This Year's Crazy Things

You might remember that last year, I entered and competed in my first triathlon and ran in the Tucson Marathon Relay. And you might have thought that training for and competing in such events would have gotten the competition bug out of my system, especially since I had never competed in anything requiring physical exertion in my whole entire life. Not so. Turns out, I'm a lot better about maintaining a work out regime if I have an event to work toward. More accurately, I train better if I have the possibility of failure, mortal embarrassment, and excruciating pain hanging over my head. So this year, I upped the ante. Why up the ante? Why not just enter a few more races of similar caliber as last year's and enjoy the ride? I don't know. Probably I need my head examined. In November, I will be running the Big Sur Half Marathon, my first half marathon. I really don't know why I feel the need to do a half marathon but there it is so I might as well get it over with. A friend of mine from work was at this event last year and she said the course is beautiful. Also, wuss that I am, I thought it'd be really great to run my first half marathon on a relatively flat course at sea level after having trained on hilly terrain at 7,000 ft. I'm hoping that all that extra oxygen will turn me into Wonder Woman, and I will feel buff and invincible with the knowledge that I possess the superpower of extra lung capacity.

Personally, I thought that a half marathon would be enough craziness for one year. Then, Moses and I were talking with my brother (Robert) and his wife (Lisa), who enter the Imogene Pass Run every September with Lisa's family, and they invited us to join in this year. They actually make this race sound like a lot of fun. Lisa's brother informed me that one year he and Robert trained for the race by cutting their daily beer intake from 4 to 2. Great! Sounds like a race I can do. As my brother and his wife are cool, young people, and Moses and I would like to be cool, young people (even though I don't think that's possible anymore since we are some one's parent and I think that unless you're Madonna you instantly loose your cool-cred the moment you give birth), we thought we'd look into this.

Here's the course description:
The Imogene Pass Run (IPR) is a 17.1 mile point-to-point mountain race within the western San Juan mountains of Colorado, run along a route which connects the towns of Ouray (7810 ft.) and Telluride (8820 ft.) by way of 13,120 foot Imogene Pass. The IPR is held on the first Saturday after the Labor Day holiday, at the seasonal transition from late Summer to early Fall. Mountain weather at this time is famously "squirrelly" (rapidly changeable), and participants through the years have encountered a variety of weather conditions ranging from virtually perfect to terrible. This spectrum of weather during the race is in fact part of its lure and mystique. In good weather years the challenge of the mountainous traverse is rewarded by unsurpassed vistas and no small feeling of accomplishment upon crossing the finish line. In bad weather years, the wind, fog, rain and/or snow along the course make the successful arrival in Telluride a virtual rite of passage into the realm of true mountain running.

That would be lots of hills at altitude in possible nasty weather. That would be a really long race that typifies everything I strongly dislike about running in Flagstaff.

Yesterday, I hiked Mt. Elden with a friend. It's about 2.5 miles to the top of Mt. Elden, on a pretty steep trail (about 9,000 ft. elevation at the top). It took my friend and me 3.5 hours to do the hike (round trip) and my legs were shaking at the end. So I began to think that maybe Imogene wasn't such a great idea, that I don't need to be as cool or hip (since I can't ever be as young) as my brother. I was thinking that I would just resign myself to not being cool and I would just admire my brother and his wife and their coolness from afar. And I would be happy because I would not be in pain, and that is one of the major goals of my life, and my brother could just be in charge of maintaining coolness in our family and that would be totally, completely fine. And also, I would not be making a public spectacle of myself and my wussy-ness, which would also be nice.

But then . . . Moses registered for the race this morning. And then informed me that he also registered me for the race. I guess that means I'm doing Imogene. I suppose that I always have the option of backing out, but now that I'm officially in, I probably won't be able to let it go because, as much as I hate to admit it, I have a sort of stubborn competitive streak and now that I'm in, I'm in. I informed Moses that if we're going to do this thing together, he is not allowed to beat me by a substantial margin. He also is most definitely not allowed to beat me if he does not train. And since he's tall and has long legs and can walk really fast, he is really, most definitely, NOT AT ALL allowed to walk right next to me while I am running, because that will make my head explode.

Imogene is made more interesting by the fact that participants have to make certain cutoff times. Most notably, if you don't make the summit 4.5 hours after the race starts, they don't let you finish. So, my goal will be to make the cutoffs and finish this baby in under six hours. My game plan is to walk/hike the uphill and run the downhill and also not to die (although I'm thinking I should try to get my will in order this summer before I go, just in case). As icing on the cake, I would also like to not embarrass myself in front of my brother, his wife, friends and in laws. Because they are cool.

That's the line-up for 2008--wish me luck and lots of lung capacity.