Garmin File & Race Report from Denver Marathon. Training Peaks

Hi guys,

Here is the link to my Garmin File & Race Report from Denver Marathon :-)

...not much being recorded on the Garmin at the moment! Enjoying a nice little rest. Hope to record some activity very soon!!!

From Kaz

http://blog.trainingpeaks.com/2010/10/denver-rock-n-roll-marathon-winner-karen-barlow-shares-her-race-file-with-trainingpeaks.html

Denver Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon Winner, Karen Barlow, Shares Her Race File With TrainingPeaks

28 October 2010

So what’s it take to WIN a marathon?  Ask Karen Barlow.  She’s won two Rock ‘n’ Roll marathons this year: New Orleans and Denver a little over a week ago.

Here’s a summary of the race from Karen:

“Rock n Roll Denver Marathon 2010  —  Goal was to run relaxed and conservative, have fun, and try to win! Started out relatively fast. 6.04 first mile. Wanted to start strong and hopefully establish an early lead. I was surprised at 8miles to be passed by Heather Utrata. She looked fantastic and put a good 30secs to a minute on me very quickly. Instead of reacting to her move by speeding up i focused on being relaxed and made sure I kept a close eye on her for my counter-move…it was still early days for a marathon race. I re-established the lead just before halfway i think. I love leading and was determined to remain in the lead to the finish line. I concentrated on picking off one guy at a time and had fun running through the shaded parks, enjoying the crowd, picking up cytomax from the drink stations and focusing on trying to run relaxed and strong. Everything was going great until i felt my right ITB twinge badly turning a corner between 21 & 22 miles. The pain was worse on the downhill sections. I was relieved to run up the bridge between 23 & 24 miles because it did not hurt my knee! I saw the second and third placed girls at the turnaround point and saw the pain on their faces and saw they were hurting. I knew that if i could relax and stay strong to the finish line without my knee buckling that i had the win. It was a wonderful feeling crossing the finish line first! The course was beautiful winding through the parks of Denver. We had a perfect cool clear sunny day. Perfect weather for the marathon & a great reward for all the hard marathon training i have put in this year!”

She had come off a bit of a disappointment in the Chicago Marathon a week earlier.  At 14 miles in, she made the call to pull out of the race because the conditions just weren’t right.  She said,

“After the disappointment of not finishing Chicago…I consoled myself with lots of ice-cream after the race. I only went out for 2x jogs -30min only the following week. Treated myself to a pedicure (they took off all the hard callous from under my feet)…

…and then decided instead of calling it a year that i should try to finish off my year on a positive note by attempting another marathon the following Sunday…at altitude in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Denver Marathon!”

Karen was gracious enough to share her race file with us.  So here’s what it looks like (the data, at least) to win the Denver Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon:

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