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Fall Series No. 1 Gallery 1
Fall Series No. 1, Gallery 2
Great shots from PikesPeakSports.us member Anya Inman

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Justin Ricks talks about winning the Fall Series Race No. 1 at Monu...
Amy Babcock wins 2011 Fall Series kickoff
Running up the creek with Justin Ricks, Pete Maksimow and Alex Nichols

by Travis Duncan
The first race of the Pikes Peak Road Runners 2011 Fall Series kicked off at Monument Valley Park on Saturday, October 2, not with a gun or air horn, but with race director Larry Miller's enthusiastic "Go!" into a microphone, signaling the 400 registered runners to begin one of the messiest 3 - 4 mile races in the Pikes Peak region.

Miller has become infamous among runners for the devious new challenges he comes up with for the four races that comprise the series each year.

"I try and change something for each course (in the Fall Series)," Miller said. During a run through Monument Valley Park on Tuesday evening, a friend of Miller's brought up the idea of sending the runners through an uphill section that included a fallen tree three miles into the race. "And I go, well that works for me. You know, wet shoes, two little steep uphills with sharp turns. It's great. I might have an idea, but when I have other people helping me, they could see something, I might miss. I'll do it if it looks like it's going to work ... It probably didn't change the distance any, maybe it added a 100 feet. So the mileage is still between 3 - 4 miles. And they're still hitting the water a mile and a half into the race."

"The water" is one of the most dreaded aspects of this annual race - a half mile through Monument Creek that was made all the more difficult this year by Miller's request for the city to add an extra 10,000 cubic feet of water into the creek before the race.

"That silt (in the creek) is just nasty," Miller said. "And they have a mile to run afterwards with sand in their wet shoes. It really challenges them."

Those who had helped Miller with the Fall Series in year's past noted that they'd seen folks finish without shoes, lost at some point in Monument Creek, completely "sucked off in the muck."

Justin Ricks, 31, from Pueblo West was the first finisher with a time of 22:43. He finished just 16 seconds ahead of Peter Maksimow, 32, from Manitou Springs.

"I felt really great on the flat stuff, but going through that water, that was pretty miserable," said Ricks.

Ricks said he lost a lot of his lead through the water after a fall. He's planning on running the Chicago Marathon on Sunday, October 9 and the fall worried him because he did not want to get hurt before the marathon.

"Every year I say I'm not coming back. And I decided yesterday afternoon to come back," Ricks said. "I hate the water section. It's nasty. It's just not really a whole lot of fun ... (but) I felt like once we went into the water, I pretty much had it. I knew that as long as I kept my lead through the water, I had a lot more leg speed than Peter and Alex (Nichols) did, and I knew they wouldn't catch me on the next flatter section. There were a couple little climbs, some steep, steep up stuff, but I knew if I had a little bit of a lead coming out of the water, I was going to be OK."

Amy Babcock, 37, was the first female finisher with a time of 29:49. She said the last time she'd run the race was three years ago, when she was 9 weeks pregnant. Her four daughters met her at the finish, crowding around to hug her and congratulate her on a race well run.

"The creek run is my favorite part," she said. "It's like you're on Survivor or something."

Her strategy?

"I just follow the guys in front of me. They're good at spotting the islands in the middle (of the creek)," she said. "I heard people saying, 'first girl!' But I didn't think I'd win."

The next race in the 32nd Annual Fall Series is a five-mile run at Bear Creek Park on Sunday, October 16. The signature challenge of this course is a 30-foot rope climb up a steep embankment near the end of the course. Interested (and undaunted) runners can still register at pprrun.org/events/FallSeries.