How’s this for a finisher’s pic?  This is a little less than half our running crew at last weekend’s Moab Half.  That’s me, Amy (aka Gadget Girl), Jen and Steve.  I’ll be running alone tomorrow in the Boulder Half out at the res.  Might as well listen to my iPhone, so I’m charging my Phillips Bluetooth Earbuds.  Gadget Girl doesn’t have a pair of these!

I’m also washing some cold weather gear.  It’ll be 32° at race start, and maybe 35° with rain by race finish.  That won’t be too bad if the wind stays out of the way.  An 8 mile wind is expected which will probably be more of an issue while lined up at the start in terms of keeping warm.  I’m thinking of wearing two long-sleeve high-tech shirts; the under shirt being thin and the over short being thick.  I also think that the 30s is cold enough to justify tights – but not a heavy pair.  Something with pockets would be good though.  I’m big on pockets.  If you find yourself ever buying me some running gear, look for pockets.

Gadget Girl asked me earlier today what pace I thought I’ll run tomorrow.  Certainly slower than last week.  I pushed myself a bit in Moab but I’m taking this like any other workout.  Of course, if it were a workout, I’d average a 9 minute pace.  I plan to start out at that pace but hope that I loosen up enough to run the second half at 8 or 8.5 minute miles.  I need to start working on my speed.  Registration for the Bolder Boulder opens up Monday.  I’ve set a goal to run that at a 7 minute pace – which is a pretty aggressive target.  I ran a 7:35 pace in the Longmont Turkey Trot last fall though; and I think I’ll use that to pick my starting corral.  I ran last year’s Bolder Boulder at an 8:01 pace, so anything in the 7s will demonstrate improvement.

The Capitol 10K in Austin is also run tomorrow.  I had that on my radar but opted for the Austin Marathon instead.  Can’t be flying down to Austin for everything.  I have some friends running it though so I’ll check out the online results.  I ran the very first Capitol 10K in I think 1977.  I won some age division awards at that event in ’81 and ’82; so if I ever become age competitive again, I plan to return to that race to repeat past glory.  Wish me a good run tomorrow.  A blog post will follow.