Colfax Marathon Relay

I ran the Colfax Marathon Relay with a team of friends/co workers.  Darin, Raj, Jim and Carrie.
We were called the Crickets.  Because no-one would answer any questions about if we were running the relay or not.  Raj was the captain.

I ran the first leg, which was great, 6.5 miles total.  Nice early morning start on a sunny but cool day, in the 40's at the start.  Nice leg, 1 mile in the park, then 2.5 on Colfax down to the fire station at Speer and Colfax, through the fire station (very cool) and then 2 miles over to mile high on the Cherry Creek Bike Path, to Confluence park and then the about a mile on the Platte River Trail to mile high stadium.  Through the stadium and then exchange number one on the other side.

Cherry Crrek Trail about Mile 3

 Mile High Stadium near the 10k mark

I ran the 6.5 at my 10k pace, targeting sub 7, similar to the 5 mile Cherry Creek Sneak.  I felt good and did a little better than goal pace.  Ran the 6.5 in 45:00, just as I'd predicted.  I was very close to my 10K PR of 42:25 at the actual 10k mark which was just before mile high.

Our team did 3:34, came in 19th in our division which had over 250 teams.  Not bad given that most them only run a small amount.   Fun race, hung out a bit.  Also running were Jeff, Pete and Jill in the half and Bob in the full.  I saw him run through after the exchange, he was on a 7:45 pace and looked good, he held on for a 3:30:30.  Just 4 weeks after Boston.

Garmin Watch Data for Colfax Relay Leg 1

Bannister Mile

The group I run with downtown had our annual Bannister Mile at East High School Track at lunch on May 15, 2012.  We run a timed mile on the track.

This year I ran a 5:39.  Better than my goal of 5:45.   I felt good the entire race.  Started fast but got into a comfortable tempo pace.  I was in 4th place half of the race with the leaders (Matt, Scott and Tim) well out in front.  I felt kind of like I was running by myself, until  the 1000 meter mark and then I heard the breathing of Chris and Dave, battling like they used to in high school.  They passed me on the curve and I tucked in behind them trying to hold their pace.  With 100 meters to go, Dave was out of reach but Chris and I kicked down the stretch.  I nudged him out at the very end.  That felt good, we have had several close finishes over the years and he usually gets the win.

We did the 8X200 relay after, I was on Matt's team.  That was really fun with a couple of lead changes.
I was the 6th leg and we were behind when Caprera started running for the other team.  When I got the exchange from Bob I ran really hard trying to catch dave who had about 50 meters on me.  I ran past a bunch of PE students who were watching us run and they yelled chase him down, I kicked it and did not quite catch him but made up a lot of the gap.  Matt was our anchor so we won by 4 seconds.

When I got done I looked at my 200 split, it was 27 seconds, I was amazed.  That has to be a PR but I have not really timed myself on a 200 very much, event with intervals.  I remember racing Jay S in a 200 a few years ago and running about 32.

A fun race this year, Matt won with a 5:01.  Scott and Chipman joined us for another year after moving from downtown.  Dave Caprera organized the event, did the post race food and took the team picture.

Here's a link to the web site with the results and the group picture.

http://www.pickledprostates.com/2012/05/2012-bannister-mile-results.html