Saturday July 31 2021
I’d had a Revel race in Denver cancelled so ended up transferring my Vacation Races registration to their Rocky Mountain Half Marathon. Originally I’d been signed up for their Mount Rushmore race, but that fell, and I replaced it with another SD event.
I flew from Charlotte to Denver Friday morning, meeting Becca at Denver airport, as she’d had to take an early morning flight. We picked up the rental and drove to the race expo in Estes Park, about an hour and a half away. I picked up my race packet and we went for a nice lunch in The Mountain Inn. We checked in to the Air BnB, in an old house, and we explored the town a little, grabbing dinner in a local Italian restaurant, Mama Rose’s.
Saturday morning was an early start. We left the Air BnB at 5am to drive to the expo location for parking. Still dark and cool, we walked from parking down to the race meeting point, with everyone else. There were 1300 people racing so a big event. I considered hanging with the 1.40 pace group – it seemed a little slow but with it being a looped course in the Rocky Mountains National Park, naturally the course was not going to be fast or easy… Anyway, then they announced that the elite group looking to place over all should start to make their way across to the start line (a short walk under the road to the lakeside). I looked at some of the characters heading over and my ego took the better of my – I headed over and started at the back of their group.
The race started at 6am, sunrise was 0559, so we were just out of the dark, and the overcast conditions made the first mile a nice intro. We were also up at over 7500’ elevation, so the air was thin. Coupling that with over 800’ of total elevation gain over the 13 miles made for a tough course. Luckily the majority of the climbing was within miles 1-5, but even so, remember the wrestler HHH? This was hilly, humid & hard.
The lead pack split pretty early so the race was kind of lonely. Just a few changes of placements over the 13 road miles. Mile 6 bestowed a simply awesome view of The Rockies, and overall, this picturesque course was well worth the sustained effort required to get it done. The event was very well organised, lots of (frustratingly cupless) aid stations and a good after race awards event.
I ended up 10th out of the 1300 or so, and first in my age group, with a 1.32 – 10 minutes slower than last week in Washington (!) but what a different course.
The Lake we finished at –
I showered at the Air BnB, grabbed a McDo, and we made our way to the National Park Entrance. It is a truly beautiful place, and although the weather was not good, we made great use of our time. We saw moose and elk, we walked round Bear Lake, drove Trail Ridge Road – the highest road in the whole NP system at 12500’, drove the very windy Old Fall River Road and checked out Chasm Falls.
We had an early dinner at The Rock Inn, and rested back at the Air BnB, before an early Sunday morning run amongst the elk then returning to Charlotte.
Colorado was state 44, Oregon booked for next week.
Racing Americana 