Steamboat Springs Marathon

So I made it.

Chris left very early Saturday to get a site at one of the more scenic campgrounds, but the spaces were all taken.
Then he went to Christy Sports and registered me.
I picked up is better-looking half and arrived about 1pm.
We ended up camping at Steamboat Lake right near the marathon start. Chris ran the 10K, so he was burdened with a long, tedious drive to Steamboat Springs. Sorry, Chris, but thanks so much for putting up with that, and driving me back to my car afterwards.

Brandy near the finish...
Brandy and Chris after the race...
Thanks for all the photos, too, Chris. They're awesome.

Last year, the weather was ideal and I ran very hard and did very good - for me. In 2006, 3:51:35 @ 72nd place and 9th in my age-group.
This year, I took 21 seconds per mile off my pace!
My 2007 time, 3:42:20 @ 67th place and 6th in my age-group. It will be extremely hard for me to top that next year!
I don't know how many started or finished, but last year there were 425 finishers. So 67th places me well up in the pack, but still very far from elite.

There was a snafu. The 2nd aid station was GONE! This was a critical bomb on many people's race. One of the Denver Trail Runners was extremely pissed-off. I like the guy, and I understand being somewhat perturbed, but my attitude is distance runners need to be prepared for out-of-the-ordinary stuff and just DEAL WITH IT!
Example: I brought a hand-held water bottle. I've been told by some that I don't need a bottle because they have aid stations every 3 to 4 miles. Hah!! Try "up to 7 miles" if they forget to set one up! So the missing aid station wasn't a factor for me.
Instead of throwing two Dixie cups of Gatoraid or water into my bottle each aid station, I threw in three. Since your body can't absorb water as fast as you expend it, there's no way to catch back up, but I tried.
Where some runners screwed up, is they decided the first aid station (at only about 2 miles) was too early, so they didn't load up. They opted to wait for the aid at mile 3.83. So those runners actually had to go about 9 miles without water!
Hey, it's up to each racer to decide on thier strategy and plan. mine worked, their's didn't. Boo-hoo. I'll be glad to hear the whining. It useful lessons that help me have the right plan without - hopefully - experiencing the mistakes of others. So whining is fine. Just don't go pointing fingers too angrily at the race directors.

Hey, where'd my fat belly go?
After Chris and Brandy headed back to Denver, I spent 4 hours soaking at Strawberry Hot Springs. I started by wading out into the ice-cold river and stayed there for just over 20 minutes. Then I sat down and let my legs warm up slowly for about 5 minutes before plunging into the hot bath. I went back and forth about 6-7 times, but I only spent 3-5 minutes in the cold after the initial freeze.
What a difference! At first, I was so sore I couldn't walk normal down the stairs. By the time I left, I could walk the steps fine.

I ate pizza at Beau Jo's Pizza after that and then camped inside my CR-V on Rabbit Ears Pass.
Breakfast was at The Shack. They were busy but the service was still totally grand! Pancakes, bacon, scrambled eggs, hash browns, coffee, and lots of water.

It was the perfect weekend where everything went according to plan and according to hopes.

After my powerful premonition Thursday night, I had an adrenalin surge when an ambulance and Emergency Response vehicles blew by me half-way through the race. Apparently someone collapsed. When he did, he cracked his head on the pavement. I don't have any idea what his status is. I only hope he's fine.

On the way home, on the two-lane highway to Kremmling, some guy driving a pickup (overloaded with a topper, and also pulling a boat) couldn't go the speed limit. He was going the opposite direction. A trucker passed him and barely had time to pull back in. Either the semi-truck trailer nearly hit the pickup, or the wind-slam nearly blew it off. Whatever, he ended up nearly tipping over right into me! Holy-schamoly! I don't know how that top-heavy piece of road-debris stayed up-right!
And I had two speed-demons that had just come up on me and were tail-gating in preparation to pass. That would've been one hellacious multicar accident! I would have been squashed in a vice from front and rear no matter what I did, if that pickup truck had tipped over.

Makes me wonder. Quantum physics says that at any one moment, several possible realities are actually occuring. Quantum physics also says that linear time, as we experience it, is actually an illusion. Was my premonition a realization of one of those realities which actually occured? Some people like to call deja vu and premonitions some sort of super-natural phenomena. I call it reality. Quantum physics is just starting to figure some of it out.
I guess one of my realities died today.
This other one is sitting back drinking chamomile tea at Kaladi's hitting the "Publish Post" button.