I got into Aspen with no real trouble on the roads. There was a little ski traffic going up to the tunnels on I-70, but there was no real weather to speak of so it moved pretty well most of the time. I got to Aspen a bit past noon, and sat around at Shanna's doing homework (glad I got some of that in) until she got off work at four, when we headed off to check in and get our "shwag bags." Apparently this race is well sponsored, as you'll see later. The non-competitive race took off at 5:15, and we followed 45 minutes later. For those who might know some names, I had some heavy competition from names like Bernie Boettcher (who runs 50 races a year and wins many of them), Rickey Gates (US mountain running champion, 12th in the world), and Lucas Franz (all around athlete and fortunately my teammate).
I ended up wearing Kahtoola Microspikes, which are pretty much a heavy duty version of YakTrax (with chains and steel spikes on the bottoms instead of metal rings). It worked perfectly. The race goes straight up a groomed ski run, so I took poles and mostly did a type of ski walk, reminiscent of XC ski training back in the day, most of the way up. Where it was "flat", I picked up the poles and started running, but for the most part that wasn't even possible, let alone efficient.
The entire race, I had no idea where I was on the course, how far I had come or how far I had to go, or how long I"d been going (I forgot my watch again). But I got in my rhythm and just went, apparently rather quickly. A bit before halfway up, I started passing the non-competitive wave, and that worked out well, since I didn't know where I was going, either. I started just having fun with the race, clacking my poles and cheering people on as I passed them. Any way, because of the severe slope of the hill, I didn't know I was right at the top until I was about 50 meters from the finish, when I picked up my poles and sprinted in.
At that point, while I was collapsed, leaning on my poles, gasping for air and trying not to throw up, one of the race volunteers told me to take of my timing chip, which was strapped to my ankle. There was no way that was going to happen, and I think I scared the poor girl with the look I gave her until she just decided to take it off herself. I don't think she'd volunteered at a race like that before. And yet somehow, after about two minutes, I was skipping around and waiting to cheer Shanna in. I think I still have some remnant of my XC training from high school, or at the very least my body remembers it.
Turns out I made my goal of under an hour, by about a minute or so. I ended in the top ten racers, which supposedly won me a pair of boots, but there was some confusion there, and I may have to get those later. The big news is that Lucas (mendioned above), and Shanna (the friend I stayed with) got 2nd overall and for women, respectively. I came in about 10 minutes behind Lucas and 5 ahead of Shanna, which is pretty good for coming in from Boulder. And, since I was on a team with both of them, our team won that competition with a total time of 2hrs 57 minutes. As Lucas said "We totally stacked it!" Any way, for that, we won a dinner party for 6, and we each won a pair of (really friggin nice) sunglasses, along with a few smaller prizes. They do well passing stuff out.
So the race ended at the top of the Gondola on Aspen mountain, and it was followed by a dinner and party at the Sundeck up there. They put on a good party, along with everything else. They had a great Funk band, which turned out to be the same one that plays for Shanna's church. So we hung out there for three hours, and then headed down into Aspen and hung out for a few more hours.
Next morning, we went skiing, despite somewhat sore legs from the night before. Unfortunately, as soon as I got to the top on the Gondola, my binding broke as I was strapping my skis on. So I had to ride the Gondola down again, go to the mountaineering store, and get those fixed But within an hour or so I was back up, and skiing with 5 other Telemarkers. This marks four times that I've Tele skied, and one thing I've noticed is that Tele skiers are always excited by a convert, and are willing to a) wait around for you while you're learning and b) give you lessons. In fact, it's hard to avoid the latter. I was kinda getting the hang of it by the end. We skied for about 3 hours, by which point we were all exhausted and decided to head down.
My original plan was to stay another night, and head back Monday morning to avoid ski traffic, but there was a storm coming in that night, so I opted to leave last night, and got back to Boulder around 7:30, time enough to do four more hours of work and head to bed.
Now, on Monday morning, I am having some significant trouble moving at all. I think an ice bath may be in order later today.
As soon as I upload it, I post a pic of the winning team (Cross Roads).
All in all, it was the perfect way to end a racing year.
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