Mountain races rock!

So my month of running crazy mountain races has finally come to an end. I'm relieved, exhausted, and sad. These have been more challenging than I originally imagined. My training was lacking because of flare-ups of my RA. I really thought I would do incredibly poor on the runs. Instead, although I didn't do as well as I would have liked, I did much better than expected.

The Pikes Peak Ascent was the first of my major runs of the late summer. The Ascent is a 13.32 mile climb/run of Pikes Peak along Barr Trail. The start is in Manitou Springs at 6,300' and the finish is at 14,115'. However, this year was the exception to that. Instead of running just to the top, the race was canceled part way through due to insane weather (rain --> sleet --> hail --> snow with lighting and strong winds the whole time). Because of this, most of the runners made it up to the A Frame (10.2 miles up the course at 11,950') and were turned around. I like to call this year's Ascent "America's toughest 20 mile half marathon." It sucked having to turn around, but I felt amazing going the 20 miles instead of 13.

Imogene Pass Run was my next piece of lunacy. 17.1 miles of stunningly beautiful Colorado mountain trails and passes. Although the elevation gain/loss was not as much as is experienced on Barr Trail, the trail itself was much tougher to negotiate. This may be simply because I am familiar with Barr Trail and had no idea what to expect with Imogene. But I think it is also simply the poorer quality of footing along the Imogene run trails. This run was made much more fun because of the people I ran with! I got to the top at about the same time as $100 F*ck and Nacheaux Ass. The three of us drank a couple of PBRs at the top, and then took our time coming back down the other side of the pass. Sure, our times weren't as good as they could have been, but we had a great time! Love those girls!

Colorado Relay (aka Outward Bound Relay) was the last of my insane mountain running adventures. This is a 174 mile, 10-person relay race that runs from Georgetown, CO to Carbondale, CO. My team, known as "Start Stout, Ended Ale'n," was made up of all hashers and a couple of new hash recruits. Each person runs 3 legs of varying lengths. Because I'd run Imogene the week before, I requested the shortest legs possible. My first leg was a 6.2 mile trail run, with a 4 mile uphill stretch (900' elevation gain), a 2 mile downhill stretch (700' elevation loss) and a couple of creek/pond crossings. My next two legs were on pavement. The second was ~3miles and mostly flat. The third was 1.5 miles with some fair elevation changes (up and down).

We ended up placing 27th out of the 145 teams that ran. When I signed up to be part of this team, I was worried about being the weakest link. I still may be, but apparently I'm not that crappy! I passed 2 people on my first leg during the uphill & creek crossing sections. I passed one other person during my second leg. And in my third leg kept my pace under a 9min mile. I was cruising along that last leg at a sub 8 min pace until I hit the REALLY steep uphill section and the steady uphill section after that. Still, it's pretty good for me. :) I can't wait for next year!!