on the FIRST training plan? We can subtract another half minute from the pace for that (a 7:22 pace) making Ian’s goal time for the Georgetown half 1:36:30! Ha! Now when he blows the doors off his 1:59:52 PR with a 1:50 you won’t be impressed because I told you he could do better! Annoying isn’t it!

Being a seasoned, asthmatic runner of 2 whole years, I am beyond proud of my pace accomplishments. I’m becoming blazing fast! I’ve shaved 1 minute 20 seconds off my 10k pace and 47 seconds off my 5k pace! (My Colder Boulder 5k in December will astound you! You better get busy Shaving Your 5K!)

My Bolder Boulder goal was 1:06 (a 10:40pace). Ian knew I could do it although he claimed a one hour goal for me (sure). My biggest concern was feeling like crap. It’s an odd concern, but that’s how I felt last year when I first ran it. I had trained for 9 months, but I absolutely hated it and cursed the entire way. I finished by sheer will power (which I have little of) and knew I’d hate myself if I didn’t run the entire way. (Even though 1:13:31 feels like I was barely running.)

This time I was determined to kick some serious butt. I adopted the FIRST plan and forced myself off the hamster wheel. It totally worked. If you’re tired of hearing about the FIRST plan, then you’ll have to filter me. The Furman Institute of Running doesn’t pay me but they should. I am done with easy runs and running 5 times a week. 3 hard, to-the-point-of-failing runs a week, yup that’s for me.

My goal pace of 10:40 turned into an impressive 10:30 pace. Even more impressive and telling were my last 2 miles, both 10 minute miles. If I can run two 10 minute miles then in a few months I should easily be able to run 6.2 of them.

I should also mention that I’ve now been duped into running the Denver Half Marathon. Peer pressure I guess, I can’t seem to say no to Ian. [Ed. Note: Giggity, giggity!] He ran a 52 min 10k and I would have done anything he asked- too bad you wasted it on a race :) [Ed. Note: :( ]

Also of note... According to my scientific calculations I’ll be an elite runner in 2012 and we’ll retire on my winnings. Follow me on this, in one year I reduced my pace by 1:20 if I do that every year then I’ll be running a 5:09 pace by 2012. That would give me a 32:02 10K time, which would have easily taken first in the Elite Women’s race this year.

And because Ian didn’t post any of his pictures...

As if you care, here are my official numbers...
Overall place: 21198
Division place: 293 out of 673
Gender place: 8620 out of 26287
Mile 1: 10:49
Mile 2: 10:54
Mile 3: 10:46
Mile 4: 10:43
Mile 5: 10:00
Mile 6: 10:01
Net time: 1:05:11 (Pace: 10:29)

Colder Bolder Race Pictures

Thank you all for your condolences and kind comments on yesterday’s post. I debated taking a week off from posting at Half-Fast given the circumstances, but what better way to honor a writer than to keep writing. Besides, getting back to normal can only help, so here are some race pictures from Sunday’s Colder Bolder 5K. (For those of you who ran it, here is the link to all the Colder Bolder race pictures.)

The first picture here features some guy in a Santa Hat. He was a good 30 - 40 feet ahead of me for most of the race. I decided to run him down at the beginning of the final mile and it took me forever to pass him, but I eventually did. Passing Santa doesn’t automatically relegate you to the naughty list does it? That’s me behind him in the white shirt with gray sleeves, we have less than a half mile to go in that picture. Not pictured: the little kid who blew past me like I was sap oozing down a tree trunk.


You can see in the picture below that I have removed my gloves and shoved them into my pockets. It didn’t occur to me at the time that doing so might make my pants look like standard issue Nazi fatigues. Maybe next time instead of my pockets I’ll just shove my gloves down the front of my pants. BAM! How do you like my race pictures now? Still not pictured: little kid who blew past me. I think he must have cheated and taken a short cut. It’s the only viable explanation as to how I got “kidded” which, for the record is not quite as bad as getting “chicked”.

Finally, just because I got such a positive response the last time I posted a picture of my kids, here is another picture of Cheer Team Vanilla. They are my motivation to run. Not in a I-want-to-be-healthy-to-see-them-grow-up kind of way, but more in a looking-for-any-excuse-to-get-out-of-this-crazy-house-so-I’ll-go-run kind of way.

More COWBELL!!

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?

Things Only I Find Interesting

The Bolder Boulder race pictures have been posted. (If you ran the race and are looking for your photos you can find them here at brightroom.com, you’ll just have to search by bib number or name). Here’s a few of mine for your viewing displeasure, I’m the guy in the blue shirt. I am happy with them because last year when I looked at my Bolder Boulder race photos I thought that I looked tired and slow. My wife didn’t think that it was possible to look slow in a still photograph, but I assure you it is.

Some interesting stats about my time
- I ran in the 'ME' wave with my wife so that we could start together and out of 691 runners participants in our wave I finished 26th. Not too shabby!
- Based on last year’s time I qualified to run in the 'EC' wave and had I run in that wave I would have finished 124th out of 417 runners, assuming the same time.
- Of the 431 men my age (31) who finished I was 193rd.
- 49 men over the age of 65 beat me including an 80 year old who finished in 51:59. OK, you can get up off the floor and stop laughing now. Actually you can’t. Wait until you read the next one…
- 4 women over the age of 65 beat me (two of them were 70). Ouch! My ego is officially bruised.

A couple more pictures of me trying to get around people at the finish.