5/50 - 2010 Pikes Peak Marathon

This was a suicide mission. I don’t know what came over me at this period in my running life but I liken it to what a midlife crisis must feel like. How else could I explain the urge to run up a 14,115 ft mountain when I hail from the Land of Lincoln – a place where speed bumps were the only hills I trained on? Just look at this mountain (http://www.pikespeak.us.com/)!  With that in mind, I was going to make the most out of this marathon vacation. And what’s not to love about Colorado?

After running the Traverse City Marathon, I had exactly 12 weeks to train and I jumped right into it. However, my plan wasn’t executed so diligently. Here’s a breakdown of my miles run for each of the 12 weeks, starting with week 1 – 29, 42, 38, 12, 32, 35, 0, 48, 12, 31, 15, 27. Notice how inconsistent these are! It was summer and I had just started work on a full sleeve tattoo that was the likely culprit for some of these low mile weeks.

I mentioned that I’m from Illinois. This posed a problem for my training, not only in that I didn’t have any 14,000 ft peaks I could train on, but I also live at sea level and had no way to acclimate my body to these heights. There is 43% less oxygen at the peak than at sea level! I would worry about that on race day – for now, I would reintroduce myself to the treadmill and turn the incline up to 12%. Quickly seeing how grueling that was, I ended up only doing this eight times, seven of them between 3-4 miles and one time at 8 miles! The average grade of Pikes Peak is 11%. The marathon is 13.1 miles uphill and 13.1 miles downhill. In all of my training, I didn’t even make it through the full uphill leg once. This was not going to be pretty.

We flew into Denver on a Wednesday and the race was that Sunday. This was my acclimation period. Denver isn't known as the "Mile High City" for nothing - in fact, it's approximately a full mile higher than sea level. We rented a motorcycle and road north through Boulder, Estes Park, Rocky Mountain National Park and stayed at a lodge (http://www.hotsulphursprings.com/) outside of the west entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park in Hot Sulfur Springs, CO. The lodge sits hillside with a selection of natural and man-made sulfur tubs carved into the hill. It’s a beautiful area and the perfect place to relax my muscles before a race. Unfortunately, the town is slowly becoming a ghost town. We arrived five minutes before the last place to get food, a Dari De-Lite ice cream stand, was closing at 8pm! Starving, we were lucky to have made it just in time.

The next morning, we rode back to Denver and took a self-guided tour (http://http://www.denverinsideandout.com/) as detectives charged with solving the 1922 Denver Mint Robbery. Throughout the city, actors and clues were waiting for us to advance through the mystery. If this interests you, the three hours of walking all over the city aligns nicely with your taper!

On Friday, we drove to our destination for the rest of the week, The Broadmoor Resort (http://www.broadmoor.com/) in Colorado Springs, CO. One of the best dining experiences I’ve ever had was at the Penrose Room on this property. We spent Saturday relaxing at the pool then headed to the expo. This race is sponsored by Bristol Brewing (http://www.bristolbrewing.com/), a craft brewer with excellent beer (and I’m not just saying that because it was free all weekend)! If you like Scottish ales, their Laughing Lab Scottish Ale is up there with the best of them.

Sunday – race day. You may have noticed that so far, this blog entry reads like a travel journal. That’s because the race itself was certainly not the highlight of the trip. This was the hardest 5 hours and 46 minutes I have ever worked in my life. There was not one minute that I found myself taking in the beautiful views afforded to us and enjoying myself. I was under the assumption that I would work hard to get up the trail and relax coming down. In fact, the downhill was worse than the uphill!

The race starts in the rustic town of Manitou Springs (6,300 ft above sea level) and in less than two miles, we were off the streets and on the Barr Trail - a narrow, winding National Park trail composed of gravel, rocks and dirt with sharp turns and abrupt changes in elevation or direction. Everyone is so spirited until that first switchback on the trail when we go from a 4.5% incline to a 13.4% over the next three miles! Once some order was established, we were back to running, albeit at a much slower pace. I felt like I was stuck in one of those dreams where you try to run faster and faster but feel like you're running through molasses. From there, we traversed the East side of the mountain at varying inclines with a few level sections to regain our strength. The last three miles are above the tree line and my average mile must have dropped to about 25 minutes per mile. It was a beautiful day and we could see all around us for miles. Unfortunately, I was still only focused on looking up. I would estimate that I only ran about 8 of the 13.1 miles up the peak. My wife was waiting for me with grapes at the peak. I couldn’t have been happier to see her though it probably didn’t show at the time. I was feeling the burn, as they say.

Near the summit of Pikes Peak (I'm wearing yellow)

Coming down was an entirely different race. Gravity propelled me down the trail at such speeds that each switchback was a harrowing experience. The trail was scattered with tree roots, boulders, and loose gravel which, on the way up, were merely obstacles, but which on the way down became terrifying road hazards. In all, I fell about four times and managed to only bloody up my palms and a knee and acquire a few nasty blisters (note - I rarely ever get blisters from running). Others weren’t so lucky. I saw a couple of nasty spills that likely required medical attention… once the stubborn participant made it down on his/her own, that is!

I finished in 106th/689 place. The after-party was like a gathering of war heroes – each with his/her own story to share and wounds to nurse over a beer. During a regular marathon, I would estimate that I expend about 3,000 calories. For this race, I would put that number at 6,000. Within two hours after the finish, I had six beers and an entire pizza!

The camaraderie in this race was unmatched. The race website (http://http://www.pikespeakmarathon.org/) has great information on how to strategize for this event. It’s less of a race and more of a test of survival for the 700 marathon participants, and the 1,700 half-marathon participants (called the Ascent, the half-marathon is only one-way - the UP way). There were volunteers every couple of miles with full spreads of fruit, snacks and drinks. In fact, the race organizers have to go through quite a lot of trouble to get any food or even water up the mountain, since the Barr Trail does not run anywhere near the road, and they did a great job. Weather can always be an issue with this race as severe storms can appear with very little warning on top of a mountain with no shelter. This weekend, we were lucky…if you like heat. The race started at 7:00am when the temperature was already in the 70’s (F) and sunny. When I summited at around 10:30, the temperature was in the 50’s (F) and by the time I made it back down to the finish line around 12:45, it was well into the 90’s (F)! Yet, it had snowed the previous year. Go figure.

As a 2010 finisher, I now qualify to come back and be a "Doubler" - someone who runs both the Ascent, and, the next day, the Marathon. The Walt Disney Marathon in Orlando, FL has something similar to this that they refer to as “Goofy’s Race”. If running a half marathon and then a marathon at sea level is goofy, than what do you propose we rename the “Doubler”?!