The Pikes Peak Ascent Race Report

This was not your normal Pikes Peak Ascent: the Brits showed up, as did the Scots, the Spaniards, and the Slovenians, the Aussies, the Swiss, a Kiwi, a Kenyan (actually, a no-show, they are allergic to mountains) and the locals. It was shaping up to be quite a stacked field. Matt Carpenter didn't want to say it in the press conference (he had a benevolent response when asked about who he thought was going to do well in the race with "I have my predictions but I'm not going to tell you [the media]...I don't want to put more pressure on anyone.") but he told me after the race that he knew the foreigners were going to struggle at the high altitudes. And they did.
Looking around at the start line revealed a plethora of colorful multi-national uniforms, enough so that I felt I was in a EuroPop video. The start went out quick for a 13.32 mile, 7,815-foot vertical gain race, but then again, it was the World Mountain Running Association Long Distance Challenge. The runner who took it out and literally lead from start to finish, no one really believed he would stay out from the way he rocketed off the line, was a young Coloradoan and first-time Pikes Peak Ascender named Glenn Randall (a professional cross country skier with Norwegian blood—go figure!). Race favorite and eventual 4th place finisher, Ryan Hafer, was quoted in the local newspaper, “I thought he just wanted to get in front of the cameras...I thought he would come back to the pack pretty quick.” Well, he didn’t, sorry Ryan.

The first 1.45 miles is on road, so it is very fast, then the verticalness hits you even before the trail, probably a 16-18% grade for a short distance, but that’s all you need to get put into oxygen debt. I think miles 2-4 are just as difficult as the last few miles, though without the high altitude and view of Kansas. It definitely weeded out the serious contenders from everyone else.

Rickey Gates, who went on to place 3rd overall, seemed to be turning to into the Hulk as his tights were tearing as he ascended up the mountain.

A few miles into the race, I found myself running alongside a Brit, zee Germans and an Aussie in about 16th place and the race began to take shape. This is where the race gets lonely, especially if you are not running with anyone, and the miles fluctuate as much as Al Roker’s weight does. I felt that way (lonely, that is, not fat) up what is referred to as the W’s, multiple switchbacks where the average grade is 13.4% for a 3-mile stretch. There was a German named Marco Strum who passed and towed me along. I was fascinated by his psychedelic compression socks, black and gold with what appeared to be 3-dimensional honeycomb shapes. I hit a 9:30 mile, 11:50, then an 8:48 and an 8:10 as the trail leveled out—Al Roker miles!

I must have been close on Marco’s heels because he turned and asked me at one point “DO YOU VAUNT TO PAUSS?” I practiced my German and replied “Nein, ich bin fine.” I was entranced into a good pace by his socks and didn’t want to lose my groove. At one point I had to steer him back on course when he tried to climb through a rock arch off the side of the mountain. “Nein, NEIN”! I had to leave the socks, uhh, Marco, I mean, behind and continue to reel people in, so I said “Auf Wiedersehen” to him and went after the next language lesson of the race, a Mexican named Miguel Lopez. There was a piece of navy blue fabric laying on a rock as I passed, I wonder what that was from.

“Hola, como estas?” I say to Miguel as I come up alongside him just after Barr Camp, the halfway point to the top of the mountain, as he’s coughing up a lung. We work together for a while and I encourage him to go with me to chase down the English runner ahead of us. “Vamanos a la playa”, no, that’s not right, there is no beach around here. “Vamanos la Inglaterra.” He got the message even though it was a grammatical mess, porque mi español es mierda. We alternated having good and bad patches over the next couple of miles but remained in close proximity.

Just before 4 miles to the summit, there was a lot of jockeying for position going on: Miguel had passed me and began to pull away, then Andy Peace, the Brit, went by me and last year’s Ascent Champion, Tim Parr, was struggling and getting passed by everyone. I asked how he was doing as I went by him and he replied “I’m just not feeling it today.” I encouraged him to keep plugging away and maybe he would feel better in a mile or two. He knew, though, he is a very experienced trail and mountain runner, but we all have those days. With his scarlet #1 pinned to his jersey, he couldn’t evade the expectation to do well again this year. He bid me well and I suddenly began to feeling good again, so I kept my eyes on those in front of me and kept climbing, passing the big medal sign telling you where to go to get to the Peak, and where to go to get to the Bottomless Pit.

