Run Report: The Incline (Manitou, Colorado)

While out in Colorado Springs for some business, two coworkers and I decided to tackle the local legend...a trail that ascends a brutal mile into the Colorado sky. Figured The Incline (yes, that's what I'm calling the official spelling, capital "The" and bold) was worthy of a race report, but since I didn't come close to racing it, let's just label it a run report.

The Trail

Ominous scar above Manitou Springs.

The Manitou Springs Incline, known as just The Incline, rises above Manitou Springs near Colorado Springs. The trail is made up of the remains of a cog railway that was wiped off the mountain in a 1990 rock slide. As a portion crosses through private company land, it was run and hiked illegally for years until it was finally declared a public hiking trail in January 2013. Famous for being one of the toughest miles in trail running, it rises almost 2,000 feet with insanely steep grade, 68% at its worst. Perhaps harshest of all, three-quarters of the way up lies a false summit; with the true summit obscured by the steep grade, suffering hikers crest this oasis and get a sense of dread when they see an additional several hundred feet to climb.

With the US Olympic Training Center headquartered nearby, it's become a popular fitness gauntlet for athletes, or punishment by coaches. Athletes from all sports, from wrestling to ice skating, challenge themselves with The Incline; see the ESPN article linked in the final section of this post for some additional information on athletes training on the trail. Though Wikipedia reports Olympic Champion Apolo Ohno crested in 17:45, the record for the climb is 16:42 by a professional triathlete.

The Incline rises from the valley.

Although to keep calling it a trail is really not doing it justice. Between the railway's wooden ties and the rock slide two decades ago, the scar up the mountain is littered with broken wood bars, exposed metal rebar, rusted hydroelectric pipes, and two- or three-foot steps at extreme grade. It's one of the few places I've hiked where you could reach your arm straight out and touch the ground ahead of you. Add to that the effects of elevation; starting at 6,700 feet and topped out at 8,500, there is less oxygen in the air and leaves even the fittest "sea-level flatlander" sucking for wind. Most locals, and those with sanity, take the 2.5-mile Barr Trail back down.

The Ascent

Arriving after work, I was ready to tackle the legend...unprepared in a pair of fairly minimal Saucony shoes and a borrowed laptop backpack with two water bottles. I downloaded the Map My Run app for the iPhone to estimate the overall elevation and grade I would be climbing. So standing at the first cog railway tie, the official starting line, I fired up the app and started to run. Within the first few steps it was clear this was going to be brutal. Stepping beam-to-beam over deviating gaps and on uneven steps, the elevation started to suck the wind out of my lungs and I was at a double-digit pace before a tenth of a mile. I was no doubt a sight for sore eyes as huffed and puffed my way to the quarter-mile mark. After managing to hit the 0.3 displaying a sloppy and poorly-paced running motion, that was it. I stood on the side of the trail (or railway as it were) with my hands on my knees, drooling like a newborn, and clutching at the backpack for water. It was suddenly obvious that the elevation didn't care about my fitness level; there just wasn't enough oxygen in the high, dry air to fuel my lungs.

View from the false summit.

The remainder of the way to the false summit, which my app showed around 0.7 mile, I tried to power hike, jog, and rest frequently. That stretch was one of the toughest climbs I've accomplished; it was a neverending line of uneven railway beams, exposed pipes, rebar spikes, and there was nothing uniform about any step: some were just like a high stairway, some were two or three feet tall, some were at an angle, and most were at a grade where I just didn't want to think about slipping or falling backwards. I spent a good 25 minutes at the false summit, catching my breath as locals huffed past me, including a puppy, and waiting for my coworkers to link up.

We made the final push to the true summit together, continuing to hop from beam to beam and stopping when necessary. Thankfully the final few hundred feet are merciful and not as steep as the prior section's notorious 68% grade. We topped out to some amazing views of the valley and Colorado Springs. It was pretty incredible to soak in the evening air and reflect on what we just tackled....

...we just raced up the stairs of the Empire State Building. Twice!   

Our descent was a little lighter, jogging down the few miles of Barr Trail.

Started from the bottom...now we're here.

The App Data

Well I obviously didn't meet my goal of running half of it, lesson learned for the next trip and the importance of acclimating before tackling an Olympic challenge. The app showed me with an ascent time of 33:40, but it was really closer to an hour; in looking at the pace chart in the mobile app, it's clear it paused itself on the 25-minute wait at the false summit.

On the map below the red line tracks ascent up The Incline, and the yellow line tracks descent course along Barr Trail.

The data below shows just how brutal the climb is, covering almost 2,000 feet in a mile with a maximum grade of 68% and an agonizing average grade of 35%. It's rated a hors catégorie climb, which is a cycling term that means "beyond categorization" and is reserved for the toughest climbs. 

The Pictures

Starting from the bottom....	First quarter-mile seems fun.	Okay, not cool. Not cool at all.
This is just getting ridiculous.	Final few hundred feet.	View from the top step.

Additional References

• Manitou Incline Official Site: www.manitouincline.com - features a lot of great information and pictures, including brave climbers making the ascent in winter's snow and ice.
• ESPN: Trying to survive The Incline: espn.com/olympics/incline - interesting ESPN Summer Olympics article with great descriptions on what it's like to climb the beast.

Garden of the Gods

In Colorado Springs for work, not really vacation, but still had to enjoy some scenery. A couple colleagues and I woke up early AM before work and hit the Garden of the Gods. It's a collection of views you see in a lot of Colorado postcards, so I was expected quite a grand park. Turns out that though it's designated a National Natural Landmark it's really just a quaint little city park. The entire loop road took less than a half-hour to drive, with photo stops included, and we ended up doing it twice to take advantage of the rising sun.

