Garden Ten Mile

Wasn't expecting much from this as having my brother in town had me staying up late and drinking too much for several days in a row.  In fact, on my warmup over to the race I changed my goal from sub 70 to sub 80.

New course this year, and once the gun went off I stayed conservative for the first mile, which climbs a pretty big hill.  At the top I felt pretty good and decided to see if I could get that sub 70.  It helped that my arch-nemesis Brooks was close by (photo by Peter).

Brooks led for the first 2.5ish miles, then I unsuccessfully tried to drop him over the next 10K.  There is a terrible hill about 8.7 miles into the race and it crushed me, and Brooks was able to get 15 seconds or so.  I came back at him, but he ended up holding me off.  I ended up sneaking in just under 69 minutes.  34:07 through five miles, 34:50 for the second half.

Really happy with the effort, especially given my long run on Saturday followed by a very late night at Red Rocks for the Big Head Todd show.  And even though Brooks whooped me on my home course I took home the moral victory as I had two beers during the run and he had none.

This race used to be a standard for me - can I still break 70 on a tough, hilly course?  Wasn't sure what the new course would bring, but that personal standard will remain.  My educated guess as someone who runs in the Garden quite often is that this course is about a minute slower than the old course.  The potential for disaster in the second half is real on the new course though, as there are three tough hills over the final 4.5 miles.  You used to be able to count on a several minute negative split, but that is definitely not the case any more.

This pic has been making the rounds on the social medias.  $100 is in the dark blue shirt.

A few more pics I stole from Peter.  Such a great race in a great place.  Made even better with a finish at Rock Ledge Ranch which allows for a beer garden.