This was possibly the day I was most excited for! We were doing Hope Pass! “Only” a 13 mile day but a tough one!

Hope Pass is known as the iconic climb of the Leadville Trail 100 Race. Those runners have to do the race up and over and then back again as part of the 100 mile course.  It’s at 12,508 feet of elevation, steep climb on both sides (Outbound runners tackle 3,200 feet of elevation gain over 4 miles, and an average grade of 15%. Inbound runners will face 2,400 feet of elevation gain over 2.5 miles for an average grade of 20%~from the Leadville Race Series Facebook page), with promises of outstanding views.

Thankfully we “only” had to do it once….but the weather was not good that day and there was concern about lightening and safety for runners.

Stage 2: Sponsored by Elevation Culture (they made our buckles!)
13 miles/21km with 3300 FT/1000m of elevation gain.
The elevation gain was all in the first 2.5 miles so an average grade of 20% (you can see this in the picture within the picture at the bottom).  I have a few quick short videos in my photo gallery.

Course map of Stage 2

My ONLY goal for TransRockies Run was to finish ALL the mileage. I wasn’t worried about how fast I would be but I wanted to do all 120 miles of the race. This plan failed on Stage 2. 😥 But it was a decision that I made mindfully so even though I was bummed making it, it was for good reason.
I planned to do the early start already because they were really worried about the weather/lightening and the first 2.5 miles are the hardest and take the longest. I was good with that but then I found out that they were dropping the Dawn Patrol people (early start) 1.7 miles into the course already so we would start on the trail right away. This meant I was missing that mileage of the race.
My ego was crushed. It may not sound like a big deal, it’s only 1.7 miles but since speed was not my goal, and my only goal was doing ALL the mileage, this really bummed me out. At first I debated doing the regular start but that was at least an hour later putting me at higher risk of hitting the worst weather. Then I thought, maybe I’d have them let me start 1.7 miles before the trailhead because they drove back some early start people to let them do that. I could hear and feel my ego getting in the way (I thank my meditation practice for this “superpower”! I always say self awareness is a bitch but it’s always for good reason.) I went through the pros and cons and tried to be as detached from the outcome as possible. Then I let it all go and really listened to my gut while trying to put my ego aside. Hard to do but then it hit me like a slap in the face!

“What was I thinking?! 1.7 miles? Come on Pozzoni, I would get that mileage just walking around camp….and did it really matter? It was 1.7 miles of road and I was still doing epic shit!
So off we went…….
My other faux pas of the day, more importantly, was since I was so preoccupied about the issue above, I didn’t put 2+2 together. The first aid station was at mile 1.7 before the big climb….duh, it wasn’t ready yet because we did the early start (we are told to provide for ourselves so my bad here!) so I didn’t have enough fuel with me.  Thankfully there are always friends on the trail willing to share so I was able to get more food in me but that could’ve been a dangerous situation between the weather and difficulty of the trail.

I share more here with my awesome pictures and a few videos of the course!

I am recapping my TransRockies Run Experience (titles are clickable links):
Behind the Scenes: TransRockies Run Volunteer Gig (2019)
TransRockies Run: View from the Back of the Pack (Recap)
TransRockies 2021: Stage 0 & 1 Shenanigans 
TransRockies Run Stage 2: Iconic Hope Pass!
TransRockies Run Stage 3: My favorite? 
TransRockies Run Stage 4: Just Keep Swimming….
TransRockies Run Stage 5: One More Day 😥😁
TransRockies Run Stage 6: I did it! 🎉🍾