First and foremost, it was a bucket list item. I'd heard about this race for years, seen the finisher's jackets. Thought it was cool. Knew it would be rough, and probably not smart to do in an Ironman year ... which is why it became a thing this year.
I think I knew what the training would need to consist of, but I didn't actually get there.
I mean, we hiked in preparation.
On the Barr Trail/race course, early July.
Timberline Falls, in Rocky Mountain National Park.
We had also done a bit of trail running in preparation, here and there.
We did nowhere NEAR the level of preparation needed for this race.
Both of us were pretty terrified going in. In discussion after (well, technically during) the race, we recognized that neither of us had the proper mental game going in. We were already thinking of the outs, knowing that, oh, it's totally possible we won't be able to finish for x, y, and z reasons. Not the proper mindset, and dammit, I know that.
Race morning, we woke up early. Our wave didn't go off until 7:18, but we wanted to get as close of parking as we could to the start, so we were down in Manitou Springs by 5:30. Mission successful, as we were in the lot closest to the start. With so much time to go, I crawled in the back of the car to try and nap some. I'm not sure if I actually slept, but I did get some shut-eye time, and sometimes, that can be all I need.
I bought a package of Pop Tarts before we parked to have something to munch on. Eating at 3:45am and starting a race three and a half hours later with no other food isn't wise. I don't really eat Pop Tarts anymore, but they worked somewhat to settle my stomach during camp, so I figured they'd be fine. I only ate one, but it worked.
I went to the porta potties (side note: they had the most awesome, efficient bathroom volunteer EVER. She was the best.), and then back to the car. Around 6:45, we left the car for good. Brandon hopped in the porta potty line and I went to drop off our sweat bags (extra layers for the top). I rejoined him in line ... and ended up going a second time.
From there, it was just sit and wait until our wave.
Thankfully you can't see the abject terror in our eyes. Or maybe you can. I can't.
Starting arch.
7:18am rolls around, and off we go.
The first mile, mile and a half is on the streets of Manitou, as you wind your way to the base of the mountain. We went out easy - possibly not easy enough - knowing that we didn't want to destroy ourselves early on.
We hit the trail, and the next mile or so was completely different from what we had trained on. It's an access road/trail that I'm pretty sure is usually closed to the general public and a lot steeper (but with fewer switchbacks) than the early part of the Barr Trail. We were with a lot of people, so it was a fairly brisk pace. There were a few slowdowns and clogs as we hit rocky points, but other than that ...
... it felt like a death march. I believe that early pace, while probably necessary, was too fast for what I could handle. I cherished the slowdowns. I hated being crowded in so much, feeling like I couldn't slow down to a more manageable pace without slowing down the entire line.
We hit the first aid station on the trail; quick water and go. We hit a curve with a wide shoulder (for lack of a better term) about four miles in and I stepped off.
Four miles in, and I was miserable. This was probably the least fun thing I'd done in years ... or at least since Silverman in 2015. I had no good reason to quit, but oh dear sweet jeebus did I want to. After a minute or so, we hopped back in the line of people.
A mile or so later (possibly more), it finally started spreading out a bit. When we were surrounded by fewer people, it was a better experience.
We hit Barr Camp with a decent buffer against the cutoff and paused for a minute, talking with one of the Airlife guys, as they recognized the University of North Dakota stuff Brandon was wearing. We left, with just under two hours to get to A Frame, the next cutoff point.
At some point post-Barr Camp, things went downhill and they went downhill fast. I was feeling crappy ever since the start, but I started feeling more light-headed. It got to the point where we were stopping almost every tenth of a mile ... and the stops started getting longer.
We pressed on, but started keeping a closer eye on the clock.
Garmin/GPS data gets a little funky in the mountains, but at what our watches said was 9.3 miles, we knew we had around a mile (possibly as little as half a mile) left to A Frame and we had 12 minutes to get there. We knew there was no earthly way we'd make that cutoff ...
... so we turned it.
The downside to this race is that if you don't make the top, you have to hike yourself back to the start. So what for many people was a 13.32 mile race ... turned into 18.6 miles for us. Hooray for bonus miles?
They marked our bibs at Barr Camp and we got wooden nickels from El Paso County Search and Rescue at the aid station after them that have a silly ":-p" face on them that say "They wouldn't let me finish." We're planning on drilling a hole in them, stringing ribbon through, and hanging them on our medal rack.
Although we were in a lot of pain, the hike of shame down was actually our favorite part of the whole experience. Just the two of us, tromping through the (eerily quiet and empty) woods.
We ate some post-race food, dealt with a very unhelpful volunteer in regards to getting our drop bags, found a much nicer, much more helpful volunteer with better answers, got gas, returned to get our bags, and went home.
********
This race was really well run. They were tight on the cutoffs (safety first), and each and every aid station we passed on the way back down was keeping track of our bibs. The volunteers on the trails were amazing.
It was kind of painful starting to hear the finish line right before Barr Camp and then off and on from there on out. Knowing you still have four miles to go, but you can hear people finishing ahead of you. Gross.
*********
Will we do this race again? I know Brandon is an unequivocal NO. He did this solely because of me and realized that it just wasn't for him.
Me?
I'm not sure. I can't be upset about signing up for this and, honestly, not for finishing, either. We didn't get near enough high altitude training, near enough time on our feet, near enough anything. We used a half-marathon time from two years ago as a qualifying standard that there's no way we could run this year. But, it got us back in the mountains again hiking, something we haven't done in years and something we've talked about doing for a long time. We rediscovered our joy and love of the mountains, and that alone was worth the price of signing up.
I do believe part of me wants to give this another, proper shot. Do more time above 10,000 feet. Conquer a couple of fourteeners. Get my legs a lot stronger as well as my lungs. Get faster at a stand-alone half-marathon so I can run a faster time to get put in an earlier corral to give me more of a cushion on the mountain.
Then again, I think a woman on the trail put it best:
We might have bucket list items, but sometimes, maybe it's best if the bucket has holes in it.
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