A few months ago, I was excited to get an invitation to go to Boulder, CO for Memorial Day weekend and participate in the BolderBOULDER 10K.
I was excited as I hadn’t been to that part of Colorado in almost years and I remember loving it.
The Trip
I built in a little extra time to do something else I haven’t done in almost 30 years (side note, it always freaks me out that I’m old enough to have adult memories from 30 years ago), that is, drive to the top of the highest paved road in North America, highway 103 in Idaho Springs.
So last Saturday, I got out of bed at 3AM to catch a 5AM flight to Denver, rented a car and did just that. Check out the quick video I made.
BolderBOULDER
I got to attend the media lunch, which was super cool and actually sat at the same table as some of the competitive runners. Even better was that I got to meet Frank Shorter and chat running with him for a bit, such a super nice guy!
I was worried the entire time I was there about the altitude, and as it turns out, rightly so. After a few of shot runs before the race, I had a really hard time breathing. I slowed my pace and took some breaks but it was pretty bad.
The Town
Boulder is a great town, super laid back, very family friendly with a ton of stuff to do. If you’re bored while you’re in Colorado, it’s your own fault 🙂 My biggest regret of the weekend is that I didn’t bring my wife and son, I think they would have loved it.
Anyway, the morning of the run, I was up at 5 to get ready. The hotel I stayed in was just a short walk to the start and not far from the finish, which was really nice and convenient.
The Race
The BolderBOULDER is one of the most unique races I’ve ever run. There were more bacon stations (unofficial) on the course than there was water/Gatorade! There were belly dancers set up along the course as part of the entertainment, there were trampolines and slip and slides and all sorts of things you never expect to see, but you know what? It works.
The race is fun, the course despite the altitude isn’t super challenging and the crowd support is immense! And to top it off, you get to finish by running into the stadium at the University of Colorado.
I had a blast and highly recommend that if you find yourself in Boulder Memorial Day weekend, do yourself a favor and sign up for this race!
Nothing New on Race Day
My one lesson learned from filming this race is a technical one. I changed the frame rate on my 360 camera thinking that I would shoot some slow motion. Big mistake. As you’ll see if the video, when the software stitches the videos together, there is a major glitch. I tried to compensate where I could, but there were some places that just weren’t able to be fixed. It bummed me out as there are some other aspects of the race that I wanted to include, but couldn’t because the footage just wasn’t good enough.
Just another reminder that you should do nothing new on race day, including increasing the frame rate on your GoPro Fusion 🙂
