I wanted to run the first few miles conservatively but found my legs to be very sluggish and slow. First mile was at 6:45 but ran harder with the second mile a 6:25 for 13:10, still a good bit behind where I wanted to be. I found myself working harder and wanted to just maintain the effort and see how I felt later in the race. Hit the half-way mark at 41:09. After that I actually found myself picking runners off one by one. I was a little nervous that my run would fall apart later in the race but I felt good the whole way. The only problem I had was that a hole in my right sock ended up grabbing my second toenail and kept pulling it up and down with each step, from about the eighth mile to the finish. Although from the eleventh mile to the end was fairl painful I just concentrated on running hard and keeping the same pace. It must have worked because I continued passing runners to the end and was passed only once about a mile to go. In fact I was able to run a negative split on the second half (40:57). It was a very good run for the altitude and only 16 seconds slower than my run in Phoenix 8 months earlier at 1200 feet. Even happier and very surprised I won my age group.

I would definitely inspect my socks better before my runs. I will probably do a bit more stretching after my warmups too. Either way, I was still able to run five minutes faster than last year.

My toe and toenail were all bloody so I didn't do any warm-down other than stretching.


Sore and bloody toenail probably kept me from running a minute or so faster but I'm happy with the performance.


I highly recommend this race to anyone.