I WASN'T LAST!!!!!

....which, considering how hard the Imogene Pass Run is, is just freaking incredible. I came in 1061st of the 1071 people who finished the race. I wasn't even last in my age group! I was second to last : ). And also, I didn't hurt myself in any way that involves blood or broken bones! My time was 6 hours, 26 minutes, and some change. Moses, my wonderful, loving husband stayed with me the whole race although he easily could have smoked me by a couple of hours; I think that maybe he isn't ready for single parenthood. Or possibly, he didn't want to have turn around and start hiking up again to identify my body. When I say that this race is really hard, I mean that it is the second most physically demanding thing I have ever done in my entire life, the first most physically demanding being childbirth. In order to finish the race, participants have to make 7.5 miles in 2.5 hours. I made it with about 10 or 15 minutes to spare and at that point, I was sort of wishing that I hadn't made it because then I could have turned around. At mile 8, I was wishing that I had turned around regardless because I was really feeling the altitude and I nearly left 3 half cups of Gatorade, a handful pretzels, and a few Cliff Shots in a semi-digested heap on the side of the mountain. I think the only thing that really prevented this was that there was nowhere to hide, I would have had to puke in front of strangers and I have a firm rule that I never puke in front of strangers. If I had had a sharp implement handy at mile 9, I would have used to put myself out of my misery. At mile 9 you turn a corner and can see the summit, which is still a mile away. A very long, very, very, steep, rocky mile away. Mile 9 posed a nasty dilemma: I really didn't want to go on. But, the only way off the mountain, besides air vac or search and rescue, was to go one more mile up and seven more down or turn around and go 9 miles back down and then have to find a ride from Ouray back to Telluride (because we were staying in Telluride where the race ends). There was no good way out, so I opted for just going forward. It also helped to have Moses there with me. After a short eternity (it took me as long to do miles 7.5 -- 10 as it did to do miles 0 -- 7.5) we made it over the pass and started working our way down to Telluride. The last 7 miles were, of course, much easier than the first 10, but my legs were really, really cooked. I couldn't even muster enough energy to run over the finish line. By that point I didn't care and we just walked over. Moses, still being super nice, made sure that I got to cross before him (I didn't actually notice this at the time because I urgently needed to pee and I was intensely focused on finding a bathroom, but when we saw the results, he confirmed that he stopped so that I crossed first). I'm going to nominate him for husband of the year.

The weekend in general was fantastic. We had a great time with my brother and his wife, in-laws, and friends. There were about 30 people in our group, 30 incredibly laid back, nice, people who were really fun to hang out with. Nancy, my brother's mother-in-law, did all the meal planning, shopping, and made the lodging arrangements and it was all top-notch (my brother definitely won the in-law lottery). Everybody helped with meal prep and clean-up and there were no catastrophes. In fact, I think that just about everyone from Flagstaff who was in Telluride this weekend ended up at our group's house for dinner after the race. And possibly we might have picked up a few random people who happened to be passing by, saw the keg on the front porch, and thought that "hey! this looks like a good place for dinner." Telluride is beautiful and someday we will go back there when we are not Imogening. After the race on Saturday, we took the free gondola (every town should have a free gondola) over to Mountain Village and had coffee and watched some kids doing some crazy bungee trampoline thing (which was also free); 30 tired people sitting in the square, drinking coffee, and cheering on random kids--and couple of people from our group--whenever they managed a flip on the bungee trampoline thing. It was awesome. I'm not sure that I really want to do the Imogene Pass Run again (I told Moses to not let me do it again) but the rest of the weekend was so nice I might get sucked in. So I should maybe start training.