Bolder Boulder 10K

I'm not going to spend a lot of time on the race itself, as it turned into a run for me that became more like a college homecoming parade back in the days of visiting Western State College in Gunnison, Co. than it was a 10k race. Obviously every race has a goal, and everyone, no matter how little they think they are prepared, or what has happened leading up to a race, always thinks at some point before the gun goes off that they will catch "lightning in a bottle", or something to that effect. I remember a 4 miler on Thanksgiving Day 2 years ago in which I threw up in a bathroom of a 7-11 30 minutes before the start, and as a guy who still hasn't run a sub 20 5k officially, I went through the 5k that day around 19:26. I bonked on the last mile, but still finished in just over 26 minutes for the 4 miles.



I was pretty quiet on Sunday after getting up and around. I didn't do much, I didn't leave the house after about noon I think. I went to bed around 945 and was up by 330 to try and get out of town. This is where the story starts to get weird. I did my normal morning routine, although when I went in to "read the paper", I had no luck. So I got my stuff together, figuring I would stop for a SF Red Bull on the road and do business then. I stopped about halfway down to Boulder, and still no luck. I got to Boulder and parked my pickup at a place that was about halfway between the start and finish line. I walked in to pickup my packet, and as I was headed back about a mile to my truck, I ran into jon_a from the MRT section of RWOL. Him and I had run Colorado together about 3 weeks ago and so we chatted for a while. At this point I'm running behind, so I jog to the pickup, store my stuff and am thinking I'll hit the water closet on my way back, but by the time I got back to where they were, the lines were huge and I was less than 5 minutes from the gun. I decided to gamble...

I lost. The first mile went great, around 1.6 or so, it was time for me to find a restroom. NOW. Luckily there are portolets all over the course. After a couple minute pit stop, I started running again, PR, anything special is now out the window. I fought with my legs for the next mile and a half, just feeling like they had nothing in them. Around the halfway point, I have accepted that I'm just looking to finish the race at this point. Boulder runs through a lot of residential stuff whre college kids live. At just around halfway, a dude was holding a skull shaped beer bong and I had stopped to collect myself. He looked at me and said "You wanna hit this?"...I said "It's not Key Light is it?" He said it wasn't, and the next thing you know I'm on the business end of 3.5 beers at 725 in the morning on a Monday. I got cheered, and backslapped, and high 5s, but what I really got out of it was the ability to run the last half of the race, taking in the people, the places, and the craziness that is that race. It was pretty cool. I've always been so focused on racing that I never pay attention to all the things around it. I had fun, but was obviously concerned about my lack of energy, but that was answered the next day, as I came down sick, which leads me to believe that I was in the process of getting sick that morning. Simple enough answer.

On Thursday nights, a buddy of mine and I usually go to Road 34 here in town. I've detailed that place here before so I won't go into it, but last night we stopped in for a couple quick beers and we talked, I saw Moose, one of the bartenders, hanging out and having a couple drinks. I hadn't seen him working for a while, so I went over and said hello and inquired to his lack of presence the last couple weeks. He told me that he had quit his job and was moving to San Francisco with his girlfriend. He had no job, no prospects, nothing. Her job was taking her there, and he wanted to be with her, so he's going. I guess there are still people in the world who care enough about each other to do things like that for each other. I had to smile when he told me the story, but saddened at the same time to see him go. He was always good to me, always took care of me and my friends when we came in, and come Monday, (lol) he'll be in Frisco. We covered how things had been for me for a little while, had a drink, hugged, swapped phone numbers and said goodbye. Good luck Moose.