A recap for May 20, 2018 – The Colfax Marathon
Three thirty AM. That’s when the alarm “radar’d” from my phone. A while back, my mom and I sent Kerry a stuffed animal sloth to cheer her as her private meet and greet with Denver Zoo’s real live sloth had been postponed several times. He kept me company in her spare bedroom and I have to say as I gazed on the clock, I really thought that sloth had the right idea. Sleep in, have some grapes, go back to bed. It was awfully tempting.
But I wasn’t quite ready to buy the web domain of slothkevinsloth.com. So there was running to do, sinus infection and stuffy head be damned. I hoped as I often do when ailing that a shock and awe 26.2 miles might sweat out the germs.
And so I drove to Denver’s City Park for the 6 am start of the race.
It was a chilly morning, 45 degrees and not slated to get much warmer even when the sun got up. And true to forecast, it did not get above fifty. It even drizzled as a cold wind cut through to my core for miles at a time.
Still in the end it was a good run through Denver… albeit the mile high altitude took a rough toll from step one straight on through to step 40,000-ish. I was glad Kerry had taken me on that St Mary’s Glacier Hike or else the huffing and puffing and wheezing might have REALLY worried me.
And I was also super glad to have Kerry brave the elements and cheer me on at mile 6 and again hours later around mile 22. She was a trooper and it made for a moment to look forward to, to enjoy if only for a moment, and then to recall for a mile or two afterward. A useful distraction from the wheezing, be it from the air up there or the stuffiness in there of my sinuses. I’m saving that photo for the end of this post.
The visual highlight was probably running through Mile High Stadium… er, I mean, Sports Authority Field at Mile High.
We actually got to do it twice – once on the way out to Colfax and once on the way back.
Kerry and her friends had joked with me about Colfax proper, warning me that it was a bit of the Meaner Streets of Denver. She even said knowing my penchant for murder hotels so wondered which of the potentially hourly charge motels I would have booked had I not stayed with her. They mentioned The Aristocrat so I giddily texted a few shots of it to Kerry as I ran past.
Beyond the Colfax limits, though, there were a number of parks and water views, and admittedly more than a few miles of surface streets. As cold as it was I tried to say thank you to the smiling volunteers. They were stuck in the cold getting splashed by water cups occasionally bobbled by runners… or at least occasionally bobbled by yours truly.
Here then are some pics from the course.
I missed grabbing photos with a few folks I saw along the way… the biggest surprises are being one of my shipmates from the Antarctica Marathon! Vernon Chapman — if you’re reading this, I’d like to tell you something about the race using a saying I learned from Kerry this weekend: you slayed it like a dragon!
In the end, we wound up back where we started. City Park was abuzz with 200+ charity group tents who had fielded runners in the marathon, relay, half, or ten miler.
Lots of folks, lots of food… but my stomach per usual post run was a bit wonky. Still, there’s always room for a chocolate creamsicle!
Oh, and for statistics sake, it looks like I ran a 3:28:52.
I fortunately didn’t need the ambulance but kinda wanted it given this freakin’ sinus infection that just won’t die.
Kerry, one of my go-to medical advisors, thinks at this point it’s viral and I really might need to cut back on running and just sleep it out of me… but she also knows telling me that is like trying to tell a quokka to be unhappy. It’s just not in our natures.
Haven’t heard of the quokka? Here… and, you’re welcome.
We grabbed a delightful brunch before I headed to the airport. I posted this to Facebook and I think it sums up the weekend nicely:
