Dash 'n' Dine

Lord knows how a specialist in running up and down very steep things managed to cope with the almost dead-flat Boulder Reservoir course, but Canadian mountain racer Peter Vail put on a solo power demonstration to win the second Dash & Dine 5k in 15:41, the second-fastest time ever registered on the course.

But there were no complaints from the rest of us; we were all reveling in the virtually flat calm, after last week's sideways gale had added a spice of suffering to the proceedings. With no wind to speak of, most of us were at least a minute faster.

The good news is that having been beaten in my age group by Buzz Burrell by seconds last Tuesday, this time round I beat him by nearly a minute. The bad news is that first prize for our age group this week wasn't a posh restaurant voucher...but a water bottle. Now these aren't your average water bottle, they're the smart Ultimate Direction ones, the kind with a "teat", that I use and love. And these come with a very cool carrying strap with a zipped pouch. And they retail for around $20. So I'm not complaining, but Abby was there to watch me bring home dinner -- and I failed again. Water bottles are getting like race tee-shirts in my house. So I presented mine to Sam Dinsmore, who had been pushing himself to get another 20 seconds off his 5k time so he could get in the Bolder Boulder wave of his choice. He succeeded -- slicing 40 seconds off for 29:17 -- and then revealed it was his 51st birthday on Friday...so I figured he deserved a prize :)

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.