Prizes put the icing on Pikes Peak cake

Carpenter wins $8,000 for wins over weekend in ascent, marathon

Deb Acord, Special To The Rocky

Published August 21, 2007 at midnight

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Mountain runner Matt Carpenter remembers the time he happened upon a $100 bill on a trail training run.

"I was all excited because I found a dollar, and when I picked it up I was like, 'cool, a ten!' " he wrote on his Web site. "And then I unfolded it and it was, 'score, that's a freaking hundred.' "

Carpenter scored big again last weekend, this time walking away from the EAS Pikes Peak Marathon and EAS Pikes Peak Ascent with $8,000 in his pocket. The prize money made victory sweeter for Carpenter and others who placed in the races and it marked a change in the venerable race that 52 years ago had its beginnings by pitting smokers against nonsmokers (you can guess who won).

The money came from a sponsorship deal with EAS, a sports nutrition company that added the Pike Peak races to its Endurance Tour, a series of running events it sponsors around the country.

What did that mean to racers? New banners with the EAS logo plastered on them, better aid stations along the race route, a new name for the races and most important, $30,000 in prize money. Carpenter's share came from first-place wins in the ascent and marathon.

"Daddy was the fastest," said Carpenter's 5-year-old daughter, Kyla, who watched her dad break the tape and win the $5,000 first prize at the finish line Sunday morning at the 52nd running of the EAS Pikes Peak Marathon in the Carpenter family's hometown, Manitou Springs.

Carpenter, at 43 considered one of the best mountain runners in the world, ran the 13.3-mile Pikes Peak Ascent the day before, breezing across the finish line at the summit of 14,115-foot Pikes Peak in a winning time of 2:15:56 and pocketing $3,000. He lingered in the chilled air, chatting with other racers and offering congratulatory hugs or handshakes as they finished.

A slight (5-foot-7, about 120 pounds) man with a bright smile and ruffled hair, Carpenter talked about the trail, his competition and the prize. But he wouldn't talk about the marathon, always scheduled the day after the ascent. Would he run it? Did he think he could win?

On Sunday, he did run it and he won, accomplishing what Pikes Peak veterans call a "double," running the ascent and marathon back to back. Most runners choose one or the other. This year, Carpenter was joined by 168 others who chose to cap the ascent with a shot at the marathon. And it's not just any marathon.

A grueling 26.21-mile race from downtown Manitou Springs to Pikes Peak's summit and back down, it's considered one of the most difficult marathons in the world.

It's not the biggest. Big city races pull in tens of thousands (nearly 38,000 last year in New York, 34,000 in Chicago and nearly 20,000 in Boston).

It's not the most famous among nonrunners - most equate TV shots of clogged city streets with marathons. But among runners, a chance at the races on Pikes Peak's Barr Trail is approached with equal amounts of excitement and trepidation.

The ascent starts on downtown streets and ends at the top of Pikes Peak, covering 13.1 miles with an elevation gain of 7,815 feet of single-track trail woven with tree roots, boulders and stretches paved with rocks that roll underfoot like softball-sized ball bearings. The marathon retraces the route, a grueling downhill grind that wears on knees and feet of runners and seems to throw up obstacles that leave many bruised and bleeding.

But the difficulty of the race doesn't bother the runners who train religiously for it each year. The online registration was a brief exercise, opening and closing within minutes, with 1,929 runners signed up for the ascent and 887 for the marathon.

The popularity of the races "means that we don't really need publicity," said Ron Ilgen, race director for six years. "But we do need sponsorship. That's what EAS offered, making it possible to offer prize money this year."

Ilgen stressed the money didn't come from entry fees.

"We don't want to lose the flavor of the ascent and marathon," he said. "We still want it to be a race where people can challenge themselves."

But Ilgen said the race's board of directors "decided that cash prizes would help ensure this race as a world-class event for world-class runners."

The transition to a major sponsor "was a gradual thing," said Carpenter, who sits on the Triple Crown of Running/Pikes Peak Marathon board.

