Sombrero

I ran the Sombrero Trail Run for the first time yesterday. On Friday I was optimistic about my chances of doing well. I went out for my normal 3-mile pre-race loop, and had to hold myself back from going too fast or too far. Meeting some friends that afternoon, I was very optimistic about the next morning.

Yesterday morning, I woke up, felt ok, and took off for Estes Park. I think one of my problems might have been the coffee I got on the way there (it was supposed to be an hour and fifteen minute drive, but it took slightly over 45 minutes total). In any case, I got to the course, picked up my number, and went out for a short warm up.

Let's just say I did not feel good. My legs felt more like deadweight than anything. By the time I got to the starting line and did some striders in order to warm up my fast twitch muscles, I felt like crap.

So I made a decision: rather than blow my legs out and try to make a race of it at the Sombrero, I decided to treat it as a training run, and hope my legs felt significantly better for the Golden Leaf half in two weeks.

For those who don't know, the Sombrero is a very odd distance (4.5 miles). It has a total of 900+ feet of elevation gain in that distance with a net gain of 200 or so feet. It's rocky, it's hard, and most people walk a significant portion of the hills. Were I to try and make a race out of it, I would blow out my quads entirely, with no guarantee of complete recovery by the time the Golden Leaf rolled around. I think I made the right decision given the situation.

In any case, I made a passable run of it, coming in at around 43 minutes or so. I didn't compete in my age group, and one woman beat me, but I did what I wanted to (hit between 42 and 43 minutes).

While not successful as a race, it was successful as a run. And, more importantly, it helped me catch the racing bug again.