Molly Grabill wasn’t too thrilled with how she’s been running lately.
Monday was a different story.
At the 44th Bolder Boulder, the Superior resident and San Diego native won the women’s citizen’s race for the second consecutive year. A former six-time All-American at Oregon, Grabill, 31, is the first repeat champion — men or women — since Lilly Guerra won the women’s races in 2002-03.
Grabill said she came in with the intent to win, but added, “I mean, there was Laura (Thweatt) and Gwen (Jorgensen) in the race and I’ve just kind of been in a little bit of a slump since the (U.S. Olympic marathon trials in February), so I just thought it’d be fun to test fitness and it was a good battle out there.”
Grabill finished Monday’s 10K race in 33 minutes, 39 seconds — breaking the women’s record for the Bolder Boulder. The previous record was 34:00 by Lidia Simon in 2004.
Thweatt was second (34:09), while Jorgensen placed third (34:26).
“I felt good,” said Grabill, who was 54 seconds faster than last year. “I tried to be smart the first three miles or so but Gwen and Laura were out pretty hard so I was like, ‘I guess we’re doing this.’ But it was good.”
Thweatt, a University of Colorado graduate who lives in Superior, then laughed and said of Grabill, “She had the final say.”
The 2022 citizen’s champion, Thweatt said she was hoping to regain her title, “but I knew (Grabill) was gonna make me work for it and she did. That’s why this is so fun. It’s in our hometown. We can come out and we can have a high level race in our backyard with great competition at altitude.
“I’m coming off a little bit of a slump myself, so this was just a fun way to kind of like rev the engine and get back into it.”
Grabill and Thweatt are neighbors in Superior, so running together is quite common.
“It’s fun to push each other to it,” Thweatt said. “We’re both kind of coming off the same type of winter, just like some highs and lows. So today, it’s just a fun day to battle together.”
It was Jorgensen who set the pace early, but Grabill kept her sights set on Thweatt throughout the race.
“There were a few surges where Laura went out and I was kinda like, ‘OK, I’ll just hang on for as much as I can,’” Grabill said. “Once I had that downhill, I was like, ‘OK, anyone can make it two miles.’”
Knowing each other so well, Grabill said it was fun to battle with Thweatt.
“Since we’re neighbors, we’ve run a lot together in the morning,” she said. “There’s just kind of like that respect of we both know that we’re capable of a good day, and it’s just like, whoever can.”
On Monday, it was Grabill’s day, but Thweatt enjoyed competing with her friend in a more intense environment than their morning runs.
“It’s a little bit more heightened,” Thweatt said with a laugh.
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