atrrunner wrote:
I'm not feeling as confident for you after a faster marathoner says he had to bling to an old one armed man to avoid death. How'd it go?
Okay, WOW. Ouch. Double ouch. Without a doubt, this was the toughest, most brutal run I have ever done. I am in utter awe of the dudes that can run this in 2:06 - 2:20.
Short recap - remember, the first 10 miles of this go from ~7800' to 13,114' on a 4x4 road and/or trails. The last seven miles drop from 13,114' to ~8,000'. The first five miles actually weren't bad and easily runnable. Then things got progressive worse. For the next five miles to the top, for me at least, there were very few sections I could run. Most of that was steep climbs and pretty rocky terrain. Whenever the grade flattened out, I'd jog along and start up the next hill for a few seconds before getting hammered by the elevation. At that point, we were at 10,000' The last two miles to the top were insane. Even walking, I could feel my pulse throbbing in my fingertips, hands, head. It felt like the world was moving in really slow motion. There were points where I could have literally crawled up the steepness of those grades. It was hard to just keep moving forward.
At the top, the views were amazing. They had a well stocked aid station with water, Gatorade, hot chicken broth, M&Ms, cookies, pretzels, bagels, gummy bears, bananas. I waited briefly for my buddy to arrive and we had our photo taken at the summit sign. Then came the death-defying part.
For those of you that know me, know I don't fancy trails all that much. Let alone loose rock, jagged boulder type trails. That's what I had to face 90% of the next seven miles. The first three miles of the decent were down right terrifying for me. It was SO steep and full of loose rocks that would give way when you landed on them. Needless to say, I CRAWLED down those three miles. And because I was so tense, my quads were taking a beating. There were a few sections that flattened out enough where I could run at a good clip, but my quads were screaming. With 1.5 miles to go, I had lost most of my leg stabilization ability. I did manage to rally a little bit over those last 1.5 miles though because the surface had evened out.
I crossed the finish in 4:19:14. I think I covered the UPHILL ten miles of the course faster than the DOWNHILL seven miles! I placed some where around 660th overall, out of ~1200 finishers. I was 39th in the 50-54 age group. Had I been in the WOMEN'S 60-64 AGE GROUP, I would have placed THIRD!!!
The weather was fantastic throughout the event. 48 degrees at the start and I ran the whole thing in a short-sleeved tech shirt, shorts and gloves. A couple hours after I finished in Telluride though, the had a brief heavy rain storm and marble-sized hail. I'm glad I wasn't at the summit then!
While this race totally kicked my butt, I'm really glad I "conqured" the mountain and was able to share the experience with my good friend from back home. If you are ever looking for a real challenge and adventure, put this one on your list.