Striders did races on dirt, road and rubber in the last month and a half. Racing season has heated up locally in the Springs and in the high country. Lets hear what the team has been up to lately.
This first report comes from Felix Stepanowich. He's 2. I am not saying AI wrote this race report but I'm gonna go ahead and just flag it as suspicious ahead of time.
Felix here again, the littlest square. My most recent race was the "Little Horn" .5 mile at the Garden of the Gods races on June 9th. While walking up to the course, I kept telling my Mom and Dad that it would be hard and I didn't want it to be hard. I lined up with the other kids and was planning on running with my Mom. Right before they said "GO", I turned around and told my parents to "Stay! I'll do it myself." When the race started, I ran so hard - the course was one loop that was 1/2 mile long. I turned around and my parents were trying to quietly run behind me, so I had to remind them to "Stay!" and I said it louder this time. I ran the entire course myself with only a brief pause to say hello to the sheep next to the course. I didn't run fast enough to get one of the limited popsicles at the finish, but maybe next year. After the race, I kept telling people "The race was a little bit hard, but I just took deep breaths." Oh yeah, I guess my Mom finished the 10 mile that day too.
Photos courtesy of Peter Maksimow
Tony Clement, one of the few locals brave enough to offer his quads to Gods of the Garden. And then some how had the worlds first physically demanding round of golf ever (come at me golfers, or at least your Dad's retainer law firm).
Garden 10 mile on June 9th
Beautiful Morning in the park.
Snuck in 3rd place in my age group (44-49) with a time of 1:17:12. I pushed hard because I had an 8:00am shotgun start in a golf tournament that same morning. Unfortunately missed the first 3 holes, and my body fell apart the last 3 holes, but a fun morning for sure. Next up BTMR!
Ruth Black seems to be getting a clearer picture of what mountain trail races are in Colorado, yup up and down.
Great Divide 25k - Mueller State Park June 1Coming off a sprained ankle, it was a lovely day to run for 3 hours on fire roads. Very little flow to this course, we were either going straight up or descending steeply down. But the views of Pikes Peak were awesome and it was fun to high-five the 50k and 100 milers on the horse-shoe route.
I'm not supposed to tell ladies to 'relax' anymore, but maybe just this once?
Andy Sherwood pretending like he's a super patriotic guy and totally not scoping out 24/25' high school summer xc scouting report up in Monument.
Palmer Lake 4th of July race.
Slightly slower than last year. Ran back to Palmer lake and beat the first bus. Palmer lake has legal weed. Who knew?
Andy rocking shades at night @ Milefest, cuz I don't know he wants us to not like him I guess.
Adam Rich submitted these races. Just like a sobriety checkpoint you can count on doubling the actual amount of races he ran, but these are the ones he's putting on his taxes.
I didn't run anything notable. A 5k back in May in 15:39, two 5k's at Sloan's Lake 15:37 and 15:50 something, a very long 5k in 17:00 and the 4 mile on the 4th in 20:38
Brandon Stepanowich, an outsider ballot for Cheyenne Mountain HS coaching legend status, laced up a pair of xc flats on a wet cold night at the high school.
On a regrettable whim I decided to jump into Milefest at Cheyenne Mountain High School. It’s a last chance race for high schoolers not competing in the state meet to allow them to set a mile PR. Also open to the public, for me, it was a place for misplaced dreams to die. The race started after 9:30 pm and my near 40 year old hamstrings reminded me of this at precisely 900 meters in. I felt a sharp bite in the back of my right leg and abruptly moved from lane 1 to lane 0, hobbling across the field to wallow in shame underneath the brilliant stadium lights. My son got to stay up late though so he was happy. I guess ultra distance races aren’t the only places you can DNF.
Last known sighting of the intact hamstring.
Kari Romero, new official team member, finally gets to shine while Gerald shoots therapeutic (I hope) lasers into his feet. Kari ripped it up over the following events:
Ragnar Relay
Slacker Half Marathon
Vail Hill Climb
Jon Teisher completed the San Juan Solstice 50 in 12:33:50. His stated goal was to finish before the bar closes. Feel like he met his A Goal. Jon submitted no race report but he did state that goal on a postcard in early June.
Here's a pic of JT before super shoes where a thing.
Ruth Leibfritz, we got 2 Ruth's now , keep up. This Ruth read Hal Higdon's book, was inspired but the next City Park 5k was sold out, so she signed up for this scavenger hunt of an event.
Banana Slug Backyard Ultra - Champoeg State Park in Oregon on April 19th 2024
This was my first time doing a backyard ultra, with my longest race previously being a 50k. I managed to pull off my goal of 100k at 10 PM, which came out to 15 laps of 4.167 miles (62.5ish miles total). The course was a nice mix of trail and pavement, with time in the woods and along a river. I really loved this style of race; our small group of racers quickly felt like a little community with time to chat and share snacks between laps. And snacks were the name of the game – an unnamed spectator showed up with donuts at the end of lap 6, and I’m pretty sure the cup of instant mashed potatoes I ate after lap 10 saved my life. My friends and I stayed in a cabin at the state park, so the next morning we woke up and cheered on the 20 or so runners that were still going, which was a lot of fun! My goal next year is to make it a full 24 hours (100 miles).
After wondering if he was being type-cast as only racing 1 mile races now, Neil McDonagh added 2 800's (one of them timed, the other just had timing equipment in the vicinity).
Milefest (site of Brandon's youth floating away): decided to run an 800 amongst a group of teens with limitless testosterone. The most stressful part of races is where you try to race a certain time, so for this one they helped us out and said the timing actually didn't start after we finished. I was T H I S far back from the kid who won.
Masters Road Mile USA Champs- Danville CA: 4:30 1st. A trip back to my hometown and racing old high school pals and chumming with racers from all around the country. All of us bragging about who's more injured and who has the most invasive upcoming medical procedure. A cool two loop course around a swanky downtown, took the win and basked in the glow of my parents appreciation long stolen by my two local siblings (shout out Owen and Emmet).
Springs Downhill Mile: 4:37/ 1st OA. Beyond the argument that its a stretch to consider this 'downhill' only dropping 30 ft, but the event is a blast and hope it is here to stay. Props to all of us who stomped on the Santa Fe Trail immediately after the last snow and left ankle rolling hoof prints until next December.
Denver Twilight Track Meet: 1600: 4:33 4th 800: 2:05 4th: For a meet with the name Twilight, it sure felt like the surface of the sun at 6pm. Great event, super fast competition, sorry Springs but Denver Athletics is pretty good at putting on track meets.
We've added a feature so as not to forget our fallen (or strained) compatriots.
The Injury Report Dumpster:
Gerald Romero: has been getting so much imaging on his foot post stress fracture that he may end up like Edison's assistant
Brian Fleischmann: reports that he is on sports hospice. Has run maybe once and the elastic is even cracking on his speedos from lack of use. #prayers4Brian
Tom Caughlan: has severely injured [choose lower extremity region L/R or both] and but still plans to run 2 marathons by end of year, but promised his wife he'd click the trip insurance box on Expedia.
Zach Miller: got his appendix out while living in his van outside Silverton. You're killing your mother Zach. Don't worry Zach, you're in famous company, that president who pulled on his dogs' ears also had his out.
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