Rock n Roll Denver Marathon

Day before the race
The Denver Rock n' Roll Marathon on 10-17-10 was my 50th overall. Truth be told, I was a bit tired and would rather have been running a local race like the Long Beach Marathon. But since everything had already been booked, I headed out to Denver on an early Saturday morning flight. I drove into downtown Denver in my rental car and checked into my hotel. Then I walked over to the Convention Center to attend the expo. Along the way, I stopped by the Civic Center Park to check out the starting area. They already had things pretty much setup and all laid out. Right before I got to the expo, I bumped into my friend Vixen who told me that the expo was rather ho hum. That was good news for me. I didn't need to spend anymore money. I went through the expo without buying anything and signing up for any races. I like the race shirt. I meet up with Dave and his friends at the expo. I picked up 2 Lara bars and ate them since I was kind of hungry. I then walked back to my hotel. I stopped by Kokoro, which was across the street from my hotel, to pick up lunch. I got a chicken and vegetable bowl. It was pretty much like Yoshinoya.

The Start/Finish Line

City and County Building

Colorado State Capitol

Maniac Friends!

I ate lunch while watching TV for a little bit. Then I prepared my gear for Sunday's race. I was kind of worried about the race since my ankle was feeling weird from walking around town. I haven't ran a single mile since the Chicago Marathon so I really had nothing to go off on.

My seldom used race shirt :)

I drove out to Boulder to meet up with some RWOL friends for dinner at Pei Wei. While waiting for my friends, I was able to snap a nice sunset picture with my phone. The internet may be a great way to keep in touch with friends, but nothing beats interacting with friends face to face. One of them is Sam who was running his 50th marathon of this year for OperationJack to help raise funds for Train4Autism!

Boulder Sunset

Race morning
Following the parking instructions, I drove to the Metro State Campus to park for free. But when I got there I learned that they wanted $5 for parking. Nice. It was about a 1 mile walk to the starting line from the campus. If I knew I had to pay, I would've just walked from my hotel which was only a little bit further than 1 mile from the starting line. Oh well.

I had a hard time finding the gear check. I usually look for UPS trucks, but since it's a loop course there was no trucks. They made a terrible mistake in putting the gear check tables in front of a row of portapotties. The lines for the potties and gear check just caused a huge crowded mass of humanity in one little area. I bumped into my friend, Maniac Mitch who was running his 70th marathon. Since we were both starting out of corral 4, we made our way over to the corrals.

Goal A: 3:55
Goal B: 4:30
Goal C: sub 5

First Half
I almost always go out "hard" on my races. This race was no different. I started off too fast even for goal A. I eased off the gas, but eventually the thin air caught up to me. My right lung felt like it collapsed by around mile 4. I tried to maintain a 9 min mile pace, but the discomfort in the lung was rather annoying. And like clockwork, the right ankle started to hurt at mile 8. I backed off of the pace and had no choice but go to plan B and/or C. I got to the halfway mark slower than I had wanted, but slowing down finally got rid of the lung discomfort. I started taking an extra 1 minute walking break at mile 12.
1: 8:15
2: 8:38
3: 8:46
4: 9:30
5: 9:13
6: 9:07
7: 10:10
8: 9:34
9: 9:46
10: 10:36
11: 10:51
12: 11:13
13: 11:36
13.1: 2:08:45

Second Half
I stuck to taking a minute walk break every time I got to a mile marker. That worked pretty well for the rest of the race. Mile 24 was an out and back on a huge overpass which was equivalent to a big hill. Other than this climb, the course was pretty flat. I ran the last .2 and saw Dane cheering on runners at the last corner. It was a pleasant surprise to have someone cheer for you when you didn't know that they were going to be there.
14: 11:46
15: 13:36
16: 13:16
17: 13:38
18: 12:52
19: 12:19
20: 12:43
21: 13:11
22: 12:54
23: 12:20
24: 15:11
25: 12:59
26: 13:24
26.2: 1:47
Finish: 4:59:14

Finisher's Medal

Post race thoughts
Well, that's 50 marathons in the books. I'm definitely going to turn my focus towards running quality races instead of just quantity. I hope to run a BQ in 2012.

Competitor Group has been taking over a lot of marathons lately. It seems that the majority feel that this is a bad thing. I think they're doing a great job putting together a good race experience. But since they are creating a monopoly, higher registration fees are inevitably starting to show up for their races. Their prices aren't out of control yet, but it is definitely getting runners' attention.