Run the Rocks 5k

View my results

Holy crap! I finished 21st out of 759 people! I finished in the top 3%! I usually finish races in the top 50%! And I’m happy with that too. I’m not in stellar shape either, which is shown by my nine minute mile average! But I think there were more walkers than runners and also I think what happened was that some people went the wrong way! There was a T in the road and some people went left and you were supposed to go right! I don’t know how many people went the wrong way, but right after the T, there was a bend in the road and we could see everyone who was in front of us and there weren’t that many people.

It was a fun race, even though it was really cold! It was barely above freezing. It was foggy out too which gave Red Rocks an erie, mystical feeling. Despite the cold, I wore shorts because I don’t own any running pants, but I also had a long sleeve shirt, gloves and a hat on.

They gave us “time chips” to attach to our shoe that records your time. I had about 2 minutes after I attached my time chip before the race sarted. Just enough time for a quick stretch and then it was time to run.

It was really tight (tighter than usual) during the beginning of the race, I didn’t really start running until about 300 yards. The first 2/3 was almost all down hill, which was really fun! Then the last 1/3 was like all uphill, which was really hard! About 90% of the people in the group I was running with had to stop or walk on the hill. I didn’t stop. I was running the whole time, just barely passing people, but I was still running. (I wonder if it’s more efficient to stop/walk instead of trying to run when you barely can, because a lot of the people I passed, passed me later.) I wanted to make it to the end without stopping/walking and I almost made it. I got to the last stretch, in the theater, running up the stairs… and I had to walk 1-2 steps. And then I said to myself, I’m going to make one last push and run the rest of the stairs to the finish. But I couldn’t make it! I had to walk another 10 steps or so. I *almost* made it the whole way without walking.

I had a great time, even though it was cold. The music was nice during and after the race. Money was raised for the American Lung Association. I got a bunch of free stuff. I got a medal for finishing the race. Well, everyone got a medal…