I ran in the Bolder Boulder yesterday along with 52,000 other runners/walkers/wheelchair-ers/crutchers. It is a fantastic family event which has taken place on Memorial Day every year since 1979. The finish line is in Folsom Field of the U.of Colorado. Finishers stay and gradually fill the stadium, so as you finish you feel like the crowds are cheering for you.
It is very well organized. There are 100 different corrals of people starting every 1-2 minutes. The elite wheelchair racers start at 6:50 AM, the last corral of walkers starts around 9:20, so as you run you are never in a massive crowd. There are bands all along the racecourse and families living along the route have slip-n-slides out, and kids have sprinklers and super-soakers. There are belly-dancers and bagpipers. Many runners wear elaborate costumes. There is always something to keep your mind engaged. If all else fails, there is the scenery of Boulder's beautiful FlatIron rock formations to the west.
They offer shuttle bus service from the various park-n-rides all around Denver and Boulder. Mine left at 4:55 AM, which meant setting the alarm for 3 so I could breakfast, walk my dog, and drive the 30 minutes to the park and ride. It is early, but so worth it.
At 11:15 the elite races start with the women going first. They run the same course as us ordinary mortals do, and we get to watch them on the big screen in the stadium. At 11:40ish I started worrying that the last walkers would get in the way of the elite racers. There were 3 of them still on the course that had to move off to the side in the stadium. One was a very short older lady who walked with a pronounced tilt to the right which made you wonder if she would tip over before finishing. She finished after the elite winner who was from Ethiopia, but she finished!
At noon the Memorial Service started. 125 Armed Forces enlistees were sworn in. They honored 2 Colorado Tuskegee airmen, 1 Colorado "Rosie Riveter," and 1 Colorado female WWII pilot. There was a 21 gun salute and Taps was played.
The skydivers then arrived, one carrying a flag for each branch of the service, one carrying a POW/MIA flag, and then finally one carrying the US flag. While this happens, the song "I'm Proud to be an American" by Lee Greenwood fills the stadium. It ended with "The Star Spangled Banner" played on a bugle by a 90 year-old-survivor of the Battle of the Bulge, one of the Lucky Eleven. Then came the Air Force Jet fly-over.
It was a beautiful day leading to patriotic-overload and tears to all eyes. I love it.
Here is a link to see some of the pictures from the Bolder Boulder....elites, costumes, proposals, kids, etc. to get a feel for the race.
http://photos.denverpost.com/2015/05/25/photos-the-37th-bolder-boulder-10k-may-25th-2015/#1
PS My race went just okay. I noticed the altitude, maybe because I spent the previous 3 days at low altitude in Nebraska. Also I felt tired through-out. Next year I will do better...there is always next year...I will do sub-70 then. Here are my splits; miles 1 and 5 were pretty good. Maybe I should have concentrated more on running and less on all the entertainment around me? No, that would defeat the purpose of the whole occasion.
Mile 1=11.36
Mile 2=12:11
Mile 3=12:24
Mile 4=12:08
Mile 5=11:41
Mile 6=12:22
Finish=1:14:54.55 or 12.03minutes/mile
I finished 38 out of 144 women aged 63.
I finished 11,319 out of 24,238 women of all ages.
Not terrible.
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