Ilanarama!

( Closeup of trophy )

As some of you know, I ran a half marathon in Moab on Sunday. This race - the "Other Half" - was to be a goal race for me; I figured that with the training I had been doing and the 2500-foot elevation difference from here, I had a good shot at 1:42, which would be a 2+ minute PR, and with magic pixie dust I might be able to get closer to 1:40. As it was, no pixie dust was to be had, but I ran a solid race and came in at 1:41:44, which was enough for third place in my age group - and as the AG winner was also second overall, and the AG second place was first Master (over 40) woman (after #1 was moved to an OA award), they were both knocked out of the age group placings and I got the first place AG award!

( Details )

I have a traveller42! He is on a road trip and stopping here for the purpose of buying me beer and giving the guest room a dry run before my parents arrive on Thursday. But this is not why I am posting. Rather, Britt and I hiked up Silver Mountain (12,450') in the La Platas yesterday. Gorgeous, gorgeous day, the kind of crisp blue-sky day which is why autumn is my favorite season. We hung out on the summit for a long time (us and the flying ants, WTF?) and then merrily traipsed along the connecting ridge to Deadwood Mountain (12,285') and then down via the west ridge to the Neptune Creek jeep road, which, meh, and then along the La Plata Canyon road back to our truck, which, double meh. But! This kind of scenery only a half-hour's drive from our house!



That moon is rising RIGHT OVER the peak we climbed. (It's the highest one in that group; the others are just closer.) Photo taken on the way back to the truck. ( More pictures from the actual hike: )

All 7 photos at Flickr.

The Imogene Pass Run is one of those idiosyncratic races that you either sign up for again and again each year - or you shudder at the mere thought and never consider it. I am clearly in the first category, as I did it again this year. There is something irresistible (at least to me) about running from one mountain town to another over a high mountain pass.

The cool thing about running a race for a second time is that not only do you know what to expect; you also have a mark to compare yourself against. My last year's time was 4:11; this year, I wanted to get under 4 hours, with a backup goal of simply beating that time, and a magic pixie dust goal of 3:45. I've been running a lot more this year, and running more hilly trail miles as well, although I have spent less time hiking or at altitude. I had analyzed my mile splits versus the terrain, and made some crazy assumptions as to how much better I might be able to do.

I had put together a pace card with guesses as to where I thought I would be each mile, mostly using the most pessimistic assumptions, and came up with a total time of 3:54. In fact, I ran 3:55, which looks like I hit it right on, except in reality I was about right on the first 6 miles (the reasonably steep part), way slower than I expected on the next 4 miles (the unreasonably steep part), spent too much time on the summit (and, er, in the portapotty just below the summit), and was much faster than I expected on the descent.

One of the joys of doing this was meeting up with a bunch of women I knew from a running forum. Two who live about 4 hours north of me I had met (Deltarose and Kazz - Kazz and I had met at Imogene last year, and the two of them had come down for the Steamworks Half in June) and two (Cara and Jana) live in Nebraska and had somehow let Kazz and me talk them into signing up. Jana made awesome t-shirts that we each wore at least part of the time during the race.

( Details... )

The funniest thing happened at the finish line. At the end, the course turns right onto a paved road and goes a block or so to the finish line, and that's where most of the spectators are. As I approached the line, a woman passed me on the right. I thought, well, hmmph! and sped up and sprinted past her. JUST as I got to the finish line, she passed me again, and I turned on the afterburners and we ran shoulder to shoulder across the line in a photo finish. (Although according to the official time, she edged me by 0.2 seconds!) Then we looked at each other - and it was Deltarose! We had both been so focused we hadn't realized who each other was.

Eventually our whole group met up in the finish area. The storm finally hit, with periodic rain and even one really impressive stretch of 15 minutes with huge, soft hailstones, but hey, we were done. Deltarose got a lift back to Ouray and then to her home with someone else; the rest of us got lunch and beer and then took the bus back, rested and hot-tubbed, then went out for dinner and too many margaritas...

...which is probably why we all agreed to sign up again next year.

The Imogene Pass Run is two weeks away. (I did it last year. It was the most fun I have ever had while wanting to throw up.) With this kind of a race, it's hard to estimate how one is going to do, but I'll put my goals out here now:

I am going to aim for 3:45.
I will be happy with anything under 4 hours.
I will be not entirely unhappy as long as I beat last year's time of 4:11.

( In which I pull some numbers out of the air. )

All the guitars play
"One more angel in heaven"
And that's one Les Paul.

