I was pretty sure that I would be unable to participate in this years Basic Boulder Mountain Marathon (otherwise known as an end of season BTR social run), but at the last minute, got confirmation that I could get out for a few hours. Knowing that a few hours would not be enough to complete the entire circuit, I elected to stash my car at the Cragmoor TH (major thanks to Brandon for picking me up) which enabled me to at least join in some of the fun.
We started off from Phil's house around 9am, where we headed toward Flagstaff at a very casual/conversational pace and it was great to catch up with friends new and old. It was a little crazy how many prolific runners were out to celebrate running in Boulder on such a fine day. Tony Krupicka, Dave Mackey, Scott Jurek, Geoff Roes and Nick Clark to name a few, plus more than a handful of very fast local guys and gals, too many to try to name.
Once we passed Flagstaff Road, Dave and I inadvertantly got a small gap on the group behind, but never deliberately upped the pace, as we were just cruising along at the high end of conversational pace (for me at least) but Dave was having no trouble, nor was Tony, whose voice we could hear chatting away a little ways back over all the other voices.
Dave and I topped out on Green together, less than a minute ahead of the group. I asked if he wanted to wait, but he elected to keep on going, so I led the way back down. We kept a pretty casual pace down Green-Bear and Bear Canyon, just chatting away and joking a bunch, enjoying an absolutely perfect fall day. Once we hit the Mesa Trail, we headed South and at Shanahan, I said bye to Dave and another guy named Scott? that caught up to us and back tracked a bit to chat with the group behind. I got in front of Jurek and went along at the casual pace they were going, behind him was Geoff, Nick, Ryan Cooper, Johannes and a handful of guys I did not know. Before long, we caught up with Dave again who stopped for a nature break and we all just cruised along in sync to the Bluestem Trail, then down to the East end, where I very reluctantly had to bail at 10:55am, missing out on the ascent of Shadow Canyon/SoBo/Bear where I was guessing the intensity would pick up a bit.
Eager to get home and score points for being timely, the hardest running of the day was my trip back to the Cragmoor TH. I was pushing fairly hard and managed to get back there in 13 minutes.
Though I was a little bummed to bail early (as I was feeling great and wanted to go the entire distance) I was elated to get out for part of the run at least on such a perfect day. Cruising along with some of the superstars of the sport/great friends made for a day I will always remember.
