First things first. I ascended Saturday. The weather was beautiful, the scenery was beautiful, and the finish line was beautiful.

What made the day truly unforgettable for me, though, was people, not places. 

If you can, forgive the sequential synopsis and the unabashed name-dropping. My mile markers for the race of lifetime were the people who impacted it, some in small ways, some in big.

Okay, rewind to March, when Tim Bergsten convinced me to run the Triple Crown and…

Polite inquiries. Well-intended advice. Wrestling with important questions like "Have I prepared enough?" and "How much tapering should I do?"

Yes, the Pikes Peak Ascent and Marathon are less than a week away and all these things abound.

I know the answers differ for every runner, but for me they are as follows:

I am nervous. I am underprepared. And tapering? Taper from what?…