I competed in the Pikes Peak Ascent in two separate years: 1988 and 1989. This is significant for two reasons. First my memories of the event are quite old and my facts are not quite strait. Two, the race has changed in way of organization but not in route or difficulty.

In January of 1988, I moved to Colorado Springs from the gently rolling plains of East Texas. I used to call them hills.  The Elevation there is 300 feet and the biggest climbs we have there are 100’ over ¾’s of a mile. Oxygen is plentiful as pine trees grow where bulldozers haven’t been for a while. Colorado Springs is different. It sits more than 6000’ above sea level and trees only grow where they are carefully planted, watered and cared for.  Only in the lower elevations of the mountains is the soil suitable for natural tree growth.

It took me two weeks to acclimate upon arrival. I remember that day vividly, when I went for a two-mile jog and came home feeling fresh. I almost celebrated. I remember doing runs from my apartment near Constitution and Academy to Palmer Park, where I would free climb the cliff to the top of the ridge. Then come back down and jog home. The cliff is not a difficult climb, maybe a class 3 or 4.

I went to see my folks in March and brought back my bicycle with me. This turned out to be a lifesaver. My car fell apart two months later and I lost my job. The Bike became the only means of transportation as I rode it everywhere. I did get another job, which I still have. I kept the bike all summer as I rode it to work every day. My roommates gave me rides whenever I needed to go somewhere where the buses didn’t run, or I couldn’t ride my bike to.

At this new job, I met a man who had run the Pikes Peak marathon many times. I told him I’d like to try it so he encouraged me to do the ascent. Why I said that I don’t know. I hated hills when I was ran cross-country in high school and college. Now I was going to run a race that was just one big hill.

My new friend took me to the top of Pikes Peak once for a workout. He told me to run down to A-frame and come back. I didn’t see it as I went past tree line and ended up going a mile farther. I felt good. I turned around to go back up the mountain and discovered just how hard the mountain was. He went to A-frame twice while I tried to return up the mountain.

In those days, the Ascent closed entries two weeks before the race. As soon as they reached 1500 people. I got mine in with plenty of time. I remember the weeks leading up to the race, walking around town, staring at the mountain as if I was a boxer staring down my opponent. I was saying out loud. "You’re mine, I will defeat you."

On the day of the race, my roommate drove me to Manitou and I told him I’d be back about 2:00. I took off with the second wave and walk/jogged up Mt. Manitou. This is where I developed my first joke about the race. What do they call someone who runs the entire way up Pikes Peak? The winner.

We didn’t get our first water until French Creek. We had run an hour into the event when that happened. I was happy the next year when they put a water stop half way up Mt Manitou.  I have since met the man who was in charge of the Boy Scout troop that ran that water station that day. He is a basketball official in Colorado Springs. I ran all the way to Barr camp where I ate breakfast, I mean a Power Bar and drank some Gatorade.

I had had the cutoff time in back of my mind all the way up and I didn’t want to have to run down the mountain. I was quite relieved to know I got to A-frame well in advance of any cutoff times. I then learned about the hardest part of the race. You have already run ten miles by the time you get to tree line and you are beat. Now above the trees, O2 is a non-existent element. I went from walk/jog to walk/sit. From 15-20 minutes a mile to 20-40 minutes a mile. I remembered the pictures I had seen of the race and people were running. I’m thinking, they didn’t take the pictures this far back in the pack. This is nothing more than a "glorified hike". All those people who were running at French Creek were now walking.

I was happy for each aid station I passed and was glad that I had carried a jacket with me. I had put the jacket on at tree line. I was moving slower and the temperature was in the 40’s. I got to the 16 golden stairs thinking I was going to run the last half-mile. Forget it. I walked up the stairs until I found the crowd and jogged in.   If my memory serves me right, I outkicked someone. I was disappointed in my time at 4:08, however, until I ran the race the next year.

Coming down the mountain was a story. Someone had the bright idea of taking a bus to the top. Don’t ride a bus on Pikes Peak. I thought for sure that we were going off the edge at the W’s. We used the whole road. Then we had the 45-minute wait in Glen Cove for the brakes to cool. By the time we rode into Manitou Springs at 3:00, my roommate had gone home. I caught a bus going downtown and then had a half-hour wait for the bus heading to my house. I had dinner downtown at the old Woolworth store,  then caught the bus home.

The next year my training was different. I now had a car so I wasn’t riding my bike to work every day. My bike was broken and I didn’t want to fix it, so I wasn’t getting that workout at all. I did not get a chance to run at the top of the mountain. I did however tune up by running the Colorado Springs Classic. 52:00 for 10k was not a good run though. I have run 10k in 38:00. I did a lot of trail running but it was the lower part of Barr trail, Waldo Canyon, Area 16 and North Cheyenne Canyon.  I even did a wilderness hike in the San juan Mountains.  Good workouts but not the high altitude running you need for the Ascent.  So here I go, off to run another Ascent.

I started in the second wave, where I should. I wore my Hogeye Marathon T-shirt for the race. That is another story I’ll write sometime. But the leader of the Arkansas contingent introduced himself to me and wanted to know how I got to the race without him knowing it. I told him I live here now and that I only ran the Hogeye Marathon three years earlier when I was in college. We had a good laugh and we wished each other well.

I knew I wasn't going to win and I wanted by moment of glory, so I took off fast and led the pack to Ruxton Ave. That is the last I looked good. I started the walking routine almost immediately. Ran very little on Mt Manitou and a little bit more from the top to Barr camp. I hardly ran any from there on. I hurt and I hurt badly. That year they were not able to put a water stop two miles from the top due to a lack of helicopter support from Ft. Carson. I was dying by the time I reached the water at the Cirque.

I made it up the mountain in 5:27 this time. I was mad. The 4:08 last year seemed a whole lot faster than this year’s (glorified hike) run. I went into the tent and found my sweats and came back out. It was snowing. I also heard cheering at the finish line and there was a man without legs, hobbling up the mountain on his hands. I beat him at least. The next year after I got married, my bride told me about him speaking in chapel at the college she attended. She asked, "Can you believe this guy ran the race?" I said, "yes. I saw him finish."

This year coming back down the mountain, I was smart, I took a van. When I got to the bottom I found out how dumb I was. I parked my car at Manitou High School, on top of a very steep hill. So one more hill to go. Then I drove home.

Lessons learned.  Maintain some kind of training program, preferably at altitude, always on hills.  Have a training partner, someone who will make sure you do all the necessary workouts.  Enjoy yourself.  Don't go out too fast.  You pay for it the next twelve miles.  I also remembered the proverb of Mt. Fuji. It is a Japanese proverb that says, "He who climbs Mt Fuji once is a wise man. He who does it twice is a fool." I guess you know what that makes me.