The "garden" of rock formations was created from a natural fault line upheaval millions of years ago. A gathering place and spiritual center for almost ten Native American tribes, the geological croppings in the park show ancient sedimentary beds tilted on edge or stacked vertically by the pressure of the mountain-creating forces that ultimately formed the Rocky Mountains and nearby Pikes Peak. Closer inspection of the rocks shows evidence of ancient glacier activity, forgotten seas and beaches, ancestral mountain ranges, dune fields, and eons of erosion. The morning we visited, many of the rocks seemed to glow orange and red in the new day's sun, especially Balanced Rock.

See below for some pictures from the driving loop in the park. Pictures 1 and 3 below from the Blux Pro app for iPhone5, the remainder were snapped with a Nikon D90 and my go-everywhere 18-105 lens.

I'm on a Bike!

Speaking of duathlons recently, I was on the Racine Multisports website and happened to see a photo of me from the Hagerstown Sprint Duathlon way back in April. Somehow the photos always miss me on the bike and only manage to capture me on the run, so this is a big breakthrough. Haha.

Unfortunately the photo caught me sucking wind at the end of a monster pull and reaching back to grab a bottle from the rear hydration set-up.

Race Report: 2Xrip Olympic Duathlon (2013)

Returning to the site of my first multisport experience, the 2012 2Xrip Olympic Du, I knew more about the sport and what to expect. Additionally, I was eager to improve my performance from a year prior and step up on the podium. The same course in Maryland, it featured a 2-mile run, 26-mile bike course, and 4-mile run, all over challenging and rolling hills.

The Course

The first run was one lap on a 2-mile loop that started with a nice downhill but had a couple inclines along the course. The second run was two laps of the same 2-mile loop, for a total of 4 miles, but in the opposite direction...so the big downhill became an uphill challenge on both loops.

The bike course was two laps of a 13-mile loop on country roads, and it was described as "moderate to aggressive" hills.

Race Day

It was an early rise, hitting the road around 4:30 in the morning and heading up to Maryland. Just like last year, my transition rack was the furthest from the bike out, meaning a long run with my gear before and after the bike leg. As usual, there were a lot of expensive triathlon and time trial bikes in the corral, but my rack actually had a bunch of road bikes. Maybe my aero-less equipment wouldn't be quite the anchor I thought it would be.

Without a swim, the transition set-up is easy: cycling shoes and helmet ready to go in the first transition area. I ran the first run leg with my cycling sunglasses on and carried my gloves in my back pocket to pull on in the final kick of the run. I had two bottles on the bike, one with water and one with Nuun electrolyte mix. I also had a few half-servings of Shot Bloks and a Honey Stinger gel in the bento box for fuel. I wore a Pearl Izumi triathlon jersey on top and TYR triathlon shorts on the bottom. For the run portions, I wore my Brooks Pure Cadence with Yankz! elastic laces for quicker transitions.

On the first run leg of two miles, I kept a consistent pace and cruised through the opening two miles. It was fairly uneventful, and I crossed into the transition area in 12:48 at a relaxed 6:24/mile pace. My first transition went smooth and even with the long run, I was out in just over a minute. The bike course hills were more expected than last year, and I found myself maintaining a 90 rpm cadence over much of the ride. My road bike was definitely an asset in the climbs and more technical sections of course, but I again found myself being overtaken on the flat or downhill sections by those with aero bikes and aero helmets. I completed the 26-mile course in 1:20:56 or about 19.3 mph, a nice improvement over 2012. Transition #2 was smooth as well, again taking just over a minute. But the biggest improvement in my performance came in the final run. After struggling a bit in the final stretch the prior year, I was strong throughout the final 4-mile run and overtook a lot of runners. Even though my legs took some time to transition from cycling to running, I was pushing myself up the hills and maintaining my strides. I hit the finish line in 31:12, the 7:48/mile being much slower than my usual pace, but still an improvement for this course and situation.

No in-race pictures this year, but I made the fringe of the
award ceremony photo. Haha.

The Results

Run 1 (2 mi) :   12:48  |  6:24/mile
T1 (run to bike) :  1:12  
Bike (26 mi) :   1:20:56  |  19.3 mph
T2 (bike to run) :  1:01
Run 2 (4 mi) :   31:12  |  7:48/mile

Final:   2:07:09  |  Age Group 3rd place

After being pretty close last year, I took the step on the podium this year, finishing 3rd in my age group. I was also around #18 overall in the non-elite class, not a bad outcome considering my road bike disadvantages.

The bounty. Finisher's medal at the top right. And for my age group
podium, a DVD documentary, bronze medal, and Lock Laces.

The Verdict

The volunteers, the course, and the weather all worked to make it a year to remember. The crew at 2Xrip produced another great race and it will continue to be a fixture on my summer racing calendar. The next step is ramping up my final run and really kicking it into gear through the final stretch.

Finisher medals.	Age group awards.	The truth.
My transition set-up.	Watermelon and bananas, a well-balanced breakfast.

Celebrating the 4th with New Wheelset

Finally upgraded the Specialized with a new wheelset. While certainly not the most expensive set of wheels (far from, actually), the Vuelta Corsa SLR wheels are a great value and I got them on sale in a deal I couldn't pass up. These hand-built wheels weigh only about 1,400 grams and feature bladed rims to help cut through the air. They're also a deeper 22mm than my stock rims, adding some strength.