Chubby Cheeks Marathon Race Report

Scott Jaime masks his fear with nervous sips from his baby bottle.

Just a fortnight removed from the North Face 50 Mile Championship, the Chubby Cheeks 50k, Marathon, and JV length event lured the world's top ultra and road runners to the outskirts of Fort Collins, Colorado.  Aaron picked me up at 645am and we were off to Ft Collins.

The tension and apprehension was thick as English stew with British exile, Nick Clark, presiding over the day-long battle.  Elite athletes like "The Rabbit (or Young Money)" Dakota Jones, London Marathon Champion Justin Mock, Hardrock 100 mile veteran Glass Stomach Scott Jaime, Rocky Mountain Slam World Renowned Speedster Jon Teisher (Brownie), and North Fork 50k (mile 1-20) Champion Aaron Kennard, and Top Ultrarunner for McDavid's Ultrarunning Team Tim Long (who once completed 217 miles of running in 42 days!), exchanged intimidating glances, occasional crocodile smiles, and several sandbagging phrases in Nick's cozy house awaiting the 9am start time.

Assembling at the chaotic start line in Nick's driveway, the 9am cream duh la cream athletes are sized up by Nick's son, who was heard commenting on Jaime's calf compression sleeves, "Those stockings look gay".

 To handle the immense crowd of participants, Nick organized three start times, 7am, 8am, and 9am.  I was wedged into the start line crowd with the aforementioned stars of the running world.  Conspicuously absent, obviously for fear of being humiliated by such an elite crowd, were Anton, Roes, Mackey, and Jurek, likely huddled under their bed covers sweating in their footy pajamas.

Jaime (hi-may) immediately tries to box me in with hopes of gaining a futile edge.  One can see that I've already opened a substantial gap over Dakota and Mock.

And then I woke up...

The Chubby Cheeks turnout was actually impressive with 46 folks toeing the line.  Nick did a superb job designing and marking the course.  I never had to review my map on the marathon course that climbed 6,000 feet on dry, winding single track under blue December sky.

Standing atop Horsetooth peak early in the run.

I took a month off completely from running after the 100k in November and just started back up the beginning of last week with 45-60 min easy runs mostly, so close to five hours of running was enough to make me nervous on this day.  With that in the forefront of my thoughts, I took it very easy the entire day with the mantra, "preservation".  It worked great until the last five miles of the race when Pete Stevenson came screaming down a descent behind me like a freight train.  I jumped to the side of the trail and he passed.  I decided to latch on and gave chase.  For the next five miles I stayed behind Pete both cursing and thanking him under my breath.  He was making this day suddenly much harder than the previous four hours and yet he was also getting me to the finish line (and beer) sooner than my day-long pedestrian pace.

Pete won the 50k distance, I won the marathon distance (with a little luck and just barely), and Justin Mock took the JV race (20-21 miles, I'm not sure).

The race wasn't chip timed and yet somehow the results came faster than most national events (though Nick's penmanship could use a little refining).

Shoes mingling

Post-race gathering, beer, food, friends.

Nick's house was full of spent, happy folks.  Aaron and I hung out until a little past 4pm and then headed home.  Next up in the Front Range 50k series: January 15th, the Ponderous Posterior 50k in Colorado Springs where we tackle the storied Pikes Peak at 14,000+ feet!

Thanks so much to Nick Clark for working so hard to put this together.  It's a great way to end the year.