First things first. I ascended Saturday. The weather was beautiful, the scenery was beautiful, and the finish line was beautiful.

What made the day truly unforgettable for me, though, was people, not places. 

If you can, forgive the sequential synopsis and the unabashed name-dropping. My mile markers for the race of lifetime were the people who impacted it, some in small ways, some in big.

Okay, rewind to March, when Tim Bergsten convinced me to run the Triple Crown and…

Polite inquiries. Well-intended advice. Wrestling with important questions like "Have I prepared enough?" and "How much tapering should I do?"

Yes, the Pikes Peak Ascent and Marathon are less than a week away and all these things abound.

I know the answers differ for every runner, but for me they are as follows:

I am nervous. I am underprepared. And tapering? Taper from what?…

“Izquierda o derecha?” I shrieked, pointing to my color-coded bib. Right or left?

I was at a critical point in my race in Quito, and there were three courses: marathon, half-marathon, and 8-miler – I needed to know which way to turn to complete my chosen half-marathon course.

I have no doubt that the volunteers said something to the effect of “If this is your first lap, turn right. If this is your second, turn left.”  What I heard, however, was “turn…

They’re done. Over. Finished.

The second leg of the Triple Crown of Running and my (likely only) practice summit of the Peak are in the 2013 history books.

Both were surprisingly nice. While I put forth a very respectable effort, I didn't exactly “smack down” either the Peak or High Drive, but I had more fun doing both than I thought possible.

They…

Almost every runner I know, whether they’re training for the Pikes Peak Ascent or Marathon or not, has already been on the incline or Barr trail this year.  Challenging trail runs, it seems, are a quintessential part of any runner’s routine.  Any runner, perhaps, other than me.

I haven’t seen the top of Pikes Peak for three years. I probably haven’t seen the top of the incline for just as long.

I could blame my inertia on the emotional toll of the fires in our…

A few posts ago, I talked about how things inexplicably fell apart every time I ran in the Garden of the Gods 10 Miler. When I was diagnosed with bronchitis a week before the race, several friends asked if I was still planning to run. My attitude was this: “I might run, I might walk, but I will finish. At least this year, the falling apart will have an explanation.”

I took almost the whole week off running, and when I showed up on race day, the most inexplicable thing of all happened:…

“I have great news,” I tell my family. “It’s not going to sound like great news at first, but it really, really is.”  Pregnant pause.

“I have bronchitis.”

Another pregnant pause.

Then they asked what you may be asking yourself: “What could possibly be great about bronchitis?"

What’s great about bronchitis is this: it’s an actual diagnosis. It's treatable, and it explains why I’ve been so slow on the trail, so tired and short of breath, so unmotivated. My weekly…

Most runners have had the experience: you train like crazy, you prep for a race with good nutrition and decent sleep, the weather on race day is not so bad, and somehow, the race itself still falls apart.

The most extreme memory I have of that type of “falling apart” might involve me, standing under the Colorado bridge (less than a mile from the finish) in the American Discovery Trail Marathon, having an internal negotiation about whether I would run it in, or walk it in.  Did I…

Even though I took it up relatively late in life, running is part of my identity. My faraway family and friends inquire about my running, and I frequently broach the subject with new friends and colleagues to find kindred spirits.  And 50% of the time, people who don’t know my running habits well ask me if I run “that race up that mountain,” referring, ostensibly, to the Pikes Peak Ascent.

Before last month, my response was always the same: “I’m definitely crazy, but I’m not that…