Pikes Peak Marathon
Manitou Springs, Colorado
Sunday, August 16, 2009

I survived the Pikes Peak Marathon on Sunday, August 16, 2009. The event is advertised as America’s Ultimate Challenge and lived up to its name as it took me 10 hours and 45 minutes to complete the course. The course starts in Manitou Springs, Colorado at an elevation of 6300 feet and climbs up to the top of Pikes Peak at an elevation of 14115 feet making a gain of 7815 feet in elevation at an average incline of 11% then returns to Manitou Springs. The timberline is at 12000 feet and at this elevation the oxygen content of the air is about 50% of what it is at sea level, making it difficult to breathe. To further add to the challenge, the middle 24 miles utilizes the Barr trail which is a narrow trail which much of the time is only wide enough to march single file, containing protruding roots and boulders, making the footing dangerous. In fact the last mile and a half to the summit is through a boulder field that big horn sheep call home and requires rock climbing for most of the distance. It took me 2.5 hours to do the last 3 miles to the summit which is about average for about 25% of the entrants. There are three cut-off points along the route. If the first 7.6 miles has not been done in 3 hours or the first 10.2 miles has not been done in 4 hours 15 minutes, you have to turn around and return to the start. The summit must be reached in 6 hours 30 minutes or you are not allowed to go back down the mountain. I made the summit with 19 minutes to spare. Unlike in 2007 when I reached the summit with 16 minutes to spare and decided not descend the mountain in order to protect my knees and not chance an injury which would have jeopardized my 50 states quest, I entered the event this year with the full intention of descending the mountain even though I knew ahead of time that I would not be able to reach the finish by the ten hour time limit to be listed as an official finisher as it takes much longer to walk down a steep mountain than jog. I also knew that once you start down the mountain, you had to reach the finish on your own because there was no way to remove you from the course without medical rescuers carrying you out. The marathon officials are very thorough in accounting for the competitors they let descend the mountain and award a finisher’s medal and a finisher’s jacket to all who complete the course even after the official time. I had to prove to myself that I could do this event. It took 6 hours 11 minutes to reach the summit and an additional 4 hours 34 minutes to reach the finish. It was my first negative split marathon. I was not the last finisher and I am really proud of my accomplishment.

There is another aspect of this event that should be considered before attempting this marathon. Pikes Peak makes its own weather. In Manitou Springs the temperature will normally vary between 50 and 85 degrees. The summit of Pikes Peak is a completely different place. I drove the hour drive up to the summit on each of the four days before the event. On Tuesday and Wednesday the summit was sunny and the temperature varied between 37 and 50 degrees. On Thursday the temperature was about the same; however, in about a thirty minute period the sunny skies turned into dry thunder storms which formed over the mountain. When I arrived on the summit on Friday, gale force winds were blowing. The temperature was 30 degrees with a wind chill of 17 degrees. Soon the clouds formed right at the summit and in less than a minute good visibility turned into almost no visibility with accumulating snow. The website for the marathon warns that you should plan to face extremes in weather. I am a believer and I carried extra clothes during the race which fortunately I did not have to use as the weather was wonderful during the Sunday event.