"It's been leaning that way for several years now, and they had already started holding spots for top runners," he said.

Carpenter and other world-class mountain runners can make money by winning races, but the amount pales compared to the really big marathons (New York pays more than $100,000; Carpenter recalls races where he won $15,000).

Still, they are dedicated to their sport.

"Very few people have been able to make it in the sport of mountain running," said Carpenter, who won the marathon with a time of 3:48:41. "I'm proud of being able to make that work, and thankful it has allowed me to see places in the world I never would have otherwise."

The men who would prove to be his biggest competition are also well-known in the sport - Hobie Call, a 30-year-old Utah runner who said he came to win the ascent; Dave Mackey, a 37-year-old Boulder man who was a two-time ultrarunner of the year and who was running the marathon for the second time; and Aaron Rubalcaba-Lopez, 23, a former distance runner at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.

Others strictly are amateurs, thrilled to compete with the likes of Carpenter, Call, and Mackey.

"That's the beauty of this sport," Carpenter said. "Running is the only sport where we can all take part - every man and woman. We all run the same race. We can't all hit some (balls) with Barry Bonds, or shoot some hoops with Michael Jordan, but we can all run."

And they did. Call, from Toquerville, Utah, chased Carpenter up the mountain for the ascent, finishing 3 minutes behind him. He won $1,500 for his effort.

Mackey, who came in second the last time he ran the Pikes Peak Marathon, trailed Carpenter on Sunday. He came in second at 3:50:25 and won $2,500. Rubalcaba-Lopez won $500 for third place.

For Salynda Fleury, a 22-year-old runner from Gunnison, the prize money made a win even sweeter. Fleury, a graduate of Western State College with a degree in environmental science, lived out of her car all summer in Crested Butte so she could train for the marathon.

She took the women's division of the marathon Sunday in 5:00:42, grinning when she realized she won. Fleury talked about the course and winced as medical volunteers cleaned her bruised and cut shoulders, back, arms and legs. She said she fell three times on the way down the mountain but decided this would be a "no fear" race for her, so she kept going.

And did the thought of a $5,000 prize enter in? Had she decided how she would spend it?

"It's great, especially after living a summer as a waitress," she said. "I might like to go to graduate school."

They said it

• Runner: Matt Carpenter, 42.

• Ran: Pikes Peak Ascent, Pikes Peak Marathon. Won men's division in both.

• Asked about his decision to do a "double" (ascent followed by marathon): "I haven't done the double since 2001. You have to wait long enough to forget how stupid it is to do that."

• Runner: Dave Mackey, 37.

• Ran: Pikes Peak Marathon. Came in second in men's division.

• Asked if the race felt any different with a major corporate sponsor: "They have those giant checks; otherwise, it's the same race."

• Runner: Salynda Fleury, 22.

• Ran: Pikes Peak Marathon. Came in first in women's division.

• Asked about her training: "I trained with my dog, Pepper, a husky-rottweiler mix. Pepper is the best dog in the world."

• Runner: Hobie Call, 30.

• Ran: Pikes Peak Ascent. Came in second in men's division.

• Asked to describe the race he ran: "I thought I had it, and then I heard footsteps behind me. I knew it was Matt."

• Runner: Bernie Boettcher, 44.

• Ran: Pikes Peak Marathon. Came in third in men's division.

• Asked to describe his running strategy: "Since I turned 40, I'm seeing how many different races I can run. The count so far? 263 races, 112 wins, 210 master wins."

• Runner: Cindy O'Neill, 45.

• Ran: Pikes Peak Ascent. Came in third in women's division.

• Asked how she would spend her prize money: "I'm going to Switzerland to a race. It will come in handy."

• Runner: Sander Rigney, 34.

• Ran: Pikes Peak Ascent. Came in 88th in men's division.

• Asked why he ran the race in a foam hot dog costume: "I thought I would have fun. Why not? People can't take themselves too seriously."

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