Pikes Peak Marathon

Sunday on the mountain was a much better day.

It was cold and we could see that the Peak was covered in white. At least the top was visible from the bottom that morning. No rain all the way up the mountain, just a bunch of snow on the ground and then it snowed on all of us. Very beautiful!

We heard thunder on our way back down, but there was no stopping us at that point.

John was a bit slower than Saturday on the climb but had a good run down and just missed breaking 5 hours. He did run fast enough to get 1st in his age group (after taking out the top 10 and some # of masters awards). So now he has an award with a rock on it.

I was on the same ascent pace as Saturday all the way up to A-Frame. Above treeline my tired legs finally made me slow down, and then there was a logjam in the last half mile. The snow made the narrow trail really slippery, so everyone going up had to wait for people coming down as carefully as they could. No worries, I wasn't on any schedule.

Although I did make it to the top fast enough to qualify for Wave 1 of the Ascent if we go back in the next 5 years :)

Coming down started out slow of course, but then everything cleared up - the snow, the crowds. I had fun running down, even speeding up for the last half of the descent. Somehow our legs felt great the whole way down - no knee issues, yay! Then there were 4 women on the paved road that I had to try to pass, which was the most painful part but I did it :)

In fact, the very last woman I passed in the very last block was in my age group, and I ended up 3rd. Too funny.

Results are posted:
http://www.pikespeakmarathon.org/results.htm

It was an awesome weekend, now my calves (?) are sore...

Today we start our drive back to Texas. It's sad to leave Colorado :( but I'm sure we'll come back someday!