19-year-old sets record for age group as he wins overall title
In winning the Pikes Peak Ascent on Saturday, Ryan Hafer managed to make history, break a record and settle a score. At 19, Hafer became the youngest male winner of the Ascent, the 13.32-mile running race up Barr Trail to the summit of Pikes Peak.
Hafer, a Colorado Springs resident about to enter his sophomore year at Harvard University, topped a field of about 1,800 to become the first teenager to win. He finished in 2 hours, 21 minutes and 30 seconds, well off Matt Carpenter‘s 1993 course record of 2:01:06.
But Hafer broke the race’s 29-year agegroup record, a time of 2:22:24 set by Dave Casillas in 1976.
Mike Selig, 27, of Golden passed Bill Raitter of Estes Park in the last two miles to finish second in 2:25:02. Raitter, 35, finished third in 2:25:26.
The 50th Pikes Peak Marathon, the 26.21-mile race up and down the mountain, begins at 7 a.m. today in downtown Manitou Springs.
On Saturday, Hafer led from pavement to peak, taking charge from Ruxton Avenue, near the race start, and quickly building a gap. He didn’t take the early lead for granted, though. Hafer, a 2004 Coronado High School graduate, led for 10 miles of last year’s race before eventual winner and eight-time champion Scott Elliott passed him about 3 miles from the finish.
“I fell apart so badly,” Hafer said.
Hafer, an engineering major, said he targeted the age-group mark at summer’s start, but a relatively weak field meant he could set the record and win, too.
“It’s kind of nice,” he said at the 14,115-foot summit. “It’s kind of what I was aiming for. I wanted to take revenge on it from last year.”
Hafer said he eschewed altitude training for mostly long, hilly runs in Garden of the Gods, Ute Valley and Palmer Park to prepare for his college cross-country season. He trained on Pikes Peak once.
“It was too crowded,” he said.
Elliott, 41, did not race because of a pulled hamstring, but plans to return next year. But beware, the kid is good.
“Wow,” said Raitter, a recent member of the World Mountain Racing team. “When I was 19 I didn’t have it together. I’ve been beaten by 40-year-olds, 20-yearolds. Never by a kid.”
Friends push each other to finish line
Lisa Goldsmith, a 40-year-old massage therapist from Nederland, led a feel-good group of older women Saturday in winning her first Pikes Peak Ascent in 2 hours, 50 minutes and 2 seconds.
Goldsmith held off a charge by three-time Ascent champion Cindy O’Neill (1998-2000) of Manitou Springs (left, photo by Christian Murdock) about a quarter- mile from the rocky summit’s finish line.
O’Neill, 43, finished second in 2:50:40. Colorado Springs’ Connillee Walter, 32, was third in 3:03:32.
Anita Ortiz, 41, of Eagle was unsuccessful in her bid to win a fifth straight Ascent. Hampered by a lingering foot injury, she finishedfourth in 3:05:13.
Over the hill? Instead, they’re among the first to stand atop it.
“We’re not dead yet,” said O’Neill, a triathlete and runner who’s actually getting faster as she gets older. She won the 2000 Ascent in 2:50:52, the last time she competed in this race.
Goldsmith and O’Neill are friends, having met in 1984. They attended the same college, North Texas State. They found themselves moving to Colorado at about the same time. Still, said Goldsmith, being close can only go so far on race day.
O’Neill’s strategy was to let Goldsmith go, then reel her in above tree line.
“I knew I could run the top pretty well,” O’Neill said. “By A-Frame (tree line), I could start seeing her on the switchbacks.”
O’Neill closed to within five seconds. Goldsmith could feel her just behind. O’Neill was, almost literally, breathing down her friend’s neck at the end of a 13.32-mile race up a 14,115- foot mountain.
“She was uncomfortably close,” Goldsmith said, minutes after finishing. “At the same time, it makes racing fun.”
They reached the infamous 16 Golden Stairs — they’re not really steps, but grueling switchbacks with the finish line so close each runner could hear spectators screaming for them.
That’s where Goldsmith made her move.
“She just powered up,” O’Neill said. “She really deserved it because she just powered up that last bit and I know she was hurting.”
A former Colorado Springs resident, Goldsmith was a top road cyclist from 1988 to 1993. She made the U.S. national team and won a national championship in 1988 before “burning out” and quitting the sport.
This year marked the Ascent return of both runners. Goldsmith hadn’t raced here since 1997, when illness had her thinking about quitting at Barr Camp. Instead, she walked most of the way to the finish, a hard result to stomach for an elite athlete.
Goldsmith looked light years from burning out Saturday.
“It says a lot about experience and this kind of running,” she said when asked why three 40-and-over runners managed such success. “It’s tough. Running has a lot to do with perseverance and maturity, not giving up and not getting too discouraged.”
Bad weather closes road for trip down
Some stuck on upper mountain; some are forced to turn around
At the start of the Pikes Peak Ascent on Saturday morning, runners at the start of the 13.32-mile run up the 14,115-foot mountain had reason to feel cheerful.
Not a cloud in the sky. A clear summit.
Then it all fell apart. About an hour after Ascent winner Ryan Hafer, 19, crossed the finish line shirtless in the warm weather, dark clouds blotted out the sun and the first beads of hail began to fall on the summit.
By the end of the day, up to 600 people, mostly spent and sweaty runners, were stranded in vans and buildings for hours atop the mountain when a summer storm dumped 6 inches of hail on Pikes Peak, forcing Pikes Peak Highway to close.
The highway, the only road to and from the summit, was closed from the top of the mountain to Devil’s Playground (about 3 miles down) from about 11:30 a.m.-3:40 p.m.
Operators of the cog railway used the train to help bring down about 220 runners from the summit, said Ron Ilgen, race director.
About 200 cars parked at Devil’s Playground were stuck from noon to about 1:30 p.m., when the lower section of road reopened.
Two U.S. Forest Service snowplows had to clear ice, snow and hail from the road.
An estimated 200 runners had to turn around on Barr Trail when officials closed the course at tree line at 11:50 a.m. because of severe weather and lightning strikes nearby, Ilgen said.
Competitors were forced to walk 10 miles back down the trail.
It’s the second straight year the cut-off time at A-frame had to be adjusted because of bad weather from its usual 41/2 hours after race start.
Is the race jinxed?
“I’m starting to wonder that,” Ilgen said.
Walking or running in exposed areas above tree line can be dangerous because there’s little protection from lightning. Rocks also can draw deadly electrical charges.