A-Frame is the 3 mile to the summit point, and also treeline, at 12,000 feet. Named because an A-Frame structure stands just downhill from the trail. This is where the sun beats down on you, the trees are replaced by boulders and you begin to have strange thoughts. A few years ago, it wasn’t the sun that was beating down, it was water, in various forms. Search and Rescue advised some of the lead runners that the conditions were turning bad from the freezing rain and hail and that they should consider turning back. After the conditions worsened a short time later, all runners were told to turn back. So, if you weren’t to the A-Frame point by 3 hours or so, you weren’t able to finish. I heard a story of someone who was a little further back in the race that had been bludgeoned by hail so large and fierce that he was bloody everywhere he wasn’t wearing clothes. It would be like running around on a driving range while golfers were hitting balls at you. Ouch!

There is another strip of that blue fabric again, strange.

I had trained on the barren, oxygen-scarce last three miles of the peak, so I knew what to expect and how my body might feel, but anything could happen at that altitude, as one of the zee Germans exemplified. I was slowly pulling away from mi amigo Miguel and there was no one in sight, but when you blow up at that stage in the race, you really blow up. With about a mile and a half to go on a long uphill straightaway I could see a struggling figure. It couldn’t have been more than two handfuls of people, as I calculated I was in about 13th, but I couldn’t decipher who it was. Then, at the last aid station of the race, I saw him: stopped, in a daze, chugging water as he looked down the trail at me gaining on him and it was zee German. I wasn’t aware at the time, but I was told after the race that he, Timo Zeiler, is a very talented mountain runner and actually beat Jonathan Wyatt in a race in the Alps last year. But, like I said, when you blow up, it nuclear! I passed him right at the one mile to go sign and he was alternating walking and running and finished three minutes ahead of him. So, he had run (power walked) the last mile in over 18 minutes. After the race we shook hands and I told him he looked like “schiße” when I passed him—he agreed. “Uf, it vaus vary hard,” he replied. I know how zee Germans love their beer so I told him we should drink a “stein of bier” to celebrate getting up the mountain. He wanted none of that. Imagine that, even Germans don’t want beer after running up a big mountain….weird!

With a half-mile to go, there is a section dubbed the “16 Golden Stairs”, basically short switchbacks consisting of large boulders. Probably the worst possible terrain you could come across at 14,000 ft with almost two and a half hours of running in your legs. I had to hold off a fast approaching Galen Burrell, 2nd place in the last WMRA Long Course Challenge in 2005 here at Pikes Peak. I didn’t think a kick was possible at this altitude, but apparently it was as I put 16 seconds on him in the last 400 meters or so. I was told I was in the top ten overall and 5th American after I finished, but I argued that there were a lot more runners who I never passed, like the whole US Team. I learned a lot up there at the summit: places 4th-7th ran off course, how lack of oxygen can turn you into zombie, and those blue stripes of fabric were shreds of Rickey Gates’ tights that were cutting off circulation to his legs. That explains a lot!

Tommy telling me he went this way instead of that

A veteran of the race, and second place finisher in the 2009 edition, Tommy Manning, was questioned in the press conference a few days before the race on what edge he believed he had over the multi-national field. He replied, "My advantage is that I know the course." Ironically, he was in 5th place when he followed the 4th place runner, Eric Blake, and towed along 6th (Zach Freudenburg) and 7th (Jason Delaney), to a 15+ minute detour and ended up finishing in 15th place overall. Recall that medal sign I mentioned earlier, they followed it to the Bottomless Pit and not to the Peak. Whoops! I’ve never seen Eric Blake drink so much beer as he did after the race.

It was a good showing for Team Inov-8, as Alex Nichols placed 5th and I was 8th. It was a great showing for the shoes as there were a huge number of Inov-8's carrying people up the mountain. As for the X-Talon 212's, they served me well on the rocky, technical, washed out and bouldery trail. The only drawback was that there were some sharp rocks that felt like they wanted to come through the bottom of my shoes, that hurt.

Top 10 Overall Males (5th Alex Nicols & 9th Galen Burrell missing)

The only reason I was tired the next day was because the British Team made me drink a lot of beer with them late into the night!

Results @: http://www.skyrunner.com/ppresults/2010ppa_m.htm