Garden of the Gods 10-mile 2008

For my June race in 2008 I chose the Garden of the Gods 10 Mile in Manitou Springs. One of the main reasons I chose it, to be perfectly honest, was the fact that my younger sister lives in Colorado Springs, so I knew this would be an easy race for her to attend. (I know she felt bad about missing my finish at Greenland in April.) In fact, I would be sure of it because I would spend the night before the race at her place, and have her drive me there raceday morning!

As is quickly becoming my habit, I spent several weeks before the race studying the map of the course, paying particular attention to the elevation changes, to prepare myself for the route. I even watched the Google Maps flyover of the course (man this Internet is nifty!). I put together what I thought was a winning race strategy, much as I had with Canyonlands in March--11 minute miles for the first 2, 10 minute for the next 2, and 9 for the rest. I figured I could hold that pace, even over the steep climbs the first 4 miles promised.

Raceday morning was cloudy and chilly--perfect running conditions but not as great for standing around before the start of a race. I took what I hoped would be an easy warmup mile along the course. When I started to climb steadily before even reaching the quarter mile mark, I realized I would have to reevaluate my race strategy. I tacked on 30 seconds to the first mile and recalculated--I could still PR. I tacked on a minute--still good. In fact I realized I could add on as much as seven minutes and still set a PR. So I figured, 12, 12, 11 1/2, 11, 10 1/2, 10, 9, 9, 9, and 9. No problem. I was fueled up, I had a good idea of where the aid stations would be, I had gel packs, and of course adrenaline. Oh, if only I'd known.....

Spirits were high at the starting area, even when the race director announced that, due to unanticipated volume, the race would be starting 15 minutes late (looooong lines at the portajohns). My sister took a couple of nice pictures of me and wished me luck, and then finally the starting gun was fired.

Oh, I'm sorry, did I say "starting gun"? Yeah, I meant starting cannon. Yeah, cannon. That was a bit of a surprise for me. Pretty cool, though.

I started out nice and easy, keeping myself to my (newly revised) starting pace. That actually was easier than it has been in the past--the steep hills forced me to slow down, I had very little choice in the matter. In fact, I soon found that my goals of accelerating over the next few miles turned, one by one, into pipe dreams. By mile 3 I had revised my race strategy to "just keep running, try not to walk too much." Granted, the aid stations helped--partly because I could refuel, partly because they were manned by high school students. Not wanting to look like a wheezing old man in front of a bunch of kids is a surprisingly good motivator. I wonder if that makes me shallow.....

Another good motivator was at about mile 3, when I saw the first finishers coming back (mile 7 for them). Man those guys were fast! How can you not pick up your own stride when you see something like that?

The steepest climb was just at about mile 4.5, heading up to the highest point (appropriately enough, the aid station at that point was "Heaven"). Then the course turned onto a concrete path going through the Garden of the Gods park. I'd never been through there before. It's quite lovely, with beautiful rock formations and natural serenity. I'd be interested in going back at some point, to actually look at things. I was rather focused on running this time.

Coming out of the park we rejoined the road. The good news was, it was all downhill from here, relatively speaking of course. At least, the steep climb to "Heaven" was behind me, and I figured I could handle any upcoming hills, as I had already dealt with them (albeit going the other way). That is a nice thing about these kind of out-and-back courses--what goes up (in one direction) must come down (in the other). I was feeling pretty good in a "the worst is over" kind of way, so I started to open things up a little for mile 6, 7, and 8.

(The course, by the way, isn't strictly an out-and-back. It diverts from itself at a couple of points, so there are about 2 1/4 miles of one-way traffic.)

As I hit the last two miles I was feeling quite strong and increased my pace a little more, as I had been doing over the last few miles. I was no longer thinking about getting a PR (as I said before, I'd long since abandoned that idea), but was determined to make a strong showing nevertheless. When I hit mile 9 I picked it up even more. When I was about 1/4 mile away from the finish I could hear the crowd and even see the banners off to the left, and that spurred me on to a solid finishing kick. Raising my arms triumphantly as I crossed the line, hearing my name over the PA, I felt satisfied that I had run a solid race on a much more difficult than I had anticipated course. Now I know what to expect for next year.

Final time: 1:48:02.