Running, Running, and even more Running

Yesterday it beyond downpoured in Denver. Essentially three storms came off the mountains and all met in Denver for a superstorm convention. It was almost like being in a slightly less windy hurricane. At one point, we couldn't see the buildings a few blocks down from our office.

Suffice to say, I ran indoors last night. I had five miles on the schedule and wasn't too excited to do them on a treadmill, but was even less excited to try to bike home in the monsoon. I also learned yesterday that my gym uses DirecTv, so all of our TVs were out during the storm too. Bummer. My first two miles were great and I started including 1/2 mile pace increases towards the end. Mostly I just got bored and wanted to break things up a bit, but I ended up with my fastest 5 mile time ever: 51:30, with an average pace of 10:18 minute miles. For me, that is essentially flying. I recognize that treadmill running is faster than pavement running, but it was still nice.

Today all of those pounds the scale happily yielded to me last week were back (of course), which is a bummer but oh well. For now I've got more important things to focus on - like potentially dying in Allenspark tomorrow.

In my haste to find a 10k race for this weekend, I picked the first and only one I could find after one google search. The Allenspark Run Like the Wind 10k. It is up near Rocky Mountain National Park and I figured it would be a really pretty run, even though its at 8500 feet. Even more high altitude training for my at-sea level half marathon - hooray! I found a sucker, er um, friend to run it with me and we signed on up.

What I failed to notice is that Allenspark is almost an hour and a half away. Which is no big deal, but we'll have to leave nice and early from Denver. I also failed to notice that this is also a trail run, not a road race (or it might be a combo of the two, I'm still not quite sure). To make matters even more fun, the elevation chart for this course looks like the cardiac machine printout from an emergency room patient - except without all the charming flat bits.

Lest you think I exaggerate:


So, I'm nervous to say the very least. But I figure that I'm not concerned about time, just finishing and not dying, so if nothing else it will be a new experience! And hey, the hills in SF will have NOTHING on this course, so I actually wouldn't be surprised if this ends up being more challenging.