Continuing education

Leading up to the Fairplay World Championship Pack-Burro Race, I had only one real goal. I wanted to get out of town alive. There were 95 teams entered in the 12.6-mile short course, and let’s just say most of them — OK, probably all of them — were less experienced than yours truly.

📹 Scott Lutz/Beso de Burro Ranch

One of these was Harrison, who, in four seasons of racing burros, is really still just trying to figure things out. After two years of college cross-country and track at Colorado Mountain College, and several years of trail-running competition, he’s a lot faster than me. However, there are still some finer points I can teach him about pack-burro racing — after all, I did win the 29-mile long course Fairplay World Championship seven times and the short course once.

This was our third race of the season with burros Oliver and Full Tilt Boogie. If I had another goal beyond surviving the start, it was to finish in the Top-10.

The sport has grown considerably since I started and many associated growing pains haven’t been addressed. Fairplay’s Front Street is too narrow for this many burro teams to start safely, and race organizers there and in other towns hosting burro races really need to do something about it.

Nevertheless, we got out of town both of us more or less in one piece, though amid the chaos of getting lined up Harrison got bumped and had a brief meltdown. Both our burros saw this as an “out” and took us careening through tourists into the ”Prunes, a Burro” park. Fortunately nobody was hurt. A complete stranger waved her empathy flag by helping calm Harrison. Then our friend Brad Wann jumped in to help us manage the critters until the starting horn sounded.

Even back when my time for the mile started with a “4,” I knew better than to blast off at that pace for any race over . . . well, a mile. Apparently about half the field doesn’t know this. We got out of town in the middle of the pack, and had worked our way into the top-20 by the time we hit the trail along the South Platte River. After turning onto the main section of the course, we picked off a few more places to be 10th and 11th.

In the last couple miles, Brian Pedretti, who ran cross-country and track for D1 Rutgers, caught up and accompanied us on the rocky path through a mine, where we picked up another place and at last came to the steep climb up the trail leading into Fairplay.

As we came into town and the final block of the race, we were picking up speed with Harrison and Oliver now leading. Brian ran Miles up alongside Boogie and passed. And that’s when things got weird. Quite suddenly, these two collegiate athletes went from what I consider a sprint to another gear altogether. One that I no longer have.

The problem was, Boogie — all 900 pounds of her — didn’t get the memo we were just going to let the young dudes battle it out. I had a little excess rope so started playing some of this out while simultaneously picking up my RPMs. Unfortunately I had too little of either precious commodity and found myself at the end of the rope with about 30 meters left.

I had to let go.

I immediately looked to my right for a reference point as to exactly where I lost her. Pack-burro racing rules state that you must return to the spot you lost your burro before continuing, or be DQ’d.

Meanwhile, Harrison finished 9th and Brian 10th. Ironically, and incidentally, Boogie charging up fast behind Oliver may have pressured him over the line by a nose.

In the resulting chaos at the finish line, it took five (5!!!!) minutes to untangle Boogie, walk her back 30 meters, then jog her back to finish. I also lost three more places in the process. Not lost on me were continuing education credits in Sport as a Metaphor for Life, letting go, and the ever-present passage of time.

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Be sure to check out our online book, The Blur Goes to College. We are also working away on design for the paper and kindle versions. Expect these to be available in the new few weeks!