Alex Nichols made the turn at Pikes Peak's summit and charged to his second-consecutive win in the marathon.

By Bob Stephens
PikesPeakSports.us

Kim Dobson completed a rare, phenomenal double by winning the 61st Pikes Peak Marathon Sunday - a day after she had won her fifth Pikes Peak Ascent - but she had to summon her best effort to hold off a furious finish by the fast-closing Anita Ortiz.

Dobson didn’t figure to win the marathon, but for the second straight day she was easily the fastest woman to reach the summit.

She held what seemed to be a commanding lead of 16 minutes, 38 seconds over Ortiz at the top, but then the tables turned. Ortiz had trimmed the lead to 7:59 by A Frame and to 2:13 by Barr Camp. “I knew she’d be catching me,” Dobson said. “Uphill is what I like and where I excel. I know my weakness is downhill. Anita is really talented on technical descent.”

“That didn’t surprise me, but it wasn’t news I wanted to hear,” she said. “I was glad to get to the pavement, and finished as fast as possible.”

Dobson, 32, became the marathon’s female champion in just her second try – she won the ascent and was third in the marathon last year – in 4:44:44.

Alex Nichols of Colorado Springs repeated as the overall champion in a personal best 3:40:29. He passed runner-up Azerya Weldemariam – who was fourth in Saturday’s ascent – about halfway down the mountain. Weldemariam finished in 3:42:52, nearly five minutes ahead of Darren Thomas in third place.

The brave and talented women finished 17th and 18th overall in the race.

Ortiz, 52, finished in 4:47:03 in a heroic performance that left her arms and legs bloodied – she needed three stitches just below her right elbow – and her body near collapse.

“It’s all or nothing,” said Ortiz, who won the marathon in 2009 and 2014. “At the top, I didn’t think I had a chance, but I was trying to catch her for fun. I’m a downhiller, but I still didn’t think I’d get close. Then people were saying, ‘She’s just ahead.’”

Ortiz said she threw up about 4.5 miles from the finish.

“Then I fell twice in rapid succession, about three miles from the finish” she said. “I hit a really rough patch there.”

Ortiz is a mother of four – her 21-year-old daughter, Amanda, was 11th in her first ascent Saturday – and a four-time winner of the ascent.

“I was going for the (50-54) age group record, and I got it,” Ortiz said. “So I’m satisfied.”

Dobson knows Ortiz well, as both are residents of Eagle, Colo.

“Anita is a legend,” Dobson said. “I watched her beat Corey in the (Pikes Peak) marathon in 2009.”

Corey Dobson, Kim’s husband, was 10th marathon in a personal best19:35. Shortly after Kim finished, he was holding their son, Bryce, 2, under the finish line tent.

Dobson said she’d like to extend their family, so she might end up missing the ascent and marathon in the near future.

As for completing the double as ascent and marathon champion in the same year, she said, “I’m so grateful. I didn’t come into the weekend thinking about winning both. There are so many good runners in the ascent, so I concentrated on that. And I knew how good Anita is, so I just didn’t figure to win today.”

Nichols wasn’t sure he’d cross the finish line first, but he descended the mountain in a harrowing 1:17 to lock up the win. The Colorado College assistant cross country and track coach finished with blood running the length of his lower right leg, and with a skinned left knee.

“This is always a big race for me. I think it’s the biggest race in the area,” said Nichols, 31.

He didn’t run from last December to May, while suffering from plantar fasciitis in his left foot. He raced in a pair of 50-kilometer races prior to the marathon.

“This is a huge relief – that I’m back,” Nichols said with a smile. “Because of the injury, this is one of the highlights of my running career. It was incredible.”

Like Ortiz, he’s a superb downhill runner and that made the difference as he stalked Weldemariam, who beat Nichols to the summit by a little more than three minutes..

“I thought he’d have a bigger lead,” Nichols said. “I knew if I could stay close on the uphill, I’d have a good chance. I knew he had run the ascent yesterday, but he’s a really accomplished mountain runner.”

Weldemariam grabbed the lead at the outset and pulled away from the small first pack, which included Galen Burrell, 37, who was the second to reach the summit, 13 seconds ahead of Nichols. Burrell, from Boulder, finished fourth in 3:56:05.

Thomas, 22, a graduate of Air Academy High School in Colorado Springs and a 2016 graduate of Virginia Tech University, was running his fourth Pikes Peak Marathon and easily achieved a personal best time despite a sore left Achilles.

“I knew Alex wasn’t in as good of shape as usual,” Thomas said, “and I was trying to win, but those two guys are just really good.”

Nichols said his next outing is a 100-mile race in mid-September in Steamboat Springs, Colo.

Weldemariam only decided to double after completing the ascent Saturday. But the 37-year-old African native – he’s from Eritrea, a small country bordered by the Red Sea, Sudan, Ethiopia and Djibouti – wasn’t worried about doing well.

“I told him he was crazy” for doing both races, said Scott Mills, a Colorado Springs resident who is serving as Weldemariam’s host family. “I asked him four times if he really wanted to do it, and he said, ‘No problem.’”

Neither Mills nor Weldemariam predicted he’d challenge for the win, though.

“We both thought top 20 would be good,” Mills said.

Weldemariam is living in Oakland, Calif., as a refugee, and is running to earn money to help bring his family that includes three children to the United States.

“We have mutual friends and met before a Garden of the Gods race,” Mills said. “He came here Aug. 2 to get used to the altitude before the ascent. He’s really talented; he was second at the World Mountain

Running Championships in Italy.”

Weldemariam said he’ll return to Manitou Springs next year and will again do the double on America’s Mountain.

Nichols will again be waiting for the challenge.