Pikes Peak Ascent

The curtain call of my 2011 season was a beast of a race. The Pikes Peak Ascent is not particularly long, but this half marathon only goes up. And by that I mean, the race begins in Manitou Springs, right outside of Colorado Springs, a town resting at 6300 feet above sea level. The gun goes off and you begin an uphill journey for the next 13 miles, finishing atop one of Colorados' 54, 14,000 foot peaks (14,115). The rule of thumb in estimating your time is to use your marathon PR clock time as guide to traverse this HALF marathon distance.

This was my second year racing the Ascent and I was really excited up until three days before the race. This particular Wednesday will go down as a bottom 10 day in my history book. A completely random jury selection to a three week criminal trial, a nearly split in two right patella in a fluke commuting bike accident and another superficial, but amazing let down. My wife and kids were healthy and that was all that mattered. Never mind that I would have to miss the next three weeks of work and could barely walk, let's run up a 14'er!!!

Race morning came and Heath and I rolled down to the Springs and laced up. The trail running scene is really chill, people know who is going to ascend fast, so they give them their space. There are not many pretenders gunning out of the gates, as this race is not won within the first 5 miles. In fact those are the most painful and gut wrenching miles of the race. Just a brutal trail of never ending switchbacks. I did not feel good at this point of the race, my breathing was off, the four ibuprofen had not quite kicked in and many other parts of my body just ached. I let Heath pull me up the hill until I felt like somewhat of a runner. At this point it was still false hope and he went around me again to drag me up further. At this point, the voice in my head was screaming, "what could possibly be the fond memories of this race?" carry on.

Carrying just one bottle of GU Brew and a few GU ROCTANE Gels, I took down a cup of gatorade at the first three aid stations and dumped some cold water on my head to cool my core temperature. The weather was hot, even 50 degrees at the summit, just unheard of 14er weather. But at that 4th aid station, something clicked and I started to feel it, or maybe I stopped feeling the pain in my knee and just went for it. Either way, I picked up the pace even though we had just reached 9000 feet. Making our way up and over several trail obstacles, this technical portion was a real fun mix of running and power hiking. At one moment, I pulled my right foot across a rock and ripped the top of my shoe right off, this minor set back was more humorous than anything.


My form and pacing just felt right and I began to separate myself from our pack. I bridged another group in front of me, then another, until I had caught many of the days Elite runners above the 13'000 ft mark. As usual, I was continually cheering and talking to every runner I passed, oddly, not many responded...

Within the last 3 miles, which took me over an hour last year, I was able to drop that time to 48 minutes and smiles all around. I was flying high and could not believe my time of 2:56 and 41st overall of the 1700 runners. My solid year of training, Pikes Peak race experience and ibuprofen all accounted for an 18 minute drop in my previous years time. A fantastic success for the last race of 2011. Heath made his move a little later and finished in a stellar 3:07, identical time to his first marathon and 22 minutes faster than his last years Ascent. The weather was great and race support unbelievable. I am a little bummed I won't be able to race this event for a couple years due to already planned races, but it will be great to come back and explode my lungs for another Ascent.