I started hearing it a few weeks ago. An incessant, gradual, then rapidly accelerating ticking. Worse than Captain Hook’s croc tracking him. That nagging, nauseating feeling that time was slipping away. Like many things in life you can’t expect to put off training for a long run until the last few ticks of the clock and expect to get the job done. So July 22 I drove to the summit of Pikes with teammate Shelley Hitz. We jogged down to the A Frame at treeline and back up, a six mile roundtrip. I was pleased that I made the return trip up the mountain in 1 hour, 21 minutes but as teammate Shelley pointed out, we had merely jogged down 3 miles and then 3 back up. The reality is that on the day of the Ascent, one’s legs will have already covered 10 miles UPhill by the time you reach treeline and THEN you’ll have to do those last 3 miles with the air getting thinner and thinner with each step. On Sunday, August 3, I rose at 3:45 a.m. which is a chore in itself. Then, over a bowl of cereal, packing up a few last items and driving to Manitou, the voice of inertia is yapping in my ear, “Y’know you could just go to Barr Camp and back. You could maybe just run up Ruxton and see how far you can go, maybe just a few miles up the Barr Trail. You COULD just turn around right now, go home, back to bed and take a short run later or none at all. After all, it’s Sunday, a day of rest. Then you slip on the pack and briskly walk through a silent, mellow Manitou, the only person on the street. You can hear one of the mineral water fountains nearly a block away it’s so quiet. You start climbing the Barr Trail, check the eastern sky and admire it’s rosy glow above the twinkling lights of the city. You start meeting a few other people on the trail and remember that that is just one enjoyable element that makes endeavors like this worthwhile. Some people are hiking but there are many others training for the Ascent and the Marathon. One young lady passes me and we exchange pleasantries. She asks (I have no idea why) if I’m a member of the PikesPeakSports.us Triple Crown Runners. “Why, yes,” I respond with some surprise. She tells me she was on the 2013 team. Another member of the Purple and Gold Nation! It was Megan Kunkel, who doubled in the past, running the Ascent AND the Marathon on back to back days. She tells me she is planning on doing it again this year. “Funny,” I think, “She APPEARS to be of sound mind.” If you’ve never met Megan, she is a pixie. And she’s doubling. Do I feel like a lesser human? Well, yeah. I see other people that I know along the way and at the summit, including current teammate Bubba Chavez. All of the trepidation, doubt and hesitancy I felt hours ago in the pre-dawn darkness have dissipated much as the darkness gave way to the sun under another brilliant Colorado sky. The temperature is cool, perfect for such a strenuous journey. We should be so lucky on the weekend of the Ascent and Marathon. In short, it didn’t take long on this day to remember why I indulge in such craziness. It’s the people you meet, the sights you see, the serenity of being all alone (hard to believe) on the Barr Trail for up to 30 minutes or more at a time. I am so thankful to be able to do this so it seems like a good time to give props to our team’s sponsors, Mountain Equipment Recyclers and Orange Theory and also to the good folks who make the Pikes Peak Ascent and Marathon such an enjoyable experience.

Just received my bib number: 1706....the year I was born!  What a coincidence!