Seth DeMoor and Brittany Charboneau win Pikes Peak Marathon

Not even a global pandemic, extreme heat and dry air, wild fires and lingering smoke from said wild fires could stop the 65th annual Pikes Peak Marathon from happening. With the cancellation of the Boston Marathon this year, the Pikes Peak Marathon is now the longest continuously running marathon in the United States.

While the start and finish lines may have looked different, the course was exactly the same and runners had the chance to test themselves against the grueling 7,800′ climb and descent as well as mother nature torturing athletes with probably the worst air quality in the race’s history.

Seth DeMoor, a 35-year-old from Englewood grew up in Buena Vista watching his dad, Joe, race on Pikes Peak in the ‘90s and has a video blog dedicated to his trail running with nearly 100,000 subscribers. After finishing second in the 2019 Ascent — the 2020 race was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic — DeMoor decided to enter his first Pikes Peak Marathon and won the race in 3 hours, 36 minutes and 31 seconds, a record for the 35-39 age group.

Brittany Charboneau, of Denver, took the women’s victory in 4:25:21 in her first attempt on the mountain.

DeMoor owned a six-minute lead when he turned around just shy of the under-construction summit house and held off David Sinclair (Truckee, Calif.) on the descent, winning by less than two minutes. Charboneau trailed Allie McLaughlin by roughly 40 seconds at the turnaround and made her pass in the final five miles of the descent.

As if the coronavirus pandemic wasn’t enough for a race director to navigate, Pikes Peak Marathon’s Ron Ilgen had the added task of monitoring wildfire conditions in the days leading up to Sunday’s Pikes Peak Marathon.

Ilgen said part of the planning that went into putting on such an event as safely as possible included conversations on search and rescue, monitoring storms for lightning strikes that could cause issues locally and increased sanitizing measures, especially in the aid tent just beyond the finish line.

There was more consensus on the health protocols in place. Runners started in waves and most used face coverings immediately before and after the race.

Ilgen said he was pretty pleased with how things went and credited the participants for their cooperation during a race week unlike so many previous ones. There was no big celebration to open or close the race weekend, but race directors and racers seemed to make the most of it.

posted Tuesday August 25th