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I didn’t hit my goal time at the Boulder Half Marathon, but close enough for this guy. I came through in 1:23:23, 6:21 pace. I’m pleased with the effort, it was a tough course, that is for sure.

I’ve ran the race course before, so I knew what to expect. The first two miles were right on pace, I kept myself composed and knocked out 6:19 pace and felt great, even though the course has a few rolling hills. During the first couple of miles there were other runners around me, but the funny part is I ran alone because I stayed to the left of the road, running the tangents, while I watched all the other runners running on the right side of the road. I knew that miles 2-6.5 were uphill, with about 300 feet of climbing.

At the two mile mark, I was still on goal pace, but I knew the next few miles were going to be tough. I actually passed about 3 people from mile 2 to 3, and spent the rest of the race running alone. I could see the girl in front of me (female winner) and she was running with another guy, but they were not close enough to pace off of.

At the turn around point, I looked at my Garmin and saw that I was running 6:29 pace. I knew that my second half of the race would be faster than my first half, but I thought I would have come through around 6:24.

Time to pick it up. After the turnaround point in this out and back course, I started to feel good. I had a gradual downhill for the next few miles. With 2 miles to finish, my Garmin had me at 6:19 pace, so I had made up a lot of time. But I knew that there were two tough hills in the last mile and half off the race and they were enough to keep me from hitting my goal pace.

With about a mile to go, another runner caught me and passed me. In hindsight, I just let him go, instead of getting tough and trying to run with him. Normally, I’m pretty good at putting up a fight but I think the finals few hills sapped my fight.

It was a great day and I thought highly of the race. Well organized, nice tech gear handed out and the post race party offered some great food. I’m pleased with my effort, it’s a PR for a Half Marathon at altitude and the hardest Half Marathon that I have run. I also ran one second faster per mile than at the Park to Park 10 Miler, so that’s a great sign. I’m confident that if the conditions for Denver Marathon are solid, that a 2:55 is attainable.

The 9th place finish was also solid, out of 1,579 runners. I wish there were some faster runners though, it’s not easy to run 13.1 miles alone and stay mentally sharp.

Also, congrats to my fellow Colorado bloggers who ran the race, BF, JK, and UB.