The MS Runner

The first big race in Denver every year is The Runnin’ of The Green in downtown.  It is a 7K and they tout it as being the largest 7K in the country.  It might be the only one for all I know.  The biggest problem with this race is that it’s on Sunday, which is the day after almost everyone parties for St. Patrick’s Day.  So for me anyways, I wasn’t expecting a great time or anything, just a chance to run a race and see where I stand with my training.  There were over 4,000 people in this race, and I think all the slow ones were ahead of me at the start line.  I hate that.  There were even walkers ahead of me.  I think next year I’m going to put on my singlet, strut to the front, and pretend I’m an elite runner.  By the way, why is it that no matter what the weather, the elite runners wear a singlet (tank top)?  There were also strollers and a few dogs.  This is way too big of a race I think to have strollers and dogs.  It’s bad enough that I’m trying to run around the slow pokes, but I have to be careful that I don’t run into little Dakota in her stroller wearing stupid green St Paddy’s Day sunglasses, and a tee shirt that says, Burp Me, I’m Irish.

Otherwise, the race went well, and I did about what I thought I would.  I ran it in 33:47, which is a 7:47 pace.  Out of 4,266 total runners, I came in 557th.  Not too bad.  At least by the time I finished, there weren’t too many people yet in the beer line.

My training officially started today to run another marathon.  I’ve decided that I’m going to train for a marathon, but not necessarily run one.  There’s a lot Diane and I want to do this summer and I can’t be too serious about my training and do all the things we want to do.  I’m still going to try and get in all my miles every week, but if it doesn’t happen, I’m not going to get upset.

My next step is to decide what marathon I want to run and I think I’m leaning towards the Detroit Free Press International Marathon.  I’m from Detroit so if I actually do book a flight there and don’t run the marathon for any reason, I can at least go back and visit family and friends.  If I do run the marathon, it will be interesting to see how I do at sea level since I live and train here in Denver.  The marathon itself goes from Detroit, crosses the bridge over the Detroit River into Windsor, Canada, and comes back thru the tunnel under the Detroit River.  It sounds pretty cool.  I’m going to try to talk my 2 sons, Jason and Michael, into doing it with me, or at least do the  half marathon.  There are the biggest wimps and losers in the world if they don’t.

I did the Run the Republic race this past Sunday in downtown Denver at the tallest building in the Rocky Mountain region which consisted of running (or walking) up 53 flights of stairs. I really didn’t know what to expect and I had no game plan at all. I figured that I would just play it by ear and see how it goes. It wasn’t like I wanted to beat any particular time or anything, I just wanted to say that I DID IT! For the most part, I took 2 steps at a time, but not at a very fast pace. I didn’t think I was doing too bad, because only 2 people passed me and they looked like they were about 18 years old, and I have kids older than that. I passed a bunch of people and there were quite a few that were really sucking wind. We had staggered start times and a runner would go every 7 seconds so there wasn’t too bad of a crowd on the steps. As I got near the end, I figured that I would run up the last 3 floors. HA. My lungs were burning, and my legs felt like jello. I was just glad that it was coming to an end. It was nice at the finish line because they had cheerleaders there handing out water and your medals. Or maybe I was hallucinating at that point. It didn’t matter. I finished and conquered the 1,098 steps and lived to tell about it. My time was 11 minutes and 49 seconds and I finished 526th out of 1,877. The average time was 15:39 and I would say that the average age was under 30 years old. All in all, I was pleased with my effort.

The day before this run, I ran 14 miles at an easy pace. My overall was 9:05 per mile. I took it real easy the first 9 miles, and then did 4 miles at a 8:00 per mile pace before finishing the last mile at about a 9:30. It’s funny but I sweated more doing the steps for less than 12 minutes, than I did for the whole 14 mile run. My only complaint about the stair climbing/running, is that there was no beer at the end. Sheesh.

The Denver Marathon was by far the worst weather I have ever run in. I’ve run in colder weather, but never cold and rain. A lot of people didn’t show up and there were quite a few that didn’t finish. There were about 1350 runners that finished, and I beat just over half of them. I wasn’t happy with my time so it looks like I’ll be running another one come spring time