Pear Lake Pain, or I Hate Steps

I don't know who thought it was a good idea to put steps in a trail, but I want to meet this person...and punch him or her right in the face.  Trails are hard enough to run as it is, inviting disaster at every turn.  Tree roots, rocks, nothing at all, pygmy mountain lions...any of these things can cause a fall.  But steps???  Come on.  Don't tell me it's for erosion control or to minimize the grade or scare off trolls; it's all a pack of lies.  Trails still erode, the grade is still steep, and trolls are still EVERYWHERE!  Steps turn a nice trail run into a knee-shattering, pace-destroying slice of hell.  I hate them, I hate them, I hate them.

Yesterday, after deciding against running the Pawnee Pass-Buchanan Pass loop in the Indian Peaks Wilderness, I decided instead to head to Pear Lake via the Finch Lake Trailhead.  Fall colors are in full swing, and the Finch Lake Trailhead is a great place to soak in the color.

         

Doesn't quite capture the beauty, but you get the idea.  Just go see for yourself and stop yelling at me!

The run itself is a 14-mile out-and-back frolic with about 2700 ft. of gain over the course of the run, and almost all of that comes in the first 7 miles.  It's certainly not super steep, but it'll get the legs and lungs burning.  It's a tough one to start because well over 400 ft. is gained in the first 0.75 mile, so there's not really a chance to warm-up.  Once you top the first hill, though, it's a smooth ride through aspen meadows for a good little stretch.  About two miles in, the steps begin.  Truthfully, the uphill portion isn't that bad.  I made it the five miles to Finch Lake in 1:01:49 (8:30 better than my previous best) and made it the full seven miles to Pear in 1:34:43 (about 11 minutes better than my PR).  I didn't fly, but I made decent time.

The northern edge of Pear Lake, with part of Mount Copeland in the background.

On the way down, I don't know what happens, but something changes.  I think the steps portion of the descent goes on for somewhere in the vicinity of 4000 miles.  Let me just check the GPS...yep, 4000 miles.  Oh, and on this portion of the trail, all of the tree branches are lined with razor blades.  And Peach Cobbler Vi Fuel tastes like burning tires mixed with dirty diapers.  And all of the love in your heart turns into hatred for puppies and everything beautiful.  And your praying turns into wailing and teeth-gnashing.  And your skin falls off.  I'm pretty sure that's accurate.  It's just...it's just awful.  I can't even sustain 10-minute miles on descents like that.  I run on this stuff all the time, but when you come back from a Leadville or an Imogene Pass and see just how fast you can actually move on a race course descent, it can be so frustrating to look down at your watch and realize you're moving at a 12-minute mile pace despite all your efforts to the contrary.  Anyway, I finished up the run with a time of 2:51 and then proceeded to splash all of my troubles away in the river.

 

     

Imogene Pass Run

I've read quite a few race reports since I began running races earlier this year, and I love getting the feel of the race from the runner's perspective.  Tonight, I'm going to attempt to write my very first race report, and just like all of the other reports I've read, I'm going to do so in my own peculiar way.  That's the other great benefit of race reports...you actually come to know the runner just a little bit, to see not only the race but the world through his or her eyes. So, here's the race and the world through my eyes.

I only recently started seriously running.  In fact, I'd say I really only got truly started in March or April of this year thanks to prodding by friends like Michael Hodges and Alan Smith.  Michael has been an incredible encourager to me in it all, and I am continually thankful for him.  He and Alan would tell of their exploits in the wilderness, and they seemed to love it so much.  I spent a lot of time in the mountains already, but I imagined where I could go and what I could do if I was running instead of hiking...I wanted to give it a go.  More appealing than that, Michael told me how prayerful running was for him.  If running could also be an avenue through which I came to know and be known better by Jesus, then sign me up.  So I began, and in a few months' time, Michael talked me into doing the Leadville Marathon, and two weeks later, I was running the Silver Rush 50.  Though I do sometimes worry I'm taking on too much too quickly, I love it, and you can't know if it's too much until you try.

Running does have some downsides for me, though.  For one, though I do practice the ancient tradition of the Jesus Prayer sporadically during my runs and pray short prayers throughout a run, I'm more often telling myself to keep going or push harder or something along those lines.  I haven't yet found running to be a great place of meeting for God and me, but I continue to hope it will become that.  The most disturbing and painful downside I've noticed is how prideful I've become in it.  Though I'm not a great runner by any stretch of the imagination, when I'm running up the likes of Long's Peak and people are cheering me and expressing awed disbelief, it's hard to not let that kind of stuff go to my head and my heart.  As someone who has a very distorted and flawed self-image, believing that I continually have to prove myself before I'm considered lovable or desirable or valuable, it is particularly difficult to remain immune to such praise. The more of this praise I receive, the more I desire, and though it feels great and serves to inspire me, it also feeds that gaping, insatiable abyss in me, that chasm that longs to be filled but never can be. It can only be healed, made as if it never was, and only the Healer Himself can do that.

