One jewel of the Triple Crown in hand (Garden of the Gods 10-mile Run) I pursue the next, the Summer Round-Up.

Since every successful running team needs someone to run the anchor leg, I am officially declaring myself the PikesPeakSports.us Triple Crown Runners anchor man because I run as if I’m dragging an anchor. I don’t know what teammate JT did while he was waiting around for me and others to finish (read a book, had breakfast, drove to Denver and back) but I sure appreciated his support and encouragement as I approached the finish line. It’s great being on a team, especially with such classy people.

Actually I was very pleased with my run, completing the 10-miles in 1:48:20 or about 10:50 per mile. I probably could have pushed harder but it was a good, consistent pace, very comfortable, never labored or felt tired. In fact I was having such a good time, enjoying the beautiful morning that I had a big silly grin on my face for the first couple of miles. Until that 8-year old went zipping by me as if I was in a rocking chair. Naw, he just made my grin broader. Thanks to Tim Bergsten's "Podium Coffee" (guaranteed to make you a winner) for the jump start at 5:45 a.m. It had a long lasting effect, as I was still chewing on the grounds at mile 5 (no, seriously Tim, it was mighty good). Finished 24 out of 39 in my age group (that would be the Paleozoic to Pleistocene group). Checking results I could've moved up about 3 places by being just a couple of minutes faster but as my Daddy always said, “If wishes were horses, beggars could ride” so I’m going to take pride in and enjoy this accomplishment. I had never run this far in an organized event and never thought I would. I was a little over 3 miles into the run when I saw the leaders coming back. According to my "on the run" calculations, they were reeling off miles of about 5 and a half minutes. I just laughed at them. "Boy are they going to be tired," I thought. How silly to run that fast instead of my nice, measured pace.  I found it to be a huge benefit to have run the course 3 times in training. There were no surprises, you know where every hill is, what’s around the next bend and you know that once you’ve covered 7 miles there aren’t any real significant hills left, there’s a fair amount of downhill and you basically have just a 5K left.

Speaking of the 5K, props to teammate Sharon’s son Mike who took first in his division in the 5K. Imagine rolling out of bed at that hour and clocking a 22:15 in the 5K. Ahh to be young again. As George Bernard Shaw wrote, “Youth is wasted on the young.”