The Adventures of Cowboy Hazel

My running here in Colorado hasn’t gone exactly as planned. I took Thursday off, but was feeling good on Friday and wanted to see if the elevation would really hinder my running as much as everyone said it would. It did. I ran just over four miles at an appalling 7:20 pace and felt like I was about to die the whole time. My throat was so sore and dry and my body just wanted to quit. I went back to the same lake (I found a beautiful lake with a 1.02 mile path around it in Broomfield) yesterday, but the wind was fierce and I only finished three laps because I was completely out of steam. I did, however, improve my pace at least to 7:08 miles. Any thoughts that I had of breaking my P.R. at the Bolder Boulder have disappeared. I’m just hoping to be able to finish the race in a somewhat respectable time. Regardless of how I finish, though, I know the race will be fun. This is going to be the first time I’ve been back to Boulder in almost two years and it will be the fourth time I’ve ran the race (2000, 2001, and 2003 were the other years). My dad is going to jog/walk the race too, so it will be fun to see him come across the finish line.

Other than the elevation kicking my ass, the trip back home has gone very well so far. I’ve been to two Rockies games and am going to a third today. Coors Field is such a great ballpark — I love being out there. Then, after the game today, I’m meeting up with my friend Stoltz who I haven’t seen in a couple years. The rest of this week is going to be pretty much filled with work. Even though I’m out here, I’m definitely not on vacation. I have a long list of stuff to get done both for Precision and for the Flopalongs project. Next weekend, though, I’ll be able to take a break and we’re hopefully going to go up to the mountains for a bit. I should finally get a chance to play tennis with my sister too (something which never quite happened this weekend). All in all, it’s very nice to be out of the city for a bit.