This weekend was the one year anniversary of the 24 Hours of Sunlight endurance race, which, depending on how you choose to look at that sort of thing, last year either nearly killed me or saved my life last. Good times.
Lauren and I stopped by the race to cheer on some friends, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a bit jealous of those competing. It was a bluebird day, temps were in the high 30's; perfect conditions for one of the most enjoyable races I've ever been a part of.
In case you weren't around one year ago -- when my Aspen-based squad proudly finished 8th out of 83 teams by climbing just over 48,000 vertical feet in the 24-hour event -- the idea of the race is that you ascend from the base of a ski resort to its summit on skis, where you quickly strip your skins, lock your heels and haul ass down the 1,500 of vertical back to the base where you tag off to your teammate, who does the same. This goes on and on and on from the starting gun at 11AM Saturday until the finish 24 hours later. At the end of the race, you're emotionally and physically destroyed, and all you've got to show for it is a finishers medal and a hotel room that will likely smell like feet for the next 3-5 years.
The quality of the racers was much higher this year, as a lot of guys were consistently laying down ridiculously fast times. No world records were set as Eric Sullivan did last year, however, by single-handily climbing over 51,000 feet. Now, I'm no mathematician, but that's roughly the equivalent of climbing from sea level to the summit of Everest in the same day, then going back down and doing it all over again. That's relatively bad-ass for a guy in a one-piece, spandex suit.
