The longest street

On a warm Sunday morning, thousands of runners, walkers sweat out cross-city cruise

John C. Ensslin, Rocky Mountain News

Published May 22, 2006 at midnight

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They passed pawnshops and tattoo parlors and ran to a Lakewood shopping mall.

But for runner Andrew Waddoups, the best part of Sunday's inaugural Post-News Colorado Colfax Marathon came right after the sunrise start.

"You had the mountains in front of you with the sun coming up behind you. It was just fantastic," said Waddoups, who ran with 14 colleagues from the engineering firm of Carter-Burgess.

Waddoups was among more than 5,000 people who ran, jogged, walked and in a few cases rolled their wheelchairs along all or part of the 26.2-mile route, from the Aurora Sports Park to the Colorado Mills shopping center in Lakewood.

Race spokeswoman Caitlin Bell said that is about the number that organizers had expected. She noted that the New York City Marathon took six years after it started in 1970 to get 2,000 runners. In Denver, hundreds of people lined the route, ringing cowbells and shouting encouragement to the runners.

Some businesses opened early, among them the Zephyr Lounge on East Colfax just west of Peoria in Aurora. The bar has been owned by the same family for 60 years, said Myron Melnick, whose father ran the tavern for 57 years.

In all that time, they never saw anything like the steady stream of runners filling the westbound lanes of Colfax.

"I was hoping for a few more spectators and a little more community involvement, but for the first year, this is pretty good," Melnick said.

A few feet away, Jerry Jones and his wife, who identified herself as "Mama Bear," stood watching one of the straggling runners. "Usually, when you see somebody running on Colfax, somebody's chasing them," she quipped.

As the runners reached Denver, Christina Grandbois showered them with red and yellow rose petals from atop the roof of Barb's Flower Mart, where she works.

She didn't want to give them flowers, because then they'd have to carry them the rest of the way, Grandbois explained. Petals seemed like the next best thing.

Outside the Denver Children's Home on Albion Street at Colfax, several young girls held a sign for one of the dormitory staffers who was running the race.

"Don't Trip" read the sign that Chelsea Day held up.

The electronic sign outside Argonaut Liquors in Denver also offered this encouragement. "Congratulations Runners. Only 12 miles left to go."

Jerri Bacon, 82, drove her motorized cart from the senior citizen home where she lives to West Colfax in Denver. "Hot Rod" read the embroidered sign on the front of her cart. Bacon said she had never seen a marathon before.

"It's very interesting to think that those people are that strong in their bodies to be able to do it," said Bacon, who had polio when she was 2 years old.

Across the street, in front of the Shuffle Inn bar at 5050 W. Colfax in Lakewood, Paul Matt from the town of Crow Agency, Mont., had set up his video camera. He was hoping to catch some footage of his brother-in-law, Wayne Not Afraid, which he'd already missed a few times earlier in the race.

Not Afraid said he had lived in Denver from 1974 to 1982.

"When I found out they were going to have this on Colfax, I told my wife I had to do it," he said. The toughest part of the run, he said, was the steady uphill climb through Lakewood.

"The last couple of miles, my legs were telling me 'no way.' But you just keep your mind on the finish line," he said.

As runners reached Colorado Mills, they were met by a tent city of services ranging from free back massages to bagels, sauteed steak cubes to yogurt smoothies.

About 95 people sought advice or were treated at the first-aid tent, including three who were taken to local hospitals for observation, said Dr. Bruce Evans, medical director of University Hospital's Emergency Services.

Most of the injuries stemmed from heat-related exhaustion. Temperatures reached the mid-80s by the time most runners had finished the route around noon.

"It's a credit to the water suppliers (along the route) and credit also goes to the runners for being smart about running the race," Evans said.

Clara Lee Humphries, a 68-year-old Lakewood grandmother, said she had been practicing prior to walking the last 13 miles of the route from Denver's City Park to the finish line.

"Just don't ask me to stand up," Humphries said, sitting on a wooden bench inside Colorado Mills after the marathon.

The marathon

BY THE NUMBERS

• Length of the route: 26.2 miles

• Number of people who ran the full route: 967

• Number who ran the half-marathon: 2,189

• Number of five-person relay teams: 385

• Total number of runners: 5,081

• Number of wheelchair athletes: 20

• Number of municipal teams: 25

• Number of sponsors: 60

• Number of nonprofit partners: 23