Vail Hill Climb 3rd Masters/13th Overall

Ran the Vail Hill Climb this weekend. Got 13th overall and 3rd master. Results here.

Not sure if this was a good race or a bad race. Course was 7.7 miles with 2233 ft. of gain. I ran 8:15 pace, which was really a 6:19 mile, followed by an 8-minute mile, followed by some 9-minute miles, followed by 6-minute pace for the rolling hill last .7. Kept my HR steady-ish, but the course went uphill and I slowed down.

At first, I thought it was an underwhelming result. But the runner who finished one place in front of me ran at DIII nationals in cross country last year, which is something I never managed when I was a DIII runner back in the day. And the guy who finished two places in front of me is a 1:16 half/2:36 marathoner. I am nowhere near that good. I suppose I finished about where I should have.

Some pics.

A little too eager at the start. Been going to too many track meets.

Finish

This young man had never seen me race

These guys are better than I am at running up mountains.

264 miles in June again. Just hit 1500 miles on the year today. That’s a lot for me, considering the fact that I only ran 1575 in all of 2021. No wonder I sucked at Pikes Peak that year. 

I ran the same number of races in the last two weeks as I had in the last four years. That by itself is an achievement for me. Nothing immediately on the agenda after this other than to continue to build and run races when I feel like it. I hope to roll with it and sign up for races when it works for my schedule.