Last Sunday, I ran my first race since my injury over 4 months ago and all things considered, it went really well! I ran the 15K distance in the Denver Hot Chocolate 5K/15K on October 5th and am happy to report that my leg didn’t flare up or give me any issues! It was an absolutely perfect Denver day and the perfect conditions for running – I felt exhilarated the whole time to just be running. I felt like I was finally back!
I laid out all of my gear the night before because it was going to be a pretty early morning with a 4:30 AM wake up call.
The hoodie came with the race entry and then I bought the long sleeve purple shirt at the race expo. The hoodie is really nice and I will definitely get some good use out of that in the upcoming winter months of running. I made a last minute decision the next morning to just wear the long sleeve shirt and leave my hoodie behind because it just wasn’t cold enough to bother with it, gear check it, etc.
I was standing at the lightrail station near my house by 5:35 AM to catch the train downtown. For $8 and not having to deal with traffic downtown for the race, this is definitely the way to go.
I was downtown at the race site by about 6:20. The 15K wasn’t scheduled to start until 7:50, so I definitely had plenty of time, which is better than cutting it close and barely getting there in time. I was loving the early morning light on the urban Denver landscape and got a few really beautiful pictures.
The 5K was at 7 (I know, a lot of us were kind of scratching our heads on that one too – why the 5K first?? If anyone has any official insight on why they do that a lot of the time, I would actually be very interested in understanding), so I lined up to watch that get started and then walked over to the finish line to see the first finishers coming in just under 17 minutes! The first two people to finish were a boy and a girl who I later found out are siblings – how cool??
I milled around a little bit more, made some small talk with people, and then got lined up in my starting corral at about 7:40.
I was in the third corral, so I didn’t cross the start line until about 7:54, but then I was off! I haven’t run a race downtown prior to this before, so while certainly not my favorite setting, an urban run did have its charms and intrigues.
I felt really strong for the first 5K, still good overall for the 10K plus a little, but struggled a touch with the last two miles or so. I could tell a difference from getting back into strength training, so I was encouraged by that, but this was by far the most I have run on a hard surface since my injury, and my joints were not being shy about letting me know that! I finished strong though and my official time was 1:39:28.
The finishers medal was pretty cool and we also got a finishers mug. I was disappointed with the mug because I thought it was going to be a real, oversized porcelain mug, but it was just a cheap plastic mug filled with junk food, ha. I ate the banana and drank some of the hot chocolate, but ended up throwing most of it away because I didn’t feel like filling up on all of those simple processed sugars. Kind of a disappointment, but oh well.
I hung around for a short while in Civic Center Park, just taking in the scenery, people watching, and relishing in what was just a solid run overall and a great way to come back from an injury. I won’t jump to sign up for this race again in the future, mostly just because of the setting, but I did really enjoy the 15K distance, so that may be what tempts me again in the future. I’m also going to seek out other races at this distance because it is the perfect challenge between the 10K and half marathon.
Gotta love these gorgeous autumn Denver days – could this be any more perfect??
Now I’m 4 weeks out from my trail half marathon and looking forward to a completely different race experience coming up with that.
Happy Saturday!
Becky
UPDATE: I have one pretty big gripe about this race that most of you probably won’t be able to relate to. I am not on Facebook. I have never been nor do I ever plan to be on Facebook. Just…ech, don’t get me started. So, when I get an email earlier this week from the race saying “your pictures are available!!!” I was excited to check them out. Well, it led me to a FB landing page and said “Like this page to see your pictures!”. Grr. No, not cool. After stewing about it for several days, I finally asked Neal if he could do it through his account so I could at least see the pics. Well we “Liked” it (rabble rabble) and when I entered my bib number, there weren’t any results and a note that said “we were unable to tag you in any pictures”, so they’re also relying on me being on FB to “tag” me and I therefore have no official race photos from this race. Nevermind that my bib was clearly visible so they know who I am. No, no I have to be on FB to be tagged. I at least got to view official photos from every other race I have run and for the cost of this race, this actually really pisses me off. Okay, rant over. You have been informed 🙂
Lace Up And Live Life 
October 11, 2014 at 8:34 pm
At the Austin race, they started the 5K first too. And yeah, the plastic finisher mug was disappointing. At least your race wasn’t half off-road, rocky trail like ours. Ugh.
October 12, 2014 at 3:08 pm
Yea I remember reading your Hot Chocolate race recap and feeling disappointed for you that it was clearly a crappy race experience. I would like to think, based on my experience with the race, it was perhaps an isolated experience in Austin, but sometimes you just get soured on a race/its organizers, which is totally understandable. I had a positive experience, but I didn’t feel like it was a race I will rush to sign up for in future years. Just too many others out there! 🙂
October 11, 2014 at 11:56 pm
Congrats on a great race!!
October 12, 2014 at 3:11 pm
Thanks, Andrea! It was a good day 🙂
October 13, 2014 at 12:07 pm
Great race! 1:39 is an awesome time!
October 19, 2014 at 2:46 pm
Thank you so much! It felt like a really solid comeback from my leg issues 🙂