Dash & Dine

My bum appears to be letting go.

Er...that is, the pain in my butt is easing off.

Which is surprising, considering the last three days of training. But I think I finally found a Pilates move that is helping my muscles settle down. Funnily enough, it's not a piriformis stretch, nor a hip flexor move, but a side lying over a barrel type thing.

What's that line about "not with a bang, but a whimper"? It was a bit like that tonight. I had a great, a fantastic-feeling final Dash & Dine evening 5k on the classic course at Boulder Reservoir, on a beautiful, cool and windless evening, but my time was c**p.

I deliberately started more slowly than normal and picked up the pace all the way through. I felt good and relaxed, passing people steadily, and with enough energy to shout and wave at friends who were also racing. In fact, right up until I rounded the final bend into the finish tunnel and saw the digital clock ticking down, I was totally and utterly convinced I was finally under 19 minutes this year and really on my way "back".

Yes! Finally I didn't win another water-bottle.

Greg Cunningham, organizer of the Dash & Dine evening 5k series at the Boulder Res excelled himself tonight, running prizes four deep in every category and dishing out for first places excellent D&D technical tee-shirts made by Descente. Nice shirts!

Yep, so I won my age group again, but I'm still complaining :) I did a relatively slow 19:35 behind winner X-Terra triathlon pro Will Kelsey (17:12), once again failing to really push myself. I finished 17th overall, 5 seconds behind second woman Sunny Gilbert, whom I'd beaten a couple of races ago.

Signing up for the six-race Dash 'n' Dine 5k series last week, I told organizer Greg Cunningham of Fleet Feet that I didn't know why I was doing it. "What do you mean?" he asked. "Well, look at it out there -- it's sleeting, freezing and there's snow on the way", I said. "But the race isn't until Tuesday!", he says.

Yeah, I guess I'm still not used to the changing weather in Boulder. True, it's snow one minute, sunshine the next. The University of Colorado students have got it right: loads of them wear shorts and flip flops all year round. Well, the weather did change in the five days after I entered...and the treat it had in store was winds of 20mph plus howling across the exposed course at the Boulder Reservoir.