Thursday, May 15, 2014

Bolder Boulder #8: New gear, the Blevins BB Racers and training on the track

Maddie at Bolder Boulder 2011





Monday May 26, Maddie, Nora and I along with the 20 other members of the Blevins BB Racers team will be lining up in Boulder to run America's #1 10K.  This will be the 8th year in a row that Maddie and I have run the race in Boulder to celebrate Memorial Day and the beginning of summer.

Race packets arrived yesterday and I'm excited to add another Bolder Boulder t-shirt to my collection.  The good people at Bolder Boulder this year asked me to test some gear from race sponsor Helly Hanson and post my thoughts here.  The gear includes a pair of shorts, a tech-T and a long sleeve tech jersey.
                  
Its always fun to get some free gear, and this is all good stuff.  The shorts are long enough that I can wear them to track practice and the tops are a nice material with a contoured fit.  Helly Hanson is also supporting the BBRacers Club by providing jackets for the coaches.  

Last night was the first Tuesday Night Track workout at CSU with the amazing Jane Welzel.  We ran 6 x 800 meters with a 400 recovery after each.  We all started the first one together to find runners of similar pace.  I only made it on to the track for the tail end of Jane's instructions, so I ran the first 800 with no warm-up.  It was rough and I slogged through a 3:09. I teamed up with Dennis and Mike and we groaned at the prospect of running 5 more.  We did it though coming through at 3:09, 3:13, 3:05, 3:07 and then Mike asked me to make the call on #6.  I said that I'd love to think we could go sub 3:00, but I didn't think I had that in me.  "How about another 3:05? . . . Let's try to get as close to 3 minutes as possible."  Mike was in and took off.  We went out hard and I started to fade on the back stretch of the second.  Mike pulled out in to lane 2 and encouraged me forward.  I pushed around the final turn and we finished in 2:57.  Nothing stellar, but definitely the fastest (only) 800 I've run in the past year.  It was a good night at the track- great to see and catch up with some friends and good to be humbled a bit by my current fitness level.  Lots of work to do to get back to true racing fitness,  but I am on the right track.