You are invited to submit writing about running/by runners to this site to be published on this page. Submissions are subject to the editorial discretion of the Durango Motorless Transit Board of Directors and the Web Administrator.  Submit to marcwitkes@hotmail.com or via comments on our Guest Book page. Poetry, short stories, and essays will be posted here. 

Raegan Robb took a look at the course of the Narrow Gauge 10 mile run and cringed. "Maybe I ought to run the 5K instead."

But the risk paid off for Robb as he pulled away from the field after making the turn onto 32nd Street and never looked back. Robb pushed the hills hard and finished the run in 57:54 for first place. Lead bicyclist Paul Rogers exchanged niceties with Robb as he was being passed by the young, fit runner.

Robb is no stranger to local competition as he has fond memories of running for Coach Keller at Durango High School just a couple of years ago. "He (Coach Keller) prepared me well physically and mentally for the 80 mile training weeks at CSU."

This past fall season was a memorable one for Robb as he helped CSU attend cross country nationals for the first time since 1979. Despite being hindered by an annoying achilles heel injury and missing the indoor seasons, Robb started serious training again in March.

"I'm looking forward to enjoying some longer runs and races in the Four Corners especially the Steamworks Half-Marathon (scheduled for June 23). Robb will return to CSU in the Fall as a Junior History major.

Kari Distefano, 41, from Telluride, and mother of three, took a very different path to her 1:04.23 victory in the 10 mile competition. "My husband was riding in the Iron Horse and playing in a golf tournament and I figured I ought to do something as well". Distefano ran the Big Sur Marathon just three weeks ago and wasn't sure if she had recovered enough. "But since having children I've learned to train smarter with more quality workouts as I just don't have the time that I used to", said Distefano.

Kellie Kidd's husband also raced the train in the Iron horse and she figured she would jump into the 5K during her first visit to Durango. "I ran in college and I've been doing about 40 miles a week in preparation for the Tinman Triathlon in Longmont in three weeks". That was enough preparation for Kidd as she cruised to victory in 21:40.

On the men's side, Branden Rakita, continued his winning ways by flying through the slightly lengthened 5K course in 18:34.

*****

From a race director's standpoint, a few interesting stories also bear retelling here:

One specially made XXL T-shirt for a gentleman who pre-registered last week and I couldn't find it. "Does anybody know where it is?"

"Yeah, its right here," said race announcer Dale Garland as he rummaged through an enormous pile of race registration forms, gift certificates, cups, medium T-shirts, race results, and other assorted race paraphernalia.

*****

I thought that thirty pounds of flour and numerous wood arrows would be enough to mark the course for all of the out-of towners who didn't quite know their way around Durango but apparently, we'll still have to do a better job next year. I received an e-mail from a woman on the front range who apparently got separated from the pack and nearly wandered off course into oblivion never to be heard from again.

*****

7:30 a.m. and everything seemed under control. The finish line was set up and Tom Burnett already had the clock recharged and mounted on the fragile stand with some nails. (The regular pins were, again, missing.) John McAward's Seiko Timer had a brand new roll of tape in it and I thought that Vic Rudolph had escorted the Durango High School football team members to the three water aid stations on the course. "But, do they have enough cups and water?"

All hell broke loose at 7:30 when seventy people charged the doors at Park Elementary ready to cut my jugular vein if they didn't get their proper sized t-shirt.

"This race will start on schedule at 8 a.m. because the train departs at 8:15 and we have to beat it across the tracks in two different places!"

Five minutes before race time and it appeared that the calm arrived after the storm as everyone was peacefully lined up at the start ready to attack the 24th Annual Narrow Gauge.

A police escort through downtown Durango helped runners navigate congested Memorial Day traffic. After crossing Camino del Rio and the Ninth Avenue Bridge, former Bank of Colorado President, Steve Parker was poised firmly at the one-mile mark calling out split times.

*****

While compiling results, it was apparent that some of the pull-tags had the racer's ages snipped off inadvertantly. Where is computer extraordinaire registration expert Karen Randolph? Of course she was out bicycling, training for an Ironman distance race in California later this summer.

Superman volunteer and Race Director for the Steamworks Half-Marathon, Matt Kelly, led 5K runners on his bicycle, controlled 15th street traffic for them and still made it to the final 10 mile crossing for more traffic control duty. "I really enjoy helping people achieve their goals that they may have thought were not possible." We really could use a dozen or more volunteers just like him.


Sincere thanks to all of the great sponsors and dozens of volunteers who helped make this race a successful one. $300 was raised for the High School in its efforts to install lights for Friday night football and other events.

