GoG 10M

Got up early Sunday morning to head over to Memorial Park for the Garden of the Gods Ten Miler.  Rolling out of bed, I already felt kinda crappy and it made getting into a 10 mile mindset that much more difficult.  W made our way over to Manitou only to find the streets backed up almost to Hwy 24.  We split off on some road leading up to Manitou High School and found some parking on a street close by.  As we started the walk down, I realized that it was really close to race time and I scurried to get to the park.  When I got to the park, I pinned on my bib, grabbed a couple S caps from Josh and then headed to the porta-potties for one last evacuation.  As I locked the door to my throne, I head the 1 minute to go call over the PA.  Damn!  I tied things off and hit the back of the pack just as the gun went off.  I started my watch as I crossed the start line to get an unofficial "chip" time for myself.

As we moved down El Paso it was hard to go anywhere due to the crowd.  It was much larger than I had expected.  As we got closer to the park, things opened up and I got into a nice climbing pace for the first haul up to Balanced Rock.  Once at the top, I skipped the first aid station since I had a bottle of Heed in my hand.  I decided that to balance out any struggles up the hills that I would really hammer the downhills.  I took off flying down toward the Trading Post.  As the downhill ended, I would fall back into a comfortable pace and take it easy up the hills.  A couple of hills did me in and I power hiked up them and continued to pound the downs around the park.  I didn't really have any hard goals set for this race since it was my first time on this course and this distance.  In the back of my mind I wanted a sub 1:50 and I barely eeked it out.  Really enjoyed the race and felt fine by Monday evening.