Denver Rock-n-Roll Half Marathon 10.17.10

This was, by far, my BEST half marathon experience! Waaahooooo! No porta potty stops. None. Zero. Nada. Ziltch. Now, onto the experience!

Carl and I flew out to Denver on Saturday afternoon, checked in to the hotel (Sheraton) and met up with Carrie to head to the expo. We only had about an hour but it turned out that’s really about all we needed. Expo was pretty good. Lots of vendors, lots of free stuff. Here we are with our Disney princess crowns on.

Carrie, Krista and Carl at the Denver RnR Expo 10.16.10


Waiting for a table at Maggiano’s in Denver

We had a great race-eve dinner at a place called Maggiano’s. It took us FOREVER to get a table, but it was well worth it. Great pre-race dining experience! Waaay better than those race sponsored pasta buffets.

Then it was early to bed for me, but not before laying out all my race day gear! LOL.

There was a 6:55 a.m. start, but we were way back in corral #15 (Carl was in #14). It took us about 20 minutes to get to the start line (15,000 runners!) Since we were so close, we ran the first 5 minutes or so together (Carrie was ahead of us in #9). Then CG kept running while I took my first walk break. We were on our own.

The course wound its way through the city and we also got to run through two city parks, so that made for a nice change of scenery. Seeing the mountains in the distance was quite a change, especially when we are used to running on the trail in CoMo! The whole race course is over a mile high but neither Carl nor I was impacted negatively by the altitude. Carrie lives in Colorado, so she was fine, and turned in a GREAT time of 2:25!

Here we are showing off our medals!

KSM at the finish!

CJG at the finish!

CG and I had worked hard a couple nights before the race to set up a run/rest plan for my run. It WORKED! I was hoping for a 2:45 finish and I made it in at 2:43:28, a PR for me and I’d say my best race so far. I ran through all my planned runs for the whole race! That is huge for me. Carl also got a PR of 5:21:04 and beat his goal of 5:28. This was his second, and best, marathon. Fair to say we all had a blast and a great race experience.

A few more finish line pics!