( Five more photos. )

I am so lucky that this is right outside my back door! *hearts Colorado*

The person who took pictures at the Kennebec Challenge put them up on Facebook here; if you can't see them (you can't see them if you're not on FB; I don't know if you can see them if you are, but aren't her FBF) you can look at a small selection I snagged and put on Flickr here: Kennebec Challenge. Um, yeah, I look kind of sweaty and zoned-out. I have an excuse. :-)

Last night was the Lyle Lovett concert up at the football field of our small local college, and it was a total blast. Durango's pretty small, so we only get a big-name concert maybe once every few years, and the whole town showed up, or so it seemed, because we ran into about a dozen people we knew. We went up with two other couples; it was one guy's birthday, so we had a little potluck party here and drank bunches of wine before heading up to the concert, which had been going since 5 in the afternoon with local musicians as opening acts.

Rain earlier had given way to beautiful clear skies. We had lawn tickets and sprawled in our camp chairs just behind the reserved section, and most of the time we could see pretty well, as long as the excitable women in front of us weren't jumping to their feet. Lyle Lovett had his Large Band with him, which lived up to its name (we counted 13 people), and they were all awesome. At one point they brought up and played a couple of songs with one of our local musicians, who is apparently a bluegrass legend despite living in Dove Creek, a tiny agricultural town about an hour and a half west of here.

It was just so pleasant and relaxing. The stars were clear and shining above our heads; we were looking straight at Scorpio over the stage. Great music. Lovely evening. Happy Ilana.

Um, yeah, that would be ME.



Britt and I had heard a lot about Phil's World, a newly-created trail system near Cortez (about 45 minutes west of here) and so despite 1) getting a late start and 2) it shaping up to be an insanely hot day, we headed out this morning to ride. It turned out to be great fun, although each of us crashed once, and there were several spots where each of us shook our heads and said, "Uh-uh, me not doing that." Still, I rode a lot more than I walked, which I count as a win. I also managed to not expire of the heat, although toward the end you could probably have fried an egg on my skin.

I will do it again. In October or November.

More photos here. For some reason I look oddly rotund in them.

OMGDEAD. 7-mile trail race was seriously brutal, not least because I didn't sleep but 3 hours last night for some reason. Hot, although about half the course was shaded. And crazy steep like you wouldn't believe. Total ascent/descent was 1042 feet (according to my GPS watch, post-elevation correction which usually makes the numbers smaller but made these bigger) and there were a couple of stretches of ridiculously steep grades. Like, one spot went up 120 feet in .2 mile. Just brutal even to walk. And the trail wound around all these little curves and switchbacks, up and down, and at one point the marker had apparently gotten knocked down, so we all got lost (later we were told that just about everybody ran a short course - maybe 6.5 miles - but I don't know for sure because my GPS lost signal a few times) and just followed the people in front of us.

Even though I do lots of hilly training runs, I am apparently not so good at steep hills because I always end up walking when they get really steep and my heart rate hits the roof. But I am pretty fast going down them, and catch up again there. One woman in pink and I passed each other a few times, me passing her going down and her passing me going up, and then finally she just refused to pass me on the uphills because we were both walking - and then there was a long downhill toward the end and I thought I had lost her but no, coming up to the finish she is right behind me and starts yelling at me to hustle, and we crossed the finish line simultaneously, tying for 6th place (dunno out of how many, maybe 20 or so), and just fell into each other's arms, laughing.

Anyway, official time 1:18:31, and considering that the fastest woman did 1:17:05 I don't think that's too bad. No prizes other than for "best mud" and "best blood". My HR pretty much just hit threshold, 88-92% HRR (heart rate reserve = max HR - resting HR) and stayed there, although at the very end I hit 181 which is the highest real HR I have seen on my monitor (my max calculation of 183 is based on 180 during a 5K). UGH. Why do I do these races, again?

Two down in the series, one to go on September 20, incidentally 2 days after my 46th birthday. There will be a huge party after the race. I am going to eat so much food and drink so much beer, oh, YES.

*collapses*

It is looking like I only post when I have photos or want to ramble about running. But actually, I do other things, really! (Although running is my passion these days. I am not sure why. I suspect it's because Britt is waist-deep in his own passion, which involves solar panels and windmills and federal funding requests and tax benefits, so we are not going hiking or backpacking much these days.)

But Britt was lured away from his work by our friend Jim, who tempted him with fly-fishing from his dory on the Rio Grande near South Fork, so we drove out in our Sportsmobile on Friday night and on Saturday Britt and Jim floated and fished, while I paddled my Fat Cat (which I bought last year after borrowing one to float the Dolores) behind them. Nice and relaxing, and now I really want to get out on the rivers some more.

Then on Sunday we drove back as far as Vallecito where we went to a friend's wedding up on his family ranch at the edge of the wilderness, and we drank a lot of very good beer and ate more food than we really should have and took some home with us. Leftover wedding cake = breakfast of champions!