amelia carolyn

Holy cow.

the back story
Yep. That’s right. Holy. Cow. Remember this post? The one telling the story of a woman (me) running a full mile for the first time—ever—when she was 26? The one detailing that she (me again) was the girl in the back of the pack in high school gossiping with her friends while walking the mile during gym class? Remember? And then she started running. And got totally hooked. Yet was average, generally finishing in the 50th percentile for most races she entered. (I promise I’ll start writing in the first person soon.)

There are goals. There are dreams. And then there are fantasies. We tell ourselves to make our goals realistic. Achievable. Our dreams are there to guide us. We may not realize them, but if we head in the general direction of our dreams, life gets better and we’re closer to our goals. But fantasies? Those (we tend to assume) are the unrealistic dreams. The ones where, if we think about them too much, or try for them too often, we’ll be disappointed.

I think fantasies are good. In the sense that dreaming big is good. If we head in the general direction, some of the fairy dust might rub off on us and we’ll see some success. Not the fantasy-come-true success, but the this-small-part-of-my-fantasy-feels-really-great kind of success.

I felt that two years ago at my second running of the Pike’s Peak marathon. My first race had been painful. I’d pulled the muscle connecting the hip to the quad a few weeks prior and decided to run anyway. I cried in pain most of the way down and experienced pain with every step I took for four months after the race that year. I was happy to have finished, but it hadn’t been pretty.

2007 came along and I was excited to try it again. And I ran a really good race. Knocking my ascent time down nine minutes (to 4:09:56) and my total time by about 26 minutes (to a very good 6:34:41). It was my brush with fantasy. Placing 6th out of 24 in my age group and 42nd woman out of a total of 189 finishers felt unbelievable. I’d felt good afterwards. Proud and happy. I didn’t think I could do much better.

second thoughts
So 2009 rolls around. Sign-up for the marathon is in March. It fills up quickly, so you have to know then if you’re planning on running it or not. There was a lot of thinking and hesitating going on inside my head regarding this race. I’d missed it last year. But I had a lot going on leading up to the August 16th date. A wedding (my own) three weeks before, to name just one. I wasn’t sure I wanted to put the time in to train. I was running a lot and thought I might need a break—especially with the wedding plans.

But my friend, Rich (thank you!!), convinced me that I was running strong this year, and of all the years to run, this might be a really good one. So I committed. But I made a deal with myself in hopes of relieving some of the stress I anticipated: I wasn’t going to worry about it. I had a few goals in mind, but they were secondary. I looked at this year’s Pike’s Peak as an “easy” race; one I’d done before and that I knew I could do so I didn’t have to worry too much about training for it.

the training
I knew I had a good base built up from my two ultra runs (see here and here for details on those). But Collegiate Peaks had been way back at the beginning of May. I’d had over three months of semi-but-not-really training runs. I had a lot on my mind, and Pike’s Peak was only a small part.

I logged only 29 more miles in May (after the 50-miler), 68 miles total for June, and 75 in July. I went on a total of 4 runs in the three weeks between my wedding and the race (when I taper, I taper well!). Did I feel ready? No. All four of those runs felt sluggish and hard. The few days before the race, I began to have serious second thoughts.

seeking grace
She’s a big mountain. It’s a BIG race. You can read about the course description here, but suffice it to say, it’s not for the faint-of-heart. It climbs 7,800 vertical feet over 13.1 miles to the summit of Pike’s Peak at 14,115 feet above sea level. Then you turn around and pound down 13.1 miles to the finish line.

I realized my predicted time of 6:15:00 was a little unrealistic considering my training (or lack thereof). I adjusted it in my head (and to my friends who would be at the finish) to be just under 6:30. I’d still be happy with that. It’d be a few minutes off my 2007 time and if I was close (or just under) four hours for the ascent, I’d be ecstatic.

the dream
So in my mind, I held on to a couple of “dream goals.” My main goals that I figured were fairly reasonable, were (in order of importance):

1. to finish
2. to finish without injury
3. to finish under 6:30

And then there were my dream goals. These are the goals I secretly hoped and longed for, but didn’t allow myself to dwell on since I hadn’t put in the training time. They are:

1. to make it to the summit under four hours
2. to make it to the finish around 6:15 (my original predicted time back in March)

One of the crazy things about this race is understanding the length of time it’ll take you. It’s a pretty good rule of thumb that if you’ve run a flatland marathon, your finishing time will be the rough equivalent of your ascent time. My fastest flatland marathon is 4:26, so in some (possibly warped?) way, having a sub-four ascent time would mean that I could run a sub-four marathon one day (if I was interested in running on roads ever again). So the sub-four ascent time was important to me. Unrealistic, but most definitely important to me.

