Absolutely Marbleous: high times at the Lead King Loop

This was the hardest race I've ever run.

It wasn't just the 15.5 miles - severely over-distance for a miler/5k-er like me - but that the combo of gruelling uphill sections and technical descending often on loose rocks that were training to become scree meant there was no let up, anywhere. Oh, except maybe on the log over the river.

Within half a mile of the Beaver Lake Lodge at 7,300 feet the course started up. And up. My GPS told me we topped out at 10,800 feet after a little over 5 miles of ascending. This on a jeep "road". Imagine a classic zig-zag Tour de France climb crossed with the hell section of Paris-Roubaix. Yes eventually I took walk breaks. We all did. Well not the leaders of course. Check out the pictures on the Colorado Runner website here - and bear in mind that these were taken by 25k winner Bernie Boettcher; he carried a camera with him. Now there's a guy confident in his downhilling ability.

But don't get me wrong: this was a fantastic race in outstanding scenery, marked by severe good humour and laid-backness among competitors and support crew volunteers alike.

As I staggered and swayed up to the final feeding station with little more than a mile to run, I had to ask, "Are we nearly there yet?" This provoked a riot of information... most important being the most welcome, "Yes and it's all downhill from here1" Yeah, I've been hearing that for miles. "No really". And in short order I was offered water, Gatorade, beer.. and a cigarette!

In total contrast to a certain race a few weeks ago, organizer Craig Macek and his team impeccably marked and marshaled a 25k course in mountain country so that no one got lost or starved. Splashing across a shallow stream around the 6-mile mark I was temporarily startled when I registered out of the corner of my eye an impassive figure in drab forest gear, on horseback, rifle in scabbard by the saddle. Time warp. He may have been a "marshal", or maybe a hallucination; it was that kind of race.

Oh and there was schwag unbounded. Cancel everything I ever said about those irritating prize draws. Where Craig and co got the goodies from I have no idea, but they were top quality and there were lots of them. Having got fourth place in my age group, rather than my usual third, I was out of the running for the grand chunks of solid Marble marble. But, no sweat... I scored a stupendous $150 voucher for a full-on dinner for two at Olives Restaurant in the impossibly swish St Regis Hotel in Aspen. Someone got a leather jacket; someone else a pair of skis. Dwight Cornwell, whose win in the 60-64 division clinched the Series title, was presented with a gorgeous spruce tree!

Way to go
There are just two races to go in the Colorado Runner Racing Series and - glory be! -- they are both 5ks!
Next up is the Eerie Erie on October 25 (in Erie, of course. On November 16 the Panicking Poultry 5k in Boulder brings an end to the 16-race series begun in January.
We're waiting for the official Lead King results; latest standings will be updated on the Colorado Runner website here.

Who's safe?
Results are now up and I did get my usual third in the 55-59 age-group: excellent! However, I am still not home and dry, and in many of the divisions, the final overall Series winners won't be decided until the final race. For some runners, though, the long campaign is over. These are the men and women who, with two races left, can't be caught and are winners of the Colorado Runner Racing Series:

Masters Women: Karen Smidt, 42, Brighton (2nd in the LKL)
50-54 Female: Cynthia Flora, 51, Littleton (3rd in the LKL)
55-59 Female: Jan Huie, 59, Colorado Springs - has more than 1000 points and is so far ahead she didn't have to run the Lead King Loop, although she made the trip.
60-64 Male: Dwight Cornwell, 62, Fort Collins (1st in the LKL with an age group course record 2:42:35, 14 minutes ahead of the next guy)
60-64 Female: Stephanie Wiecks, 61, Palmer Lake (1st in the LKL)
65+ Male: Jim Romero, 68, Denver, 15 minutes ahead of his nearest competitor in the LKL and another one with more than 1000 points.

Now that's more like it! 10 miles of hard fun at the Aetna Park to Park

Definitely from the ridiculous to the sublime: the getting-a-bit battle weary Colorado Runner Racing Series points chasers moved to Denver to find a welcome contrast to our last race, which was such a fiasco that the "results" were dropped from the series.

* Picture: me (on the right) with team-mate Susan Brooker, winner of the women's masters race. Photo by David Merrill, www.FotoJack.com.

The Aetna Park to Park 10-miler had everything; this is a race on its way to the major league. We got 40 Portaloos at the start, a mobile espresso bar, hundreds of marshals backed up by more police officers than I've seen all year; we got a superb USATF certified course that included long stiff climbs, screaming descents and plenty of corners as it took us from City Park, to Cheeseman Park (mind the geese!), on to Alamo Placita Park to finish in Washington Park. We got medals and flowers. We got goodie bags that doubled as kit bags that were transported to the finish for us. We got the unmatched efficiency of Benji Durden and his timing crew, who had the results up almost as soon as we'd finished. Two hours after getting home I got an email telling me the results were already up on the Net. Like it! We got food - lots of it, including chocolate chip cookies AND popcorn. Plus an Expo to wander round. All we didn't get was an awards ceremony.

