Twin Peaks and Imogene Pass Road

The Thursday before Imogene Pass Race Day, Kevin and I decide we need to "clean the pipes" out a bit and get in a little hike without the kiddos on our backs. We choose Twin Peaks Trail just above Ouray. It was a lot steeper than we expected, with a uphill climb, downhill, then uphill again! However, we got some nice views of our Race Route from the trail as shown in the middle pictures above. Hopefully, we won't be too sore for race day... but we survived!


On Saturday we got up early for our 17 mile Mountain "Run" from Ouray to Telluride. I put run in quotes because I don't think I ran more than 12 of the miles since it goes up to 13,100 feet and I obviously didn't train as much uphill as the winners who finished before either Kevin and I summited.

It was the prettiest blue bird day ever with not a cloud in the sky and the most gorgeous scenery I have seen. We met lots of nice people commiserating along the way. I had fun taking people's pics who couldn't get anyone else to stop on the endless climb. I also enjoyed searching for the marmots squeaking in the distance. Kevin even met a guy from Houston who claimed he trained by running the Ship Channel Bridge! Crazy!

Kevin and I both did a lot better than we expected. I had hoped to finish in 5 hours but made it in 4:23 and Kevin made it in 4:07. Yes, it is a little frustrating given he did nothing the 5 weeks prior with a sore back and bad sinus infection, but that is Kevin. The fun is over and we paid dearly for it in soreness. However, it feels great to have an accomplishment like that and I actually can see wanting to do it again. Kevin and I claimed we may not have said the same thing if the weather was bad.