Lucky number 13? (Made sense when I originally wrote this and it was my 13th state). Not exactly. The title of this saga is “From PR to Proper Ass Kicking”.

Oregon went great, wonderful even, and it was a month ago. I felt like I was really improving as a runner and was ready for Colorado.

Turns out Colorado was ready for me too.

I was a bit worried the day before. There were ozone alerts and the air quality wasn’t great. Very hazy. Apparently smoke was blowing in from the fires in California. You could barely see the skyline around Denver (pictured below).

I’ve been told about how hard it is to run at altitude but honestly didn’t think much of it. I felt prepared. I’ve been getting in the miles, going to Body Pump and trying to limit candy …to about once a day. (That is quite the show of restraint). I had even cut back a bit (but just a bit) on caffeine. I hadn’t trained with an altitude mask or anything but felt like being in good shape and being a fairly experienced runner of over 1.5 years now, I could handle it.

The picture above is from the start of the race. The lady to my left ended up placing in the over 65 age division. I want to be her when I grow up.

So I have a bad habit of not checking out the race course prior to registering for it, and sometimes I don’t look at all before the race. Well this little gem had a 600+ foot incline. The first 70 minutes were spent tackling that before reaching a peak altitude of almost 6,000 feet.

The picture above is from the first mile. I was blissfully happy and unaware of the pain awaiting me just around the corner.

Here’s a view at the top of one of the hills/mountains. I was enjoying a brisk walk at that point.

It was truly a gorgeous race course. I took some time to snap a few photos (aka to rest while looking like I was just admiring the scenery).

I didn’t perform as well as I wanted time wise (2:18), but in hindsight my performance wasn’t terrible considering the altitude and the climb. I think sometimes as a runner you review your performance entirely by your finish time but there are definitely other ways to define success.

And at the end, I actually was a winner. I crossed the finish line and was the proud winner of a large pizza. Medals are great and all but a whole PIZZA! Pretty classy Colorado.

I honestly don’t have much else to say about Colorado other than I don’t plan to tackle that state again any time soon. I definitely was humbled by the challenge which I think is actually good. I like being reminded of my limitations and knowing that I can work to overcome them in the future. That’s how I learn. Also, it makes the experience of the wins that much sweeter.

“Running is not about being better than someone else. It’s about being better than you used to be.” – some person on Pinterest