BolderBoulder 10K Results

The BolderBoulder was hands down the best 10K I've been part of, in terms of the overall mood of the crowd, the events taking place all around, and the course. This year, this race may be the biggest foot race in the US in terms of entrants, and I've heard, the 5th largest in the world. Once they have all the finishers, they'll know for sure. How cool is that? Over 50,000 people were out there running! Waves left the start about every 4 minutes for approximately two hours. It ended at a big stadium (Folsom Stadium), and the majority of the participants stayed after their race for the Memorial Day celebration events. The pros ran last, and what a sight to see. The women's winner may have set a course record at 29 minutes and change. The Kenyans and Ethiopians have truly amazing running teams. After the pros, they had a set of skydivers jumping with flags for all four military branches and the US flag, then a 21 gun salute, honoring a couple of WWII vets who were present (two gents who survived the Battle of the Bulge, and one of the is the man who started Leanin' Tree cards), the usual patriotic songs, and a F-14 flyover from the Colorado (I think) National Guard. Pretty dang cool.I've run maybe 1/2 a dozen "official" 10Ks and a handful of 5ks, mostly in Eugene and North Carolina, so it was a new experience to do it at altitude. Given that we've lived here for a little over a month now, I have to say I really didn't notice it. The weather was perfect, about 65 degrees, and the course was windy with a bit of rolling hills. Because of the hills, mostly, this wasn't my personal record at 51:29, but not too bad either. Here're my overall stats.

overall place: 5974

division: F35

division place:56 out of 631

gender place:1367 out of 26011

mile 1:0:08:31.77

mile 2:0:08:21.92

mile 3:0:08:36.57

mile 4: 0:08:10.65

mile 5: 0:07:59.00

mile 6: 0:08:04.40

net time: 0:51:29.57

pace: 8:18 (based on net tim

 

5,974, out of 53,000 plus runners? I'll take it. 56th out of 631 in my division? Sure! 1,367th out of 26,011 females? Pretty cool. Looks like the Imogene Pass training is paying off. I'm thinking it's a good thing I didn't grab one of those Miller High Lifes some of the spectators were handing out at mile 4 or I would have been yacking up the last hill. I didn't push as hard as I wanted to thanks to the fact that I've been drinking water with Nuun tablets and they are really not agreeing with me. Going to have to find some other electrolyte replacement method.

Now for a nap.Then some serious vegging on some Memorial Day movies. Something with explosions seems appropriate.

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All content copyright unless otherwise specified © 2008-2013 by Tammy Salyer, writer. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to use short quotes provided proper attribution is given.

Lyons Kayak Park and the Locals

Enjoyed my first paddle here in sunny, summery Colorado (actually, I've been down the Gunnison that runs into Grand Junction once years ago on a raft, but that doesn't really count). I forgot to take my camera, as usual. About 20 miles north of Boulder is the small, yet surprisingly thriving on this Memorial Day weekend, community of Lyons, Colorado. It's a cute little town that reminds me of a lower elevation Deadwood without the distinction of being the final resting place of Wild Bill Hickock. Rolling through town is the lovely meandering S. St. Vrain river, what, in Oregon terms, would be known as a creek. It's high water right now, and with the creeking season here in Colorado being about four weeks long, it was the time to get up there. The section called a "kayak park" is really just a 1/4 mile section near a town park that has about four features on it that are mildly interesting. There was one excellent glassy wave that you could literally front surf on until the water drains from the creek, but it wasn't much for cartwheeling or doing anything that requires pop. Still, a terrific spot for just getting in the water and relaxing. The other features were all pourovers in the vein of the small stuff on Oregon's N. Umpqua, below Pinball rapid, or the Lower North Fork of the Middle Fork Willamette. There's a nicer pourover with enough of an off-width to create a wave about a 1/2 below the end of the kayak park, which appears to be where the locals really go.We were passed by a posse of C-1ers while we played at the upper glassy wave, and caught up with them down at the good wave at the end. They were all a bunch of happy-go-lucky man-child types who consider class 5 in an open boat a fun day on the river. Super nice people. They even let me shuttle with them AND gave me the passenger seat when they headed back to the put in (about four miles upstream of the kayak park) so I wouldn't have to stuff myself in the back with six other smelly, wet gents, dropping me at my truck. Something tells me they rarely see a girl on the river, probably their insistence on getting my number so they could invite me on some future trips. All good, all good.The exciting part of the day was the fact that some picnickers found a dead man on the banks of the river at the take out a few hours earlier. The C-1ers were there when the paramedics and cops came. Fortunately, they removed the corpse before we came down. I'm not sure that's the kind of scenery I look for when I'm on the river. Besides the dead man, I was somewhat disheartened by the general presence of human rubbish (the trash kind, not the body kind) that filled some of the bigger eddies. Kinda sad to see, and doesn't do a lot for making me feel comfortable when I get that unexpected mouthful during a particularly rough window shade. Ce sera, I guess.On another note, I submitted another short story, in the horror genre, for publication to Pseudopod today. Tomorrow is the BolderBoulder 10K run. Wish me luck on both.

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All content copyright unless otherwise specified © 2008-2013 by Tammy Salyer, writer. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to use short quotes provided proper attribution is given.