By Bob Stephens
PikesPeakSports.us

Brenton Buxton has enjoyed an amazing experience with America’s Mountain, and he’ll renew that annual adventure this weekend at the 61st running of the Pikes Peak Ascent and Marathon.

Buxton, 53, is the record holder for running the races - 29 times each - and will surely extend his mark to 60 total races through that rugged terrain Saturday and Sunday.

Doing the “Pikes Peak Double” - running the ascent and marathon on the same weekend - is nothing new for the former Colorado Springs resident, who first ran the Pikes Peak Marathon in 1983. This will be his 24th consecutive double.

“The streak began with love,” Buxton said.

That love for running - and running this mountain - has brought him back to the start line every year since he was 19.

If he manages to complete the difficult double again this year - and who could possibly doubt him! - it’ll be the 26th time he’s finished both races on the same weekend. Finishing despite the blizzard in 2008 was one of his toughest challenges, and it somewhat changed his outlook.

“The streak has come to own me,” he said, “and I do feel a certain obligation to continue.”

Buxton, 53, owns several records when it comes to running up and down Pikes Peak:

• Most doubles - 25
• Longest doubles streak - 23
• Longest either-race streak - 33
• Second longest ascent streak - 28

Michael Hauck of Woodland Park has completed the second-most Pikes Peak races, 47. He’s done 21 ascents and 26 marathons. Buxton should soon have 30 of each to his credit. He’s also run marathons in Denver and Pueblo, and in Texas cities Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin. He even has some 50-milers on the resume.

Buxton ran more competitively a few decades ago, but is no longer concerned with his times, splits, personal records or in what place he finishes.

There is, he said, “an acceptance that my best times rest peacefully in the last century. All this has led me to quietly ratchet down my training to a scientifically estimated lowest possible amount. I go for the experience, for the fellowship, for the view, and to see if I still properly remember every single curve, rock and timber of the trail “

He lived in Old Colorado City from 1984-92, and has been a resident of Austin, Texas, the last 24 years, where he graduated from the University of Texas with an engineering degree, Buxton and his wife, Brandy, have three young children: Hazel, 7; Nora, 5; and Franklin, 2. Buxton’s other son, Russell Norton, 28, has run Pikes Peak since 2004 and will Double for the 10th time this year.

During his 33 years of running on America’s Mountain, Buxton has pretty much seen it all - runners who were barefoot or in sandals, in costume (even a tutu!), and one guy who many years ago lugged a 35-pound video camera to capture the experience.

“I ran my first double in 1988,” Buxton said, “and my entire body felt bruised afterwards, so that I couldn't even sleep properly as every position hurt.”

Two years later, he wrote a Pikes Peak training manual, to help locals prepare properly for the races. He doubled again that year and felt fine afterward.

Buxton, who grew up in Virginia and Ohio, didn’t begin running until after high school, when his mother convinced him to participate in some “fun runs.” At a four-mile run in Canton, Ohio, he saw a runner with multiple sclerosis, and the man was wearing a t-shirt celebrating his completion of the 1982 Pikes Peak Marathon - on crutches!

“The shirt was hideous, but I knew I had to do the race,” Buxton said. “My grandfather had spent time in Colorado as a youngster and talked often of its beauty, so the next summer I packed my car and wandered across the country in a westward direction. I arrived a couple weeks before the 1983 race, sleeping in the backseat of my car and washing up in streams. I'd run only one marathon at that time. The day before the race, I found out it wasn't on paved roads - shows how much I knew!”

There are few runners who possess similar knowledge of the mountain and the challenge it presents, especially on back-to-back days.

Buxton describes himself as “slow,” and now in his fourth decade of running Pikes Peak, he says he’s “dreadfully slow.” For the marathon, his best finish is 228th and his best time is 6:23:18. For the ascent, it’s 261st and 3:31:41.
But, as anyone who has competed in the Pikes Peak Marathon and Ascent will tell you, running the mountain is about the experience.

“The one piece of advice I've changed (since writing the training manual) is that, upon reaching timberline, I now actually do recommend looking up at the finish line,” Buxton said. “It won't help during the race, but oh, the memory!”