America's Uphill

A big weekend here in the mountains. On Saturday, I returned to the scene of my medical de-pantsing, the America's Uphill Race on Aspen Mountain. Last year, this race was followed by a panicked trip to the emergency room, kicking off the month long comedy of errors that finally led to the discovery of a brain aneurysm in late April.

I don't really care to get into all the reasons why I felt it was important to get back out there this year and do the race again, so let's just leave it at this: if 10 months after surgery I could climb the 3,260 vertical feet from the bottom of Aspen Mountain to its summit, it would go a long way towards feeling like this experience was (at least physically) behind me.

The race started at 7 AM, and thanks to the early March changing of the clocks (selfish farmers), it would begin in darkness. My wife was kind enough to resume the role of team manager and snap this pre-start photo.

A close up just minutes prior to the gun going off. To my right is eventual race winner Ricky Gates, who nearly set a record by running the full height of Aspen Mountain in a shade over 41 minutes. For the third year in a row, I opted for the "Heavy Metal" category, meaning I would be skiing up the mountain with my touring setup.

Lauren snapped this photo just after the start, as the competitors start making their way up the steep face of the Little Nell trail.

Once the race began, Lauren embarked on the most expensive gondola ride in Aspen history. Back in September, when Baby Nitti was just a twinkle in her eye, Lauren laid out $400 for a season's ski pass that has remained unused courtesy of the sudden change to Lauren's center of gravity. Today, she finally got some return on her investment by enjoying the 14 minute ride to the summit so she could wait for me to finish. Once on board, she snapped this photo of the race unfolding a couple hundred feet below.

Lauren's quite proud of this shot back towards town. Red Mountain, home to many of the uber-wealthy, in the background.

My girl waiting patiently at the summit.

Skiing to the finish line, 1 hour and 17 painful minutes from the start.

Here I am posing alongside a big mountain. And those peaks behind us aren't too shabby either! HEY-O!!! I kid, I kid. My wife is more beautiful than ever; I just couldn't pass up an opportunity to make a semi-forced, poorly-crafted play on words at her expense.

At the risk of getting a bit mushy, I'm damned proud to have pulled this off so soon after a life-threatening event. Saturday's race now sits atop my list of greatest accomplishments, easily supplanting the previous #1, having lived 33 years without once wearing jean shorts, typing LOL, or utterering the words "party foul."