I promised to share this tshirt with Annie at Mt. Snow as she makes the design for the end of the year devo tshirt, so I am posting it on the blog as it reminded me of this adventure of a race!
The Imogene Pass Run (IPR) is a 17.1 mile point-to-point mountain race within the western San Juan mountains of Colorado, run along a route which connects the towns of Ouray (7810 ft.) and Telluride (8820 ft.) by way of 13,120 foot Imogene Pass.
On the website you can read about what it takes to do this run being so uphill, at that high elevation and then down the mountain slamming against the ground with all your soul…
In 98 when I ran the race, it was drizzling rain at the start, but warm, as we climbed the rocky trail to the top the field thinned out and then the Z path up the mountain separated the stronger runners one by one. I have to go back and see my results, but I remember being SO cold with the sleet and freezing rain at the top that I was afraid of hypothermia and as I ran down the backside I was warmer and warmer to finish with a smile. This run is just as difficult as a marathon with the push all the way to the top and really saw a lot of folks in pain from running the downhill too… an accomplishment I will remember and as you can see I will keep the tshirt FOREVER!
Oh yes – I searched my results from 1998 and I was 62nd overall and 16th in my age group of 30-39. There were more than 500 runners that year and now the race has grown to more than 1500 runners! Hopefully someday we will return to Telluride to run this one again!
