By Garry Harrington
PikesPeakSports.us

Most of the local runners who competed in Sunday’s 59th Pikes Peak Marathon spent considerable time before the race training on Barr Trail and getting adjusted to the steep climbs and descents of what is called America’s Ultimate Challenge. But not Geofrey Terer. He had never stepped foot on Pikes Peak before running last month’s Barr Trail Mountain Race. Ore., for that matter, any trail whatsoever. In his life.

“I am not a trail runner,” said Terer, a 37-year-old native of Kenya, after he finished a strong seventh in Sunday’s Marathon in a time of 4:26:38. “I just did it for fun. But it was very, very hard.”

Terer, who arrived in Colorado Springs on May 17 to race and train at altitude – and on the roads – will leave on Monday to return to Kenya to continue his training and heal from a calf injury that has plagued him since winning the Colfax Half-Marathon in Denver on May 18 – the day after he arrived.

He won that race in 1:08, but the calf injury kept him from competing in his next scheduled races – the Dam to Dam 20K in Des Moines, Iowa, which he won in 2012, and Grandma’s Half-Marathon in Duluth, Minn. He recovered in time to set a new course record at the Estes Park Half-Marathon in June in a time of 1:11:31. The previous record had been 1:24. “I could have run faster, but the altitude bothered me,” Terer said.

So what was a road racer from the Rift Valley of Kenya – the birthplace of marathon champions – doing in a trail race? After he finished second on July 6 at the Summer Roundup 12K – which was partially run on trail – he decided to enter the Barr Trail Mountain Race the following weekend, and finished fourth. He had never stepped foot on such a rocky, rooted trail as Barr Trail until that day.

“After the Summer Roundup, I decided to do this race,” said Terer of the Marathon. “I was very happy to do it, even though I had never trained on this trail before today.” Not even the Incline? “Never,” he said.

Terer said it was the terrain, not the altitude, which slowed him down on Sunday. Most runners are more accustomed to running trails than they are to the 14,000-foot altitude of Pikes Peak.

“In 2012, I ran the Mount Evans Ascent and won it,” he said of the race to the top of another 14er, “but that is on a road.” As was another recent high-altitude race he ran – last weekend’s Mount Sneffels Half Marathon in Ouray, Colo., where he finished third.

He had never run a race such as this back home in Kenya. “There are no trail races in Kenya,” Terer explained. “There are no races like this. In Kenya, they are all about speed. I knew the trail would be so different. I could not use my speed on the trail. You have to stop and turn all the time, and step over stones and things.”

So how did he prepare for the race? “I just relaxed all week,” he said. “I knew I would not be able to use my speed (today), so I did no speed training this week.”

Noticeably limping because of the recurrence of the calf injury after Sunday’s grueling descent, Terer said he will “rest up” once getting back to Kenya, and then begin training for his next return to the U.S. He is not sure of his upcoming race schedule, but would love to come back to Colorado Springs, where he has been staying with a friend.

“Maybe next year I will do the Ascent,” he said.