The background has been provided; on to the race.

Pre-race intensity

Today (9/8/2012), I ran the Imogene Pass Run with my great friend, Cameron Schenk.  The race is 17.1 miles in length, beginning in Ouray, CO, at an elevation of 7810 ft. and ending in Telluride, CO, at an elevation of 8750 ft.  Along the way, runners climb 5300 ft. or so in 10 miles to the top of Imogene Pass before descending 4350 ft. in 7 miles into the town of Telluride.  It was Cameron's first race since high school track, and though running Imogene Pass is a little different than high school track, he knocked it out of the park with a time of 3:53:01.  Congratulations, my friend!

Alright, enough with all that.  I'll move on to the good stuff.  We stayed in Durango, CO, the night before at one of the best hostels in existence, the Durango Hometown Hostel.  Unfortunately it had been a rather warm day in Durango and cloud cover that night kept the heat in, which meant the hostel stayed pretty warm as well, which meant I only managed about 3 hours of sleep.  I wasn't too concerned about the effect this would have on my running ability, because as many of you know, the energy present at the beginning of a race is more than enough to overcome an impoverished sleep.  And once you start to run...well, last night might as well be two years ago.

We were among the first few runners to arrive at check-in because we'd heard several different accounts of how long it takes to get from Durango to Ouray.  For future reference, leaving at 4:15 AM for a 7:30 AM race will get you there in PLENTY of time.  But, the early arrival time allowed me to do some deep knee-bends, runs up and down the stairs, and take a few punches to the gut from Cameron to try to evict some of the unwelcome residents in my bowels.  Despite my best efforts, only some of the unruly guests left at the appropriate time; the rest decided to leave a few hours later, a fact that would end up dropping me down about 100 spots. 

The starting line...the air is permeated by a pungent mixture of excitement, fear, and flatulence.

At 7:25 AM, the runners were already lined up at 4th and Main.  1500 runners is a crowd, but the excitement was certainly infectious.  Loaded up with Vi Fuel to spare and a bottle of water, I was ready to go.  I Vi it up every 30 minutes or so during a race, and in all seriousness, there's nothing better out there...not even close.  As the seconds ticked down, Cameron and I genuinely blessed each other, did our secret handshake, slapped some kid in the face, and then turned our eyes to the task before us.  Okay, so only the blessing actually happened, but it was entertaining for a moment, right?  Anyway, the gun sounded promptly at 7:30, and we were off.  I didn't know what to expect from the course, but I figured the first five miles or so would be comparatively easy running.  To my surprise, it was even easier than I thought.  I looked down at the Garmin watch loaned to me by my super wonderful greatest-everest friend, Michael Hodges, and noticed that I was easily keeping a sub-12 minute pace for a good portion of that first stretch. At 7.6 miles in and 3400 ft. of gain to that point, the Upper Camp Bird aid station had the first cutoff, and I knew pretty quickly that I was going to make it with loads of time to spare.  Mile 6 started to get quite a bit steeper, and this trend would continue to the top, but I made it to Upper Camp Bird in 1:43:47.

The view leaving Upper Camp Bird

 The next 2.4 miles, however, turned out to be quite a bit slower.  It was steeeeep.  At times I was moving at a 30-minute mile pace, and I was actually passing people.  It was soooooo steep.  I definitely need to do a lot more work on my uphill movement, but I managed to reach the summit in 2:38:04.  It was soooo, sooooo, steeeeeep.  In my overblown opinion, Leadville's Mosquito Pass can't hold a candle to it.  I felt like I cruised up that in comparison.

Weary folks nearing the summit

Imogene Pass: 13,100 ft.

The summit reached, I knew I was in my element now.  I've discovered that I can descend pretty well.  In fact, looking at the descent times of the top runners at this race and factoring in my unfortunate bathroom break, I happily noticed that my descent time was right in line with all but the top 10.  After refilling my water, I took off.  I was cruising, and I felt great, but about two miles down, the demons in my belly felt sufficiently exorcised and decided they were going to exit the premises.  I found a secluded spot off the trail, which took a bit of doing, and by the time I finished, I estimate that I lost close to 10 minutes.  Sad news for me, but I took off again and burned it all the way down.  I reached the finish line in 3:37:53, which put me as the 306th finisher of 1500, so it wasn't too bad, but I was a little disappointed because of the knowledge of what could have been.  Anyway, it was a great day and a great race, and I plan to make this an annual visit.

Finish line extravaganza

Terrible beauty