Anyone who runs knows what it feels like to start a race too fast. But this was way too fast. On a postcard-perfect August morning in Buena Vista, Colorado, an uncomfortable anxiety pulses through my body, knowing that I'm running a pace I can't possibly maintain. I can't slow down because I'm forbidden to let go of the hairy beast that's running with its ears pinned back ahead of me. I inanely shout, "Yee-ha! Giddy-up, Jack!"--a clear sign that, already, just moments into my first pack burro race, oxygen deprivation has taken over my brain. I was decently fit entering the race, but my burro and I--tethered to each other by a 12-foot rope--are running faster than a 6-minute-mile pace, and my heart feels like it's going to burst out of my chest.
I've been in plenty of races, but not like this. Before the start, jostling for space with 23 other runners and their four-legged partners--mine a scruffy, chocolate brown male who allegedly answers to Jack--it's clear that this is an entirely different kind of animal. Pun intended.
I had picked up a few practical insights from my fellow competitors in the hour before the start of the race, though hardly enough to feel good about what I was about to do: run over a rugged 12.5-mile course while keeping time with a mule on a rope. Given what a struggle it was just to jog Jack three blocks to the starting line--imagine dragging a bathtub full of rocks by a piece of II2R4021C and you'll sort of get the idea--I half assumed he wasn't going to budge.
"It's going to be a mad dash once the gun goes off," warned veteran racer Curtis Imrie. "But after that, things will settle down a bit." Imrie, 64, is a burro rancher, a two-time Democratic Congressional candidate, an independent filmmaker, author, actor, and one of a passionate cast of colorful local characters that has helped burro racing thrive, or at least survive, over the last three decades. He arrived with two colorfully painted trailers full of donkeys, wearing a white straw cowboy hat, red running shorts, a pair of dirty old trail runners, and a jean jacket with dozens of patches. He looked more like he'd arrived in town to open a petting zoo.
The Gold Rush Days Pack Burro Race coincides with Buena Vista's summer festival, and is one of the marquee races of the so-called Triple Crown of Burro Racing, which also includes a 29-mile "world championship" in July in Fairplay, Colorado, and a 22-mile race a week later in Leadville. By those measures, the Gold Rush is a sprint.
Taking in final instructions from the starter, I was strangely comforted by the notion that Jack was a veteran of this sport and knew what I had gotten us into, even if I did not.
"Just remember, there's no such thing as a stubborn burro, only a cautious one," Imrie told me, smirking. "A lot of weird stuff can happen out there, so just play it how it lays."
Nike Star Runner 3 Dream Younger Kids Shoe Blue: What is pack burro racing, anyway? In a nutshell, it's a unique regional spin on trail racing that pairs reasonably fit, presumably willing, and arguably sane runners with some variety of a donkey in a race over rugged mountain trails. Three-time world champion Hal Walter once described it as a combination of trail running, a rodeo, and Teddy Roosevelt's boys charging up San Juan Hill.
Few people have ever heard of the pursuit; considerably fewer have participated in it, partially because it exists only in the high country of central Colorado. Each event is part trail race, part history lesson, and part genuine appreciation of a fine collection of asses. It is, almost certainly, the most outlandish embodiment of the spirit of the trail, which celebrates freedom, the outdoors, and the sense--in this case, literally--that man and nature are one.
For almost a century, donkeys were vital to the state's mining industry, jockeying equipment for determined prospectors and helping haul ore from mines. They are smart, dutiful animals known to carry almost a third of their body weight, and for those reasons and others--including their "mountain canary" voices, as Imrie calls their hee-haw honking--are revered by their human masters.
Surprisingly, they're also quite adept at long-distance running at high altitudes. That fact was discovered during the original Gold Rush days of the 1800s. That was when roughneck prospectors would stake a new claim and then run back to the assayer's office in town to register it before someone else could beat them to it, then hustle back to the site to commence digging.
According to local folklore, the modern race began when, one summer night in 1949, a few patrons of a Leadville saloon--almost certainly drunk on a cocktail of whiskey and thin 10,000-foot air--made a wager as to who could make it from Leadville to the remote outpost of Fairplay fastest, with donkey in tow.
As the first to wrangle his burro the 23 demanding miles to Fairplay via the rugged trails over 13,185-foot Mosquito Pass, Melville Sutton won the inaugural Rocky Mountain Pack Burro Championship race and the $500 prize that went with it. Every other finisher went home with a free case of beer.
Thanks to a small but spirited group of locals, a series of organized races has been held continuously ever since, and pack burro racing has remained true to its mining roots. It is the only "sport" indigenous to Colorado, and there's a movement afoot to grant it status as the state's official sport.
"We're somewhat of a lost tribe that's carrying on Colorado's mining town history," Imrie says. "And it's got all the lore and horseshit that follows every Western tradition."
The rules of burro racing are as simple and absolute as they were when conjured up in that smoky old saloon. Races are open only to human-donkey tandems; horses, mules (a cross between a male donkey and a female horse), and hinnies (the offspring of a male horse and female donkey) are strictly prohibited. Furthermore, a racer's burro must carry a packsaddle with 33 pounds of mining gear, including a pick, a pan, and a shovel. A runner can push, prod, and shout at his burro, but under no circumstances can he or she hop on board for a ride. Lastly, if a competitor loses the lead rope and the donkey runs off, the human racer must retrieve the animal and return to that precise spot to be considered still in the race.
