Welcome to another way-past-date race recap! The week following the Trail Ragnar in Snowmass, CO, I did another race with 3W Races. This race actually took place on June 15th and benefited the Arvada Community Food Bank.

The Father’s Day Classic held in Arvada, CO was my first 10k race in a looooong time. Or at least the first one in a long time that I was actually trying hard. I really wanted to race this one, you know what I mean, runners?

I wasn’t entirely sure how well I would do. I had already had a pretty rough/fun/busy weekend before Sunday hanging out with some friends. And to top that off, I had re-started a lifting routine a few weeks before. The Wednesday  before the race I did a bunch of straight leg dead lifts, knowing I would be sore, but thinking that it would be gone by Sunday.

I was wrong. Sunday rolled around and I was still very sore and very drained. I did make sure to foam roll the night before and warm up before the race.

I had stayed out pretty late the night before, so I barely rolled out of bed before making it to Arvada. I definitely did not do my normal pre-race routine. I don’t even remember if I had my coffee!

I got to the race and being an ambassador, I saw that they needed some help with registration, so I just jumped in a for a few before race time started.

Finally it was race time. I lined up with the rest of the racers, plugged in my iPod and started running!

All the 5K and 10K people started at the same time, so it was really hard to judge my pace since the 5K people were going a bit faster. I’m also a “competition counter”, as I call it. As I’ve been getting faster I pay attention to how many people, mostly women, are in front of me. It’s especially easy for out and back courses or courses with a lot of turn arounds.

This course had a lot of turn arounds and I was watching how many people were in front of me. With the 5K and 10K being mixed, I wasn’t sure of my competition, so I just kept trudging along, my muscles screaming at me!

Finally, we got to the point where the 5K people went right and the 10K people went left. We ended up on a local trail called the Ralston Creek Trail that was surrounded by shady trees and nice houses. We ran up to a point, turned around and ran back to where we separated from the 5K people. That last mile back to the meet up point was torture! It felt way longer than a mile! I also was thinking that even after the meet up spot, we would have another half mile or so left.

Fortunately, after that was only a quarter-mile or less. Phew! I rounded the last corner and brought it in!

Little did I know, a lot of the competition I was counting had turned right with the 5K people and I was 3rd overall female! My time wasn’t my PR, but it was pretty competitive compared to my PR. I was extremely happy with my results.

After I was done running, I grabbed some food (barely eating it because I didn’t feel too well after running that hard) and waiting for the rest of my 3W Ambassador friends to cross the finish line. I chatted with a gentleman that had been right behind me for the entire race, right up until the last mile. He jokingly said, “I didn’t think you were ever going to let me pass you!” He was a new 3W Runner and we chatted about how he had just done an ultra ragnar team in Chicago. I love meeting new people at races and now he’s a regular at our events!

The event finished up with a fun mile run. Being father’s Day, there was also a car show at the same location, Apex (a local recreation center that I used to work at as a teenager).

 

After it was all said and done, I helped take down everything and clean up and headed to a local brewery with a few fellow ambassadors!

All in all, great day! I highly recommend this race in the future (the link is at the top of the page), although it is a 3W Race, so I’m a little biased! But, what can ya’ say! It’s a great company run by great people!