Garden of the Gods 10 Mile Run -- The "Perfect 10"
I ran the Garden of the Gods 10 Mile Run this morning. It's a great race in a beautiful setting and with the change this year to the course layout, it's better than ever! I should mention that the Garden of the Gods has been ranked the #1 park in the country and the #2 park in the world! This year the course was completely contained in the park
and it made for a wonderful race. I was concerned about the steep uphill just after mile 8, but it wasn't too bad.

As I was running I reminded myself that, while this race may have a steep hill near the end, the Pikes Peak Ascent has a really steep hill at the end, in the middle and at the beginning!
The weather was perfect. There were high clouds the entire time and they did an admirable job of keeping the sun off.

History
Of course my memory isn't that great and it's possible I've run the GofG Run sometime in the last 30 years, but, as I mentioned in my first blog, I think this is the first time I've run it since the early 1980's. I think only one of my Marmot teammates was even born at that time. This marmot thing is really making me feel old!
I've only ever run it when the start was on Garden of the Gods Road in front of Hewlett-Packard. I think there were about 10,000 runners in the race back then. I did my first GofG in just 70 minutes and change. I remember being disappointed that I couldn't break below
7 minutes/mile. Of course I probably weighed 50 lbs less than I do now. I'm just happy to finish these days. And I don't mind taking a break to enjoy the wildlife...

Bears and Marmots Collide
It was a scary day to be a marmot in the Garden! We ran up on a bear trying to get across the road. Luckily he was too distracted by all the runners to notice a little marmot like me. I stopped and took a series of photos of him as he tried to work out when it was going to be safe enough to run across the road. I thought "Hurry up you goofy bear. Don't you know I'm in a race here. I don't have all day!"

Carpe Dolore
I'm thinking I might not have really lived up to my new summer motto "Seize the Pain". My stomach was a bit queezy at one point around the 6-7 mile mark and I thought I might have to throw up. But it quickly passed and I finished the race with very little pain and suffering. I'll try harder in the next race.

This course really is the "Perfect 10"