Frozen Foot 5k

Sun. 23 Feb. 2014

8:30 A.M.

As I noted a while back, racing has fallen back in my priorities this year. I am still training for a marathon in May, but I have cut back from racing once a month or more. So I was a little surprised when my wife told me that she signed me up for a 5k.

She did not entirely spring it on me, but it was surprising because I had not really been bugging her either. The race was the Frozen Foot 5k. It was attractive in that it was close and, for Boulder, reasonably priced at $25. It was a fundraiser for the CU triathlon team, which while not striving to cure a cute kid of illness is not a bad cause.

The race was close enough that I just ran there from the house as a warm-up. We had received a dusting of snow but the roads were pretty good and temps were in the high 30’s. 

The sign-up was in the CU field house and was well run. I picked up my packet and got my gloves. I am glad to see more races giving out things other than t-shirts since at this point I could wear a different race shirt every day for two or three months.

The race kicked off at 8:30 (ish). The course stays entirely on the University of Colorado’s campus. This means that it has to do some frequent snaking to fit everything in. There was a few icy patches where we had to tread cautiously, but the other 95% of the course was dry. Two runners with Altitude running shirts took the lead and never looked back. The chase pack amongst us did a decent job pushing each other. The course was well marked with white arrows and volunteers at all of the big turns.

I was left wondering about was the true length of the course. I finished in 16:57 (5:43, 5:46, 5:36) which would be amazing, except that my watch said the course was 2.97 mi. It is possible that I lost a few hundredths on some of the many turns that the course needed to take to stay within the confines of the campus. However, I entered suspecting that I was in 17:15 to 17:30 5k shape and the course being just a bit short would square with this assessment of my fitness. 

The race had about 50 people total. While the field was not large, it was decently deep. Another fun thing of this being Boulder was that the guy who place right ahead of me was 51. The person I placed right ahead of was 13. If you average them you get pretty close to my age of 33. (Fortunately, this is a shorty trend - it would be rather rough on everyone's egos to be beaten by a 90-year-old in a 5k).

This was a well-run and reasonably priced race that was close to home. I may try this one again. Many thanks to the CU triathlon team for putting this on.