My Funny Brother, My Roomy: Imogene Pass Run 2010 Race Report

Let me begin this tale with the most important fact: I beat my previous Imogene time by almost 45 minutes (whatever 6:26 minus 5:45 is). Brussel sprouts! I TORE IT UP!!!!

Okay. Now that that's out in the open, we can move on. Or back to the beginning. Whatever. Moses and I did not want to go to this race. Did not want to make the six hour drive, did not want to get up at O' dark thirty on race day, did not want to stagger 17.1 miles for hours on end at high altitude. We began exploring excuses for not going early last week. In fact, if you had asked me last Wednesday whether we were actually going to go, I would have said, I doubt it. But. Thursday afternoon I got an e-mail from my brother titled "Pain & Agony" which said: "Have you thought of any good excuses to get out of running on Saturday? I'm thinking about cutting off a toe." Jerk. Making me laugh like that. I knew then that we were going because all of the sudden I wanted the chance to hang out with my brother and his wife, his in-laws, and friends--you know, the cool fit kids. (Every year, my brother's wife's family organizes the trip to Telluride for a big group of people).

So we deposited the various living things that we are responsible for at their respective weekend destinations (kid to school, then friend's house, then grandparents, dog to kennel, and plants to fend for themselves) and hit the road Friday morning. And you know what? It was okay. By the time we got to Cortez, Colorado, I was kind of into it. And by the time we started the climb into the San Juan Mountains, I was mentally there and glad we got out of town for the weekend. That last hour and half into Telluride is just gorgeous. I think it's nearly impossible to regret being there.

We pulled into town and found out that we'd be sharing a room with my brother and his wife. "You guys get the bunk beds," said my brother. Okay, I guess that's fair because last time we got the master suite with the jetted tub. We deposited our beer at the main house and headed over to our assigned condo where we met one of our house mates who, upon learning that I was my brother's sister, said "Oh, that's wonderful! He is SO funny. I mean really, really funny. I mean the whole way up here--SO FUNNY!" Yes, I know, you think he's funny now, you should have seen him when he was 8 and blew up that egg in the microwave. That evening we had a great dinner, and great conversation with great people, and my brother continued to be his funny self, fueled by a not insubstantial amount of beer. (Don't worry, at about 8:30 that night, he switched to Gatorade to get ready for the race. Yeah, I know. Instantly switching from beer to Gatorade is apparently his superpower).

We hit the sack early in anticipation of our early wake-up the next day: my brother and his wife in their bed and Moses and me in our bunk beds. "Goodnight, Kerry." "Goodnight, Lisa." "Goodnight Mary Sue Ellen." "Goodnight John Boy." Do you know how old I was the last time I shared a room with my brother? 12. As is my pre-race norm, I failed to sleep at all that night and laid there running the race in my head over and over again and trying not to think about my nervous tummy because I didn't want to be the bad roomy who had to get up to pee a million times in middle of the night.

The alarm went off at 4:30 a.m., Colorado time. That would be 3:30 a.m., Arizona time. That would be (mom, close your eyes for a sec.) really fucking early. And guess what? My brother is a morning person. Brussel sprouts. How can he be funny first thing in the morning after all that beer and Gatorade? My brother's wife was sick, and therefore not running, but still got up early so she could see everybody off and shuttle gear from the start to the finish line because she's awesome like that.

We had breakfast and slept-walk our way through the obligatory pre-race ritual: get on an over-heated, crowded school bus in the dark, ride some impossibly long time with bus full of impossibly fit people to the start, get off in the freezing cold and head immediately for the toilet line and then proceed to hurry up and wait. My sister-in-law's mother asked me how I was doing and then gave me a great pep talk about running my own race and just relaxing and reminding me that I already know I'll make it because I've done it before. This woman could talk me into anything (she's talked me into entering Imogene three times and I think the only reason she couldn't talk me into running it instead of going to a work conference last year was because I didn't see her before I left for the conference). The state department should hire her to negotiate peace in the middle east, she is that good.

Pep talk in mind, I decided she's right, I'm just going to run/hike/walk/crawl my own race and I'm not going to worry about anything else or how I'm doing compared to anybody else. I'm just going to finish and it doesn't matter what happens and I will make it because I've done it before. And that's what I did. Moses took off at a faster pace, and that was fine. I quit trying to keep up with him (at this point we were both walking) and it the end this was much better for both of us (Moses finished in under 5 hours). I prefer to suffer alone. I didn't worry that I had to stop running and start walking less than half a mile into the race. I found my pace and stuck to it. And it worked.

That said, about 5 miles into the race, I spotted my brother on the side of the road. He had a leg cramp and had to stop to stretch. I didn't stop because I figured he'd be fine and there wasn't anything I could do to help him anyway and I kind of suck as a sister. And also two years ago when were hiking Mt. Humpherys?, he totally left me to die. In the rain and hale. Also some lady had already stopped and was offering him pickle juice. (Apparently pickle juice is supposed to be the magic potion that instantly cures muscle cramps. My brother said it just made him want to vomit). After a swig of pickle juice, my brother caught up to me. We chatted briefly about the merits of pickle juice and hiked together for a bit. And then on the next hill......wait for it.......I DROPPED HIM. Because he had a leg cramp but, whatever. I didn't see him again the rest of the race and briefly toyed with the idea that I might have beat him in the whole thing but it turns out that he passed me somewhere along the way and neither of us noticed. Probably when I was in the port-a-potty-at-the-top-of-the-mountain. Regardless, for a brief shining moment, I was in front. Hah! Other than that, I was running my own race and not worrying at all about what everybody else was doing. Really.

The uphill part was predictably hard. Really hard. And steeper than I remembered. I did a better job of managing my liquid and food intake and although my heart and lungs were working overtime, I did not get altitude sickness. I just kept moving and that seemed to be the key. The top was beautiful. I took a few minutes to soak in the view and a volunteer snapped my picture at the summit sign. I then assessed my physical state. And, brussel sprouts!, I still had legs. Not only would I finish this stupid race, but I would finish it strong. At the 12 mile mark, I realized that I was going finish substantially better than two years ago and I hunkered down for the remaining five miles. I even finished early enough that my family and friends were still at the finish line by the time I got there. Sweet.

Post-race, everybody took the traditional gondola ride for late afternoon coffee and then we headed back to the main house for dinner, where half of Flagstaff joined us. We even had the winner of the whole shebang at our party because we were so cool. He finished the race in something like 2:19--I cannot even fathom how this is physically possible. I was a little disappointed that he just looked like a normal guy--it seemed like he should at least have had a super-suit.

Overall, I finished ahead of 83 other people. Last time, I finished ahead of 9 people and that was only because Moses let me walk across the finish line first. This really just means that I improved from "pathetically slow" to "slow," but I'll take it. I'm glad we ended up going and we'll probably do it again. We are constantly asked why we would ever endeavor something like this race, and honestly that's still a hard question for me to answer, even with the great experience I had this year. I think it comes down to the intense sense of satisfaction that comes from doing something really challenging, something that is so far outside of normal everyday life that its outcome is not at all predictable. There's also something great about taking on that challenge with a bunch of other people--whether you know them or not--and being part of this thing that was hard and scary and fun all at the same time. Or maybe the answer is really just the classic "because it's there" and also, now, "because I can." (And maybe also "because my brother might get a leg cramp and I will drop him on a hill.")