Imogene 2012
The big day finally arrived – last Saturday was Imogene Pass Run. And…well…I finished it!! Woohoo!!!! With my dear friends and family cheering me on as I came barreling down the homestretch into town, I crossed the finish line 9 minutes under my goal of completing it in 5 hours. I call that buffer of 9 minutes “finishing by the skin of my teeth.” Our buddy Courtney calls it “overtraining”, haha. Either way, I’m psyched. One week later I’m still smiling just thinking about it (and still sore!) And as is always the case after completing something that really pushes one’s limit, I’m already dreaming about how stellar it would be to shave an hour off my time in Imogene 2013. Hey, I can dream, can’t I?! 🙂
Here’s a recap of the weekend’s race:
The little guy who started it all. 4 months ago the last thing on my mind was running Imogene. (Ok, that was just a teensy bit of a lie. I was in fact fantasizing about it just a tad, couch-bound with a newborn in my arms)
Catching our first glimpse of some Colorado mountains on our drive in. Right about now I’m looking over my mile splits and having serious doubts about having not trained nearly enough. Yes people, I actually figured out mile splits….as lame as that may sound. I was petrified of getting turned around at the cutoff points for not moving fast enough!
Silas psyched to be in the mountains and ready to cheer mama on with his coined phrase “Go mama! Run faster!!”
Approaching Telluride around noon on Friday. The lowest part of the ridgeline in this photo is where the pass is.
This time we decided to stay in Telluride (the finish line) versus Ouray (the starting line), thinking that it would be awfully nice to just be able to roll over to our accommodations after the run versus having to get in the car for a 45 min drive back to Ouray. What we hadn’t considered was having to wake up at 4am Saturday morning (which is 3am Tucson time!) to catch the runner’s bus to Ouray.
First line of business: race registration. As we mosey around town we can’t help but notice that Telluride is packed with incredibly fit-looking human beings, most likely here for the race. And a remarkable number of them with kids! And little babies! Maybe I’m not too out of my league after all…
…and then I catch a glimpse of this: the supplies for each aid station, lined up under these signs outlining mileage and elevation. My heart leaps just a little at the thought of these supplies being shuttled high up into the mountains later that afternoon/early evening by race volunteers on some bouncing, rugged truck; and then sitting there all night as the temps dropped below freezing, awaiting my arrival the next day.
Help!
Next line of business: Checking into our big fancy condo in the town of Mountain Village just above Telluride. The place was huge and the view from the couch, gorgeous.
It comfortably housed 8 adults and 5 kids and we each had our own bathrooms….sweet. The crew contained our fam, Mandy’s fam, Linda, my sister Holly and her boyfriend Joe, and the one and only, Courtney.
Silas doing some monkey-hangs in the log-mansion.
Most of you know Paul and I well enough to understand that it simply is not possible for one of us to sit contently as a spectator just watching the other do some sort of massive physical exertion of fun (i.e. run, climb, hike, etc.) without getting in on the action. This time was no exception. As soon as we got settled into the condo Paul was chomping at the bit to go off on a big solo run of his own (having not entered the race on account of designated kid-duty). From the front door of our condo he hopped on a ski slope and ran up to the See Forever Trail, shown here, hoping to bag an ascent of Palmyra Peak – 13,320 feet.
Although he didn’t quite make it to Palmyra Peak (shown in background), he claimed he had a great run nonetheless. He did about 10 miles and reached just under 13k.
From the See Forever Trail, you can…uh, for lack of a better term,…see forever. Paul was able to see almost the entire Telluride-side of the course. In this photo you can see part of the town of Telluride. Near the lower left corner of the photo you can see a jeep trail cutting from Telluride up the hillside, angling left to right below the red cliffs. This is the course. Keep following the trail and see how it switch-backs up through the mountains. The pass is in the upper right corner of the photo, hidden behind some peaks in the foreground.
Meanwhile, while Paul was running, Silas, Ivan and I did some exploring of our own of Mountain Village.
Paul kept us up-to-date with his trail progress via email and some photos so we were actually able to pick out the peak he was attempting from town – the rocky summit in the photo is Palmyra Peak.
Silas had never seen a gondola before so we spent a great deal of time inspecting this one that connects Mountain Village to Telluride from all angles, including the loading/dropoff station.
To our delight, we learned that it was free to ride the gondola (FREE?! In a ski village?! I kid you not.) So we rode it just for fun. Better than an amusement park.
Some time later Paul stumbled back to the condo and spent the rest of the evening dead-tired and nauseous (typical for Paul when he runs something big).
And then it was race day. Here is Linda, Mandy and I in the Ouray Community Center keeping warm before the start.
Approaching the starting line.
And we’re running! Or, well, walking as fast as physically possible – as shown in this pic.
A photo I snapped of the pass (over 2 miles and 2,000 feet of elevation away) just as we were leaving Upper Camp Bird aid station where, according to an extremely loud and jolly aid station volunteer, “the temperature is 80 degrees!!!” and “it’s all downhill from here!!!” with a promise of “all the beer in the bars in Telluride will be FREE!!!!!”
From this spot I could just barely see the little ant-sized runners making their way up to the pass. Obviously they were too far and too high away to show up in this photo. (Gulp).
Linda snapped this photo of the Imogene Pass aid station. At this point in the race she is significantly ahead of Mandy and I.
Another photo of the Imogene Pass aid station.
Next Mandy makes it to the pass and then finally me. Here we both are at the pass together. My lower back was in a significant amount of pain from all the uphill and I could tell Mandy was a bit concerned as to whether I’d be able to make it down. Luckily they had hot chicken noodle soup, peanut M&M’s and pain pills at the aid station.
The view from the pass down to Telluride, 7 miles away. ‘You could be done with this in an hour’ I tell myself.
And just over an hour, I am indeed DONE! Super cheese photo of me running by the gang down to the finish line.
And here comes Mandy not a minute behind me. Let me just point out that she too had a baby not more than 6 months ago. And, having never done a mountain run of quite this magnitude, she impressed us all – totally rocking it to the finish looking fresh as a daisy. Nice, Mandy!
The runner gals celebrating our victory. Linda, the natural-born-runner she is, finished in under 4 hours…even taking a few minutes off last year’s time! And, like last year, barely trained!!
Yeah baby! See ya next year Imogene!
posted by arr
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