The Mile! The event was great, I wasn't. What an inspiration it was to participate as both a spectator and competitor in the 1st (of  hopefully many) for this event at the DHS track. The weather even cooperated: cool and overcast with little or no wind. Keith & Linda Paris, you did such a great job (did you orchestrate the weather too?). The entire happening was inspirational, but the most spectacular performer had to be Paul Pixler. What an inspiration he is to all of us. I wanted to throw up after I finished, he had a smile on his face.

Isn't Paul's performance what running is all about? We do the best we can for as long as we can. By the way, take a look at Paul's legs some time. Those are not 79 year-old legs, the man is an incredible athlete. With all due respects to Yarborough, Rakitas, Overend, et. al. Paul is the finest athlete of us all, and he should be an inspiration to us all. This is what is so wonderful about the sport of running. We can do it by ourselves, we don't need a lot of fancy equipment, it can be done almost any time, no reservations for Tee times or court time -- just go out and train. The races are great, we old timers eat the dust of the speed merchants, but we're still allowed to share the same road or track and do our best. And you push (actually you pull) us to achieve to the best of our abilities.

I remember being in my early 40s and watching men & women my current age running, training hard, and competing. At the time, I hoped I would still be running when I reached their age. Now I'm there and I have a new role model. I hope I'm still running as Paul does when I'm 79. 

The cool sunlight, a liquid plasma in the thin air at twelve-thousand feet, caresses him as he runs and fills the voids in his consciousness. Voids created by the difficult and sustained physical effort demanded by this altitude. The roar of his breathing, the crunch of his shoes on the rock-strewn trail at his feet, provide the symphonic accompaniment to his running.

In younger days, he had learned to employ a rhythmic stride to maintain his forward momentum during his lapses of strength. Now, he climbs well aware of his strained breathing, impotent leg muscles, and weary will, yet somehow "the rhythm" carries him higher. Like a Mozart prelude, a long climbing run in the mountains begins with a slow, cadence of uncoordinated leg muscles struggling to lose the tense momentum of their day. Then, after the subtle but resonant cadence has established itself, the quiet high frequency strains of aspiration join the legs in a confident harmony that melds purpose and direction with the raw energy of working muscles.

He has reached one of the climaxes of this journey - the "Notch" at the top of the La Plata Canyon road, nearly "the top of his world". From here he looks down into the Lightner and Junction Creek drainages, Durango, and the mesa land to the south and east, Engineer Mountain and the Needles range to the north, and to the far distant east - the jagged line of the Continental Divide. Standing here, he must choose: turn around and re-trace his steps or go through the "Notch". Going through means a turn to the right, down the east side, following a talus covered rock ledge for half a mile and then climbing once more to the south col of Snowstorm Peak then taking the winding goat trail down into Columbus Basin. The latter option traces the course of the Kennebec Challenge. Today this east option looks inviting.

Over and down, he initiates the treacherous descent with quick, light steps. Gravity rapidly accelerates his pace and forces his mind to focus on the site of each and every predicted footfall. One part of his mind dreads this process, where one mis-step can precipitate -at a minimum- a significant amount of painful abrasions and bruises. At the extreme, his momentum in a stumble will to carry him a few feet to his left, dropping several hundred feet over the edge, another significant experience. Simultaneously, another part of his mind forces this fear back to a subconscious level, because of the fun, the speed, the pride taken in navigating the jagged rocks, and the exhilaration of the moment. These are his soaring emotional responses to this stimulus.

It is precisely this dichotomy of fear and exhilaration that brings him to run these mountain trails. In this state he is what he does. He is the mountain-runner. He is not tied to the mundane, often banal trivialities of life down below. The demands, physical and mental, of each breath-taking instant allow him to transcend the day-to-day concerns by which he is tormented a mile below and seemingly a lifetime away. Even by comparison to the other running miles in his life, these miles are un-measured and isolated from any segmentation of time. In simple terms, the mountain-runner is free. He is not the slave of traffic lights, computer programs, tele-marketers, mortgage payments, or any thought of his freedom.  A freedom that cannot be qualified or quantified in the normal definitions of freedom in any political or religious context. He is, in fact, free from even the thought of his own freedom. It is not self-conscious freedom. It is an animal freedom. It is not behavior aware-of-itself-as-it-happens because the consciousness is totally absorbed in the demand of the action on the razor’s edge of time and consequently removed from its capacity and/or desire to philosophize or analyze. It is only in the aftermath of the experience that the mind can begin to reflect on this freedom; to delve into the mystery of fear and exhilaration.

Near his car, back in the depths of La Plata Canyon, he stretches and towels off the sweat. His mind begins to wander. It has slipped softly into the forest, far removed from the intense light and energy of the rocky trails above. Slowly he begins once more to capture verbal thoughts and it occurs to him that he wanted to write something about "runners' high" for that magazine... but what was it?

 

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