I prepped for this morning’s 10K with coffee, leaving my stomach mostly empty of foodstuff for the six mile race.  I would passionately breakfast on the java bean like this every morning if my knowledge of nutrition didn’t suggest otherwise.  Unlike running a marathon, my muscles won’t be at risk of depleting their glycogen stores before crossing the finish line.  Ideally, I’ll avoid debilitating oxygen debt as well.  A conservative start the first half mile should position me for a strong surge after two miles.  That’s my plan.

Karen dropped me off at 30th and Valmont and I looked over at my racing flats sitting in the seat next to me.  If I wore them instead of my training flats, I’d be committing to run hard.  Mental toughness is less than abundant at 6am.  With caffeine for courage, I put ’em on.  I laced them up and jogged down the street to the race start on 30th and Walnut, where  I queued up in my BA wave corral after a little warmup.  Checkout the little green Martian photo-bomb.

I blogged the other day I was confident I could run a 7:20 pace, but was hoping for a 7 minute pace.  I ran exactly a 7:20 pace.  I felt comfortable with my first mile in 7:13, although it felt faster than that.  Mile two was typical for me in 7:17.  I already knew by this point that I would likely average a 7:20 pace, but I surged per plan after 4 kilometers.  Still, mile 3 came out as my slowest, at 7:26, just like always.  That mile is tough after completing the climb up Folsom.

The fourth mile wasn’t much faster in 7:23, but again, just like every year, I ran my fifth mile the fastest, in 7:05, amazingly the same exact time as last year.  I struggled to maintain my pace after that and slowed back down after I reached Folsom again.  I ran the 6th mile in 7:22 for a 45:29 finish.  8th place in my age group.  A little slower than last year.  I’m fine with that since I’ve only been running on weekends for the last five weeks.  And I maintained a pace that challenged my lactate threshold from start to finish.  That Bolder Boulder is always a tough race.