I know, I shouldn't bang on about all these "peripherals", but unless you were at the not-so Peachy 5-miler last time, you have no idea how much we enjoyed the pampering :) Oh and just one more thing for co-directors Alan Lind and Maureen Roben: given we're distance athletes permanently on the verge of immune system breakdown, I can't tell you two how much I appreciate having my drink handed to me by a volunteer wearing latex gloves... the norm is to get a drink with someone's who-knows-where-they've-been fingers round the rim.

And the word is getting out about this race. Entries just about doubled from around 600 last year to 1100 this Labor Day. Yes, its promotion to the Colorado Runner Racing Series helped, but so did the buzz from runners delighted with the inaugural event last year - plus this 10-mile epic is a nicely positioned test for anyone targeting a fall marathon.

The race itself? Well, I got hammered again. Heath Hibberd took 4 minutes out of me and Devin Croft 2, as I finished third in the 55-59 age group in 1:08:16. But I was well pleased to have kept my overall series lead over the longest distance I've raced this year. It might well have been a disaster, except for a serious pre-race strategy session I had with coach Ric Rojas and team-mate Susan Brooker.

A former Olympic trials marathoner, Susan knows how to plan a race. She ran the course the week before, so when we sat down with the course profile and her feedback I was treated to a good dose of reality. With Ric's prompting we worked out mile splits based on a conservative start. Boy, was I glad we did! Because the first mile is a totally inviting long straight downhill that most of the field couldn't resist. I would have been one of them...and like them, I would have paid the price on the huge hill between mile 4 and 5. But we stuck to the plan, held back and started easily at 7-minute pace; I was catching runners all the way through.

To give you some idea of the ups and downs, my mile split on the hill was 7:11; my split on a downhill stretch two miles later was 5:39!

The day after our planning meeting, we had a great track session at Potts Field dedicated to dialling in our proposed race pace with a set of mile repeats. Based on that and my performance on a 15-mile training run the previous Sunday, plus a comparison with the 7:00 pace I managed in the VERY hilly Greenland trail 8-mile in April, I devised a slightly more aggressive schedule of splits just in case I felt good at the top of the hill.

On the day I did. Susan kept to the plan. A 6:32 last mile brought her home in 1:09:24, about 14 seconds faster than the plan. She won the 45 to 49 Age Group by FOUR minutes -- and earned herself $100. I wasn't just impressed, but scared: if it had been a half-marathon she would have caught me.

It was a good hard race. There wasn't really anywhere you could relax and go on cruise control, as the course really grabs your attention, especially if you're trying to run the shortest line. The hills were longer than I'd anticipated; the opening miles not as flat as I'd thought. With two miles to go it felt great to burst downhill into Wash Park, where I've run so many 5ks that it feels like home.

How the guys at the front ran this in 51 minutes I have no idea. Hats off to Josh Eberly of Gunnison (27) who averaged a tad over 5 minutes a mile to win in 51:00, and to Jesus Solis of Littleton (24), second in 51:23. Unbelievable.

One of the performances of the day must be that of Longmont's Kelly Liljebald, who at 36 ran 1:01:50 (6:11 pace)to beat 26-year-old Maren Shepherd to be first woman home. Three others who stood out were Mark Bell of Denver, who at 51 got 29th overall with his 1:01:44...the next guy in his age group was near enough 5 minutes back; Hibberd, who was 42nd overall; and Erie's 61-year-old Dave Dooley, 50th overall in 1:06:12, who hauled out a similar 5-minute gap over Dwight Cornwell, the 62-year-old from Fort Collins who is leading the 60-64 division in the series.

We've got just 3 races to go before the Colorado Runner Racing Series is done for the year. It's been a long campaign since the January start, so some of us will be breathing sighs of relief. But not yet... the next race is a doozy.

Marble, at 7000 feet, is beautiful this time of year. So beautiful that we're going there to run 15 miles -- the first 5 of which take us up nearly 4000 feet. Um. Yes. Some of the guys are telling me that the only way up is to walk. They've also told me it could be snowing at the top and bad-weather clothing may be in order.

Believe it or not, the Lead King Loop is followed by 2 5k races to finish the series. I can't wait!

* Links to current standings and latest results are up at the Colorado Runner site here.