After sushi, Jill and Christy let us know they just sat down at an Italian restaurant around the corner. So, we joined them for a glass of wine in the back of the restaurant at the bar. A perfect way to end the evening!
Back at the hotel we painted toe nails, laid out (numerous- thanks to the differing weather reports) race clothes, got breakfast food out, laughed (a lot), and tried to wind down for a good rest minus one hour (thank you daylight savings). A disappointing showing by Staci...she didn't utter a single word in her sleep- booo... we were all expecting a show, very typical for our race sleepovers.Alarm went off and we slowly opened the eyes. To our surprise the weather was clear...no rain/wind/snow yet- yay! We were out the door by 7:45am and on our way to the reservoir. After spending some time in the car, staying warm, 8:50 rolled around and we trotted to the port-O line! 10 minutes later the race start countdown began, and we were off!! My goals were to get a negative split, and beat my prior PR from Steamboat last June (1:56). So I held back from totally killing myself the first half of the race and that allowed me to steadily push a bit harder the second half without feeling horrible. I had my eye out, looking for the Madster on the opposing side of the road, knowing she'd be hitting the turnaround point soon enough as well. At this point I was realizing that I do much better mentally with an out and back course...I know what's ahead, we had the wind at our backs, I don't know, for some reason it just seemed like we had shorter to go the whole way back.
Christy, Dani and I were all pretty close together the whole way...and I think we were all very pleased when the mile 11 sign showed up and we knew there were just 2 short miles left. Well..what wasn't pleasant was the uphill around the corner and the last uphill jaunt right before the finish line. At this point in the race, my goals changed...I knew I would negative split, but could I get under 1:50?? Yes...I can, so this is where the killing myself the last part started. And I succeeded... a 1:48:xx finish! I was absolutely thrilled. But that feeling was short-lived thanks to extremely tight hammies and calves...and crap, I have to go to the car and get my camera so I can catch Maddy finishing! Christy and I fast-walked to the car, grabbed a water and the camera and headed back to the finish line and found Chelsea and Jill. Now it was really getting cold, and we were still sweaty with the body cooling down...burrrr!! Seeing Maddy finish was so awesome...she looked great! We all were super proud of her- a 2:20 finish...and her first race completed!Dani finished 3rd in her age group- nice job woman!- so we headed back to the car, changed clothes then went back out there for the awards ceremony. We gave her a big cheer when they called her name and the guy commented that it sounded like she brought her fan club with her:)
We headed out of the Boulder reservoir just in time for the rain to start- thanks for holding out for us! We headed to an amazing place for lunch and all had a wonderful meal. It was so crappy out (rain and snow), so Maddy and I decided to head back to the Springs. It was a good thing that we did because the visibility in Denver/Castle Rock was horrendous. Once we got to Maddy's, her and I sat in front of the fire and got a little stretching in...ow...ow...ow.Overall, this weekend was such a blast. It was great to watch Maddy participate in her first race and we were all so incredibly proud of her. As usual, we shared many laughs and new inside jokes were created:). It was so wonderful to have Jill and Chelsea there...thanks you guys for your unconditional support and cheer!
1 comment:
Whoa!! Congrats girl..that is an AWEsome time!! How fun =) I can't believe you had to run to the car after finishing to grab a camera..lol
Post a Comment