Rim Rock 2007

I would have posted this Sunday, but the WiFi at the coffee shop stopped working. Then I tried again Monday, but the same thing. I suspect they periodically turn off the WiFi to get rid of anyone staying very long, and then pretend they don't know what happened or how to reset the router. Whatever - it's their store.

The new Rim Rock race director did a fine job.

The hotel did not. Their software that controls reservations was changed a couple of days before the race. The three confirmation numbers I had were changed by the update. Two of the women called the hotel to stick their names under my name, but instead, one was typed over my name. So when everyone arrived, it appeared that we had only two rooms. Because of this, two of our peeps got their own room. Then it was discovered that one of the women's names had replaced my name, but the hotel said it was too late for cancellations and my credit card would be charged. Now wait! So if anyone were to claim they were in my party, and you type their name over mine but neglect to change the credit card, then anyone can free-load on my credit card? Yep.
Golly, so sorry I gave my debit card and their system won't take debit cards. Try charging a revoked card. So we thought we ended up with two rooms but ended up with four. What a clusterfu@%! And it wasn't my fault so there was no way I was going to end up paying because the hotel's software and personnel created a huge problem.
I didn't get too worked up. I told her to sell my now-extra room to some poorly-organized runner that comes in at the last minute. Sure enough, that's what happened. All's well that ends well.

My first blog video clip!


Scott P drove my CR-V and shuttled most of us to the start. He had a significant ankle injury trail biking the day before and had a rugby game scheduled for after the race. There was no way he was able to run 22.5 miles.
At the start, I ran into several friends, including Kassandra (from Leadville) and Anita F (from everywhere).

My chief goal was to finish without disintegrating, since running the race in my condition was really kind of reckless. I took my new 5mp camera to help get my mind out of competition-gear and into relax-and-have-fun gear.

The weather was PERFECT! Image that! The weather is usually uncomfortably cold and either foggy or drizzly, but this year was great.

I started out slow, and lost time trying to figure out my camera, which was not taking pictures. It was stuck on movie mode. In fact, the switch has a bad habbit of slipping into movie mode all the time. I think I need a modification of the duct tape kind.

At mile 9, I realized a sharp pain on my right foot. That's the one that stress fractured last year, but the pain seemed to be on top. I stopped and loosened my laces, but I don't think that was the cause. Loosening did help, but it took until mile 17 for the pain to simmer down. I was paranoid that it was blowing into a new, serious injury. When I tried walking, my left knee hurt. When I ran, my right foot hurt. So I decided I'd rather hurt fast than hurt slow, so I kept running a moderate rate. I seem to remember at some point last week the top of my foot itched and I tried to scratch it through my shoe and couldn't, so I kind of pounded it with the heel of my other foot. That left no pain at the time, but my guess is that - and tight laces - set me up for this problem.

With my camera and my foot, there was no way to be competitive. It totally goes against my personality to take it easy, but I kept telling myself to keep my eye on the prize - the LT100 next year. I didn't want to lose my winter the way I did the past two years in a row.

Our gang was Brandy, Denise, Karen, Darice, and Mike. Mike came in 8th at 2h33m? Karen finished in 2h56m. The rest of us trickled in much later.
Anita F was way behind me most of the way, but at mile 18 she blew by me. Geez, I've never seen her run so fast. With 4.5 miles left, she past me and managed to finish nearly a mile ahead of me. I wasn't even tired and still couldn't hold her pace. I did, however, have a very long sprint at the end.

Anita F and I then ran the extra 1.1 miles to Fruita Advnetures for the post-race party. As in past years, they had great beer and pizza.
I won a whole container of HEED Mandarin Orange at the raffle. I like the electrolytes in HEED, but overall, I prefer old-fashioned Gatorade. I've been mixing Gatorade and R4, so I just mixed the HEED in with my other stuff when I got home.

The race was a totally great time. Peter V won. Bernie B was in Japan.

Carpooling back to Denver, we stopped off at Glenwood Springs for the hot springs. Darice showed us what a talented diver she is. Very amazing. Very graceful and amazing. Oh, I thought my heart was going pitter-patter but then I realized it was everyone's feet on the concrete.
I saw a woman at the pool that looked EXACTLY like my sister in Texas. It freaked me out. I told Mike she was probably looking at me so much because I probably look just like her brother. So she came over. She just ran Rim Rock - and, yes, I look just like her brother.

Back at home, I had to finally sigh with relief. What a whirlwind week of flying, Vegas, work, running, carpooling, pooling, and finally home again. But it was worth it.