Bloomsday - RunOther

I had to stand and wait for the start for about 15 minutes before the gun then for another 15 minutes after the gun. They start in waves to avoid course congestion, which is a HUGE improvement over the old free-for-all. Being crammed in with the other people waiting is not conducive to a good warm-up, so I ran kind of easy for the first half mile or so.

Once I kind of settled in, I was able to run a little harder. The first hill out of the river valley was ok and I actually passed some people. The second hill through the cemetaries was a long grind and harder than my winter training runs on the same course, and the last hill, "Doomsday", was a lot harder than the training runs. It surprised me, but thinking back it probably shouldn't have. I haven't done any hills since I got hurt at the end of the winter and was running at 'race pace'. I really wanted to keep running though, since I'd never run this entire race. Because of the number of people on the course, I was always passing and being passed, but it felt good to be able to keep running up the hills.

Once at the top I expected my HR to come down but it never did. I drank some at each water station but I think because it was warmer than it has been since last summer that I was a little low on fluids.

The last 2.5 miles were hard - HR was high, RPE was high and I couldn't seem to slow down enough to bring it all down. It was ok since I was fairly close to the end at that point.

The finish was downhill for a block or so - yay for downhills!

Finished feeling pretty good but pretty much was done running at that point. Good hard effort all the way to the end.

Eat more before the run and maybe carry a flask with gel/water mix. I ran out of fuel for the last couple of miles and it was tough to keep going. Train more hills without getting hurt.

After the finish there was a long walk back to the park. This was a good cool-down. I sucked down some gatorade and walked over to find my brother, who did great on his corporate cup team. This event is a wonderful people-watching opportunity, too. Not sure if I'd call my ride home a cool down as it is mostly uphill. :)


Training and not enough fuel and water.


This is such a fun run to do. There are tons of people (42K!) of all ages, shapes and abilities. They start us in waves which means there isn't as much congestion on the course (hooray!). There are tons of volunteers and everything seems very well organized. Kudos to the Bloomsday Road Runners Assn which puts it on every year.