50 years of women marathoners
I will take a step back briefly here, to mention a very cool, and very important milestone the Pike’s Peak marathon marked this year. Fifty years ago, in 1959, a woman named Arlene Pieper, along with her 10-year-old daughter, lined up at the starting line of the 4th annual Pike’s Peak marathon. She finished the race with a time of 9:16, and became the first woman on record to officially complete a U.S. marathon. (Her daughter, incidentally, made it to the top in 5:44.)

The organizers of the PPM tracked Arlene and her daughter down, bringing them out for the weekend festivities. Arlene counted down for the starting gun at 7:00am Sunday morning and they were both there at the awards ceremony presenting.

the fantasy
I woke up the morning of the race with a sense of calm. Deep down, I knew I would be fine. Whatever happened during the race, I would be fine. I could be running for over seven hours and it would be okay. I had fallen in love with running awhile ago. I love the mental challenge of long courses, the weather looked good, and there was nothing more to do but run.

I put on the clothes I’d decided on the night before (my favorite running skirt, a camisole and a mid-weight long-sleeve shirt), packed up my fuel (two gels, two packages of shot bloks and an extra package of luna moons) and fluid (32 ozs of gatorade) and put on my running shoes. My breakfast included a banana, half a croissant and a tall americano from Starbucks. Sunscreen applied, we headed out the door.

We arrived at the start in plenty of time to warm up, be nervous and take care of business. Just before 7:00am, we all lined up and listened to “America the Beautiful” (whose words, if you don’t know, were written at the summit of Pike’s Peak by Katherine Lee Bates). Arlene Pieper counted down, and the gun went off.

I settled into a slow, relaxing pace. Too many people go out too fast and blow up early. I was happy to allow many runners to pass me, biding my time when they’d be walking up the W’s and I’d run past. I was thankful for having run the Barr Trail Mountain Race six weeks before. I knew my pace was good for the long haul and simply put one foot in front of the other, walking the super-steep sections, moving quickly while saving energy.

One thing I’ve always done well is walk fast. And I can hike fast and efficiently, which I use often in trail running. Many times it’s faster for me to walk up steeper sections, rather than try to run them. So I paced myself throughout the ascent, walking when it made sense, but pushing the pace and then running when I knew I could.

What amazed me was how often I was able to pass people. I figured I’d be passing a lot of people at first, but would eventually settle into a group going the same pace as me for the majority of the incline. I was wrong. Since I try to stay pretty self-sufficient with my fuel and fluid needs, I only refilled a bottle of gatorade once, running through all the other aid stations (and passing people when I did). I kept going. I kept alternating my walk and run, feeling strong and steady.

I passed Barr Camp at 1:50. At this point, I knew I had a chance to get to the summit before four hours. I started to get excited, but tried to keep it in check so I wouldn’t be disappointed if I didn’t. I kept pushing.

I reminded myself that I had no races coming up. Nothing to “save” myself for. I could push and hurt and be just fine. I kept passing people. And the weird thing is, I kept feeling good. I wasn’t tired. I wasn’t too out of breath. The increasing lack of oxygen wasn’t bothering my lungs (only my hands, which by this time, resembled the stay-puff marshmallow man).

We passed the A-frame and I was again reminded of why I do this. One of my favorite places in the mountains is that space where you go from treeline to alpine (around 11,500 feet). It’s just beautiful. The trees are all gnarled and then they open up into wide, open spaces of rock, grass and wildflowers with views all around. Running and hiking through this part, my smile started to stick. I was having fun. I was loving this race.

I spied the summit and turnaround point and looked at my watch (my new gps) and realized I was crushing my “dream” goal. I wasn’t sure if I should believe it. I’m rather notorious for mis-reading my times and getting it all wrong. But sure enough, there were the kazoo-ists playing the “Chariots of Fire” theme along the sixteen golden stairs. They joked about that stretch being a “sprint” zone and I was feeling sassy, so looked back and said, “really? sweet!” and took off running again. I heard laughter and cheers behind me. And then they were far behind me. I had been able to keep running!

I passed a few more people. Smiling, running, grinning widely. I was going to make my dream goal. I heard my name, looked up, and saw my friends cheering me on.

I looked at my watch as I went through the turnaround. 3:46:53!!! Seriously? Thirteen minutes faster than my goal time? 22 minutes faster than two years ago? This was a good race.

I couldn’t believe it. I was beyond any feeling I’d experienced. Excitement. Pride. Joy. All rolled together. My adrenaline was running high. As I began the descent, I knew my 6:30 time was well within reach. Maybe even close to the 6:15. I had to remain calm and focused to keep from falling on the technical descent. And I knew that although I’d gotten better at descending, I was still more cautious.

