July Race in Silverton

By happenstance, not planning, I've ended up doing at least a race a month this year, 6 races in 4 states. Why not keep the streak alive in July?

So we're headed to the San Juans this weekend, en'shallah, where I'm excited to spend a 3-day weekend. I had this planned last year, but the weather was clearly a 3-day monsoon (it was obvious the whole week in advance), so we called an audible. Looking good so far. If all goes as planned, we'll be camping, hiking Handies on Saturday, Ice Lake Basin on Monday, and have Sunday to enjoy the parade, fireworks, and ruhubarb festival.

Of course, in order to earn a slice of pie and ice cream on Sunday, why not run the race in Silverton, the Independence Day Blue Ribbon 5k/10k?
This fun run was created nearly 30 years ago by local runners for a six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon.

Sounds like someone is running the wrong Silverton race on the wrong weekend!

It's $20, with a t-shirt, good deal. J's gonna do the 5k, I'm doing the 10k. Otherwise, information on the course is scarce. Previous results are scarce, a couple years ago timing problems caused the results to be lost altogether. I dig the laid-back mystique though. I have no idea how to pace something like this. It's at 10k feet, but it's "only" a 10k, and it's on paved and dirt roads, not trail, so I thought maybe just drop a few minutes on a flat time here. After all, if you use Jack Daniels formula, the elevation adds just over a minute total. Figured another minute for some hills....So maybe the leaders are in the mid 30's, maybe I could aim for 40:xx or 41. Wrong!

Man, this is baseball, you gotta stop thinking! Just have fun. from "The Sandlot"

Check out these results from 2005 (one of the only sets I was able to find):
1 1 1 Ian Torrence M 31 15 39:31 06:35
1 2 2 Hal Koerner M 28 19 40:24 06:44
2 3 3 Scott Jaime M 30 28 40:47 06:47
1 4 4 Karl Meltzer M 36 16 41:31 06:55
2 5 5 Dave Heald M 26 65 41:42 06:57

Recognize any of those names? Umm, yeah. So I guess 45 sounds like a nice round (but tough) number to me! With 2 loops, even or negative split would be a good goal. But mostly, I will focus mostly on the original intent of the race: earning my thirst!