Ft. Collins Old Town Marathon
Ft. Collins, Colorado
Sunday, May 4, 2008

Sunday, May 4, 2008 was a good day to race walk the Ft. Collins Old Town Marathon in Ft. Collins, Colorado. I boarded the luxury bus at 4:00 AM to be transported to the starting line which was 15 mile up Poudre Canyon to an elevation of about 6100 feet. It was pitch-dark when I arrived and as I looked out over the mountains, I saw the big dipper between two peaks. It was cold, about 30 degrees, and fortunately windless. After about 15 minutes it began getting light and by the 6:15 AM start, I could see the surroundings clearly as well as the approximately 425 starters. The first 15 miles of the course went down the canyon along the Poudre River. The scenery was beautiful and the decline was gradual as the course lost 900 feet of elevation. The elevation drop helps the runners as they can lengthen their strides and let gravity do it thing; however, since I am a race walker, there is little advantage in going down because I cannot lengthen my stride as I always have to have at least one foot on the ground at all times. It is more important to keep my pace and energy expenditure constant. Once I reached mile 15 the course leaves the canyon. Miles 16 through 18 continued the loss of elevation, then mile 19 saw an uphill section that was most of the mile in length but not too steep. I enjoyed the uphill as usual. The rest of the course continued dropping to a final altitude of about 5000 feet. The last 5.5 miles followed the river along a very windy, roily bike path that was not closed to bikers and there were many that I had to watch out for. Water stations occurred about every 2.5 miles which were not often enough once I got out of the canyon and experienced temperatures pushing 60 degrees. There were almost not spectators and hardly any intersections demanding police. The canyon road was not closed; however, there was only a little traffic. The roads after the canyon had a wide side for bikers that the runners used. There were only a few bikers along the road. All and all the vent was nice and I was especially pleased with my time as I finished in 4:58:32. I have to go back 53 marathons to April 17, 2005 to find a marathon that I did faster than this one. In fact it was January, 2006 that I last beat 5 hours before Ft. Collins. I almost even split the race as I did the first half in 2:28 and the second in 2:30.