I found a good rhythm and stayed with it. One of the great things about being faster is that you have more space between you and other runners. I wasn’t passing many people and I wasn’t being passed. Those still on the incline would call out “runner” and move to the side of the trail to let me by. We all exchanged “nice jobs” and “looking strong” sentiments back and forth.

I was loving my new GPS (thanks sis!). I watched my pace on the downhill trying to calculate my finish. I thought about the race itself, and how, to me, it seemed like two very different races. One up. One down. Two different strategies. Two different mental approaches and techniques. I think this helps me break it up in my mind and makes it possible to think of it as “not that long.”

As I passed the mile markers (10 miles to finish; 9 miles to finish…), I noticed slight fatigue in the legs setting in. I stopped once to walk a short incline and once to give some ibuprofen to a woman who’d sprained her ankle, and had trouble getting my legs going again.

I put one foot in front of the other. I continued to fuel every 45 mins. I soaked in the change of scenery from the alpine, to subalpine, to aspen groves. I noticed when the heat kicked in again as we descended closer to town. The sun felt warm on my back.

At 4 miles to finish, I was about 5 hours, 30 minutes in. If I kept under a 10-minute pace, I’d make my 6:15 goal with minutes to spare (figuring I was running 10-minute miles). I kept my eye on my watch. 9:30. 8:22. 10:58. “Keep it moving… under 10. Pick it up,” I told myself. 9:24. 8:43. 7:37. What?!? Sub-eight? (I’m a very consistent 10-minute-miler on flatland.) “Keep it under 10. You’ve got this.”

I hit pavement at one mile to go and 5:54 on the clock. Holy cow! I was early. I was moving! I knew Bracken and our friends were planning on getting to the finish at around the six-hour mark to start looking for me. That was the “super-early” time we discussed because there was no way I’d be there that early. “They might miss me,” I thought to myself.

Then I smiled. It turned into a grin, with tears of amazement threatening behind it. It finally started to sink in that I was really and truly crushing my previous times. My feet took off, my heart pounding, my legs feeling the pavement beneath me. I felt elation. Amazed, I kept running. 7:22. 6:37. 6:22. I don’t think I’ve ever, ever, run that fast for so long. The cheers got louder. I knew this course. I knew the finish. I wasn’t fooled by any false corner. I kept my pace. My grin wouldn’t go away (not that I wanted it to, but it made me laugh harder, realizing it wasn’t going anywhere).

I spotted the corner where, just beyond, I knew the finish line awaited. I looked at my watch as I rounded the corner. I pushed harder. I stepped across the finish line at 6:01:15.

6:01:15!!!

Holy cow. That’s not a typo. That’s one minute (one minute) and fifteen seconds after six hours.

that’s not the end of the story
I was crying with glee as I received my finisher’s medal. I saw Bracken and went out to give him a huge hug. He’d been crossing the street, getting into position, when he’d heard my name called. He saw my back cross over, but couldn’t get his camera out fast enough to get a picture of the finish. Cause I crushed it! 6:01:15! Holy cow!!!

As I was sitting down, eating pretzels and m&m’s, Bracken went to go look at the unofficial results they post as runners come in. He turns around to me, with a huge grin himself and says, “third in your age group!”

I’m not sure what we imagine fantasies feeling like when they actually happen. I’m not sure if we ever actually imagine it, because they’re the impossible dreams, right? For a girl who had only been running for nine years (hadn’t run a full mile ever, before that), who consistently ran 10-minute (or more) miles on flats, and who finished most races right smack in the middle of the field… for this girl, placing at all was a feat in and of itself. But to place in a race like this? In one of the most competitive age groups?

It was truly an indescribable feeling. I won an award! I placed!

And I’d had fun. I’d finished without injury and with a smile on my face.

I have to add here, that technically, I finished sixth in my age group, but they don’t give double awards, so if you’re fast enough to win an ‘overall’ award, you’re not counted in the age group results. So the top three in my age group (I told you it was a competitive age group, right?) had times fast enough for the overall awards, so I qualified for 3rd. Yipeee!!! (I was the 23rd female out of 171 women to finish and 163rd overall, out of 711 finishers).

To be perfectly honest, it’s a little unsettling to realize that when I think of the Pike’s Peak marathon, I think “fun” and “amazing” instead of “painful” and “what-was-I-thinking.” Maybe it’s the beginnings of a recipe for a 100 in my future. Who knows. What was once impossible in my world has become possible.

i leave you with a wish
My story here is long. I thank those of you who have made it through to the end.

I wish for you to see, through my experience, that you have a story to write, too. A story about an impossible dream that comes true. About a far-fetched fantasy that one day, when you least expect it, will turn into a moment to hold close forever.