Yes, yes, the Heart and Sole Half and 10K was indeed in JUNE!!! O. M. G. That’s a long time ago! Were at the beginning of September and I haven’t written about a June race!?! Bad Blogger! BAD!

I’m actually going to keep this short since this was so long ago!

I hadn’t planned on running this race but it was a big deal in the Boulder area and a lot my friends were running it. I was debating between doing the 10k or the half. On one hand, I had to get in a long run that weekend and knew that registering for a race would force me to do it. But on the other hand, the half was kinda expensive come race day. I ended up doing the 10k with plans to either “bandit” the extra miles (the half was the 10K loop twice) or just run extra miles elsewhere on my own.

I didn’t end up bandit-ing the half, I just ran my 10K, ate and then ran (literally) into a friend that was running around the area for training, not for the race. I picked up my 5 extra miles with him running around the area. Not going to lie, that was a pretty good idea of his to just run where a race was because he didn’t need to bring water with him. He just “fueled up” at the race itself! If I recall, he was in for like 15 miles that day, and no, he didn’t “steal” anything, just had water.

As for the event itself:

Overall 4/5:

Definitely fun. I knew a lot of the people putting on the race. The Boulder Running Company put on the Heart and Sole and from repping 3W Races at the Boulder Running Company’s Wednesday fun run, I have gotten to know the workers. Why not a full 5/5? Just because it wasn’t anything spectacular. Just a regular ol’ road race.

Race Organization: 5/5

Nothing to complain about there! But then again, it was so long ago…. Just kidding! Everything was awesome. Plenty of course marshals, plenty of volunteers, plenty of everything.

Cost: 3/5

So, if you registered early, it was an average race cost. But race day, the prices were sky high. I can’t remember the actual price, but that’s what deterred me from running the half.

Post Run: 5/5

There was so many booths and so much food! You also got a free beer at a pub that was right on the corner of the finish line. There was PANCAKES… you all know how much I like pancakes from my Ragnar post! One of my favorite things from the post-race “party” was one of the booths was playing a really fun game. I believe it was by Smart Wool socks and they were handing out stickers to people, each with a number. Now, two stickers had the same number and were given, at random, to two different people. The idea is to walk around the expo area to find your matching number and you each get a free pair of socks. I was OBSESSED with finding my number….. and I never did! I did, however, help others find their numbers. While I was eating my pancakes, I was looking at people as they passed by looking for my number. I happened to catch people walking that were matching, but they had no idea. I yelled out their numbers and both people turned and looked. I pointed to each person and they were matched!

If only dating were that easy, huh??

Course: 3/5

It was a sort of difficult course. There was a bunch of up-hills, which would normally be fine, it really wasn’t too bad. However, this course was basically the Bolder Boulder backwards. All on streets and all streets that I had just run a month or so before.

My Race: 5/5

Now here’s where it gets exciting, Ladies and Gentlemen! For being a relatively up hill course and just randomly deciding to race that morning, I didn’t expect any superb performance. I didn’t look at the course profile ahead of time. I didn’t look at the map either. I just ran when I was told to run.

I felt like I was pushing it pretty hard, but not to the point of complete exhaustion. There was one point that I had just finished a down hill, knowing I had to be sorta near the end, and this steep hill just pops up from around the corner. I audibly cursed and said something like, “Are you kidding me!?” But I still charged up the hill.

I rounded another corner, back to the familiar street to where we started, but then the course turned left, and I wondered how much further did we really have!?

With a right turn, I saw the finish coral. Turning right (again) I was finally under the finish line. I looked at the clock: I was super close to my 10k PR! I grabbed some water and went to the results table. All they had posted was gun time, and I was about 2 seconds slower than my PR! (My previous PR was 51:00) Half proud but half sad I didn’t just beat it, I wandered around the expo area.

Later that evening, I checked the results on my phone. It turned out that my chip time was 50:27! That’s right, I beat my previous PR by 33 seconds! For being a two-year old PR and that the course was hot and hilly, I was so proud! I would love to see what I could on a flat course (and maybe at sea level!).

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