Signing up for 24 Hours of Sunlight

My fate is set. I’ve signed up for the 24-Hours of Sunlight, the first ever 24-Hour ski mountaineering race. No matter how many of these 24 hour and longer races that I do there is always a certain amount of anxiety that comes along with signing up. I think this is because I know there is a great deal of pain and suffering that will come along with each event. This race takes place at the Sunlight resort in Glenwood Springs, CO from 10am Saturday Feb 11th to 10am on Sunday the 12th. This type of ski racing, randonee rally racing is relatively new here in the states but in Europe it’s very popular. Here is a great article Tina sent me a while back from the Seattle Times (of all places) about randonee rally racing. If you can’t be bothered here is a quote, “So what the heck does a ski-mountaineering race look like? Imagine a caffeinated hybrid of steeplechase, trail-running and Eco-Challenge. Starting with a jostling LeMans-style start, racers charge uphill to ridgetop waypoints wearing skis equipped with climbing skins, race downhill to the next flag, then zag upward again — often for six miles and a lung-busting 5,000 vertical feet of climbing.” Then instead of the race being 1.5 hours.. this one is 24 hours. Here is a couple on this race in particular, from the Denver Post and Ski Magazine.

These are my picks for dominating this 24 hour race: Greg Hil (current record holder with 40,000 vertical feet skied in one day), Andrew McClean (45 year old ski mountaineering god), Steve Romeo (Jackson Hole hot shot, in this months Backcountry magazine he says if you can beat him in this 24 hour race he'll buy you a case of beer). Since I already know I'm going to get spanked by pretty much every dude in this race I've adopted this quote as my mantra. “Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.” -Edmund Burke, statesman and writer (1729-1797)