In the quiet before the race, I had weighed the saddle of the burro I borrowed from rancher/racer Bill Lee and found it was about two pounds light. "Go find some rocks and we'll stick them in the saddle bags," said the 60-year-old Lee, who sports a puffy white beard that covers much of his weathered face.
"Burros are pack animals, so when one of them runs, they're all going to run," Lee told me. "If you wind up alone out on the trail, Jack will run all day long for you if you're in control and driving him. If not, he's going to wander off the trail and find something to nibble on. So you've gotta be the boss."
Reebok maison margiela cl memory of shoes cloud white black cloud white gw4993, all hell breaks loose. And what had been an orderly lineup of 24 runner-donkey teams is instantly a chaotic, run-for-your-life blur of a stampede down Main Street.
Reaching the edge of town, our panicked herd scampers across a wooden plank bridge over the Arkansas River and starts climbing up a very rocky single-track trail. We slow down slightly, but my heart rate continues to redline, and after a mere 16 minutes of running, I'm already wondering how I'm going to survive 11 more miles of this madness.
But my bigger concern for the moment is just staying upright. The trail isn't very wide, and with Jack running down the center of it, I'm positioned off to his left side trying to maintain some tangible pressure on the lead rope while simultaneously avoiding low-hanging branches, football-sized rocks, small cacti, and other obstacles that could easily put an early end to my day, if not my life. My attempts to stay out of harm's way are only semi-successful, but Jack is totally oblivious to the thorny undergrowth I just barreled through, and maybe I am too, because I'm still ridiculously shouting, "Yee-ha! Giddy-up!"
Many hairy moments later--including a terrifying detour in which he decided to chase a competitor's loose donkey--Jack finally yields to a slower trot on a wide, Gel-venture section of trail where a railway once operated. At least until Diane Vanderhoeven, a 48-year-old personal trainer from the Denver area, comes rambling up from behind with Vernon. She tells me Vernon and Jack were stable mates and like to run together, and sure enough, the two hit it off and suddenly we're clicking along at a fast pace once more, just about the time the trail starts to climb again.
Even Jack isn't impervious to hills. He grows tired and settles into a brisk walk that no amount of urging can speed up. We fall back and, after another dusty duo passes us, find ourselves alone on the trail, and that's when we finally develop a bit of synergy. I stop yelling like an idiot (mostly because I've lost my voice) and instead calmly drive him with a subtle pop on the back end with the lead rope whenever his pace begins to flag.
We descend back down to the old railroad grade and things start to really click. We settle into a fast but sustainable and, dare I say, comfortable pace and return down the steep section of trail back to the river. When Jack stops dead in his tracks on the bridge, I recall Imrie's wisdom about burros wanting to be cautious and assured. It takes me almost two full minutes of tugging, pushing, and cajoling before Jack finally agrees to slowly cross the bridge and trot back to the finish line on Main Street for a well-earned ninth-place finish. Our time: two hours Gel-venture.
At the front of the race, three-time defending world champion Bobby Lewis of Buena Vista beat out burro racing legend Tom Sobal by a hundredth of a second in a dead sprint to the finish line after an hour and 34 minutes of running. But, living up to the sportsmanship and history of the sport, Lewis DQ'ed himself with the admission that he had dropped his burro's lead rope and didn't return to that point after recovering the animal, giving Sobal--owner of a record 11 world championships--yet another notch in his belt.
There was no shortage of bloodshed. At day's end, one woman I'd met on the trail was sitting on a curb nursing bloody scrapes on her legs and shoulder. A chunk of Vanderhoeven's lower leg was missing a layer of skin after she tripped near the finish and wound up being dragged along the pavement for a good 10 feet. Karen Thorpe, a petite trail running veteran and this event's race director, had a hoof-shaped bruise forming on her upper abdomen. I feel lucky to be (relatively) unscathed--and am ready to try the whole thing over again next year.
"It's not an easy sport, but that mirrors life up here in the mountains," says Imrie, who finished 10th, about eight minutes behind me. "For us, this is like golf. We see the same people every time we come out and have watched them raise their kids. Some people come and go, but most of us are still here, and we're still racing burros."
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Burro racing is hardly the only unconventional variant of the trail race. Here are a few others worth checking out, especially if you don't mind getting dirty.
Muddy Buddy
Two teammates alternate between running and mountain biking over a 10-K course that includes obstacles like cargo nets, hay bales, monkey bars, and at least one enormous mud pit. Seventeen events are planned across the U.S. in 2011.
muddybuddy.com
Ride & Tie
A team endurance event in which two runners alternately run and ride a horse on trails for 20 to 100 miles. When, where, and how a team exchanges is based on each runner's abilities and strategy. There are more than 20 events from Virginia to California, including the 41st annual championship race on June 18 in Humboldt, California.
rideandtie.org
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Can a human beat a horse in a 25- or 50-mile trail race? Yes, believe it or not. This unique event spurred by a bar bet has been happening in Prescott, Arizona, since 1983.
managainsthorse.com
Tough Mudder
These 7- to 12-mile obstacle course events for individuals and teams were designed by British Special Forces with the idea of testing strength, stamina, competitiveness, and camaraderie. The organizers don't consider these events races, but rather personal challenges for all who take the "Tough Mudder Pledge."
toughmudder.com
Warrior Dash
Runners crawl through mud pits, climb cargo nets, leap over rusted-out cars, dash through streams, rappel into lush ravines, and even leap over burning logs. Survive, and go home with a Viking-style warrior helmet. More than 20 events are slated across the U.S. in 2011.
warriordash.com
