It’s not about winning — only the tiniest fraction have any chance of doing that — or medals. It’s a search for inspiration within ourselves.

Miller was clearly jubilant as he crossed the finish line, and he described his feelings for the U.S. Ski Team’s Web site: “I had no idea that I had won, and I certainly didn’t know that it was going to be a gold or a medal at all. I was super, super excited to have skied that way.

“It’s hard to really describe it in a way that makes sense, but the gold medal (itself) doesn’t mean that much. If I won it in a way that I wasn’t excited about, or wasn’t proud of today, I would have probably resented the medal in a certain way because of what it makes everyone else think.”

“My proud moment and my feeling of accomplishment doesn’t hinge on (medals), it hinges on the skiing that I put down,” Miller said further. “That’s what means a lot to me right now. To do it this way, at this point in my career, in the Olympics, and in the super combined in particular, which is just an unbelievable challenge, and for me to rise to that challenge felt really cool.”

Miller made similar remarks to other media, and there’s been much written and broadcast about his transformation from the Turin Olympics when he won no medals and seemed more intent on polishing his outlaw image than his talent as a ski racer.

I’ve been a big fan of Miller’s since the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, where I was a volunteer worker on the men’s downhill course. I was working and didn’t see much of his downhill run in the combined when he somehow managed to stand back up and finish after going down on his hip. But I was at the bottom watching when he made the most spectacular of his two slalom runs that pulled him to the silver medal. He also won silver in giant slalom, the event he’s competing in today (Feb. 23)

As a fan, I reveled in his huge successes since then on the World Cup but was disappointed and puzzled by his poor showing in Torino four years ago. As Miller explains it now, the heavy expectations of winning, heaped on his back by others, were crushing the inspiration he finds in racing well.

I’m glad he’s back.

And so it has: For 16 years runners have gathered each November at the east entrance outside of Grand Junction and run 22.6 miles to the west portal near Fruita.

This year, organizers upped the ante by extending the distance to a full marathon at 26.2 miles. Even the scenery went the extra mile as a snowstorm dropped a layer of white to contrast against the Monument’s red rocks, golden grass and green trees. A soft mist added to the painterly effect.

Head-turning scenery greeted runners at the Rim Rock Marathon. Photos by Bob Findlay

I paused often to take photos, giving me a convenient excuse for my slow pace, which got even slower when my calf  muscles cramped about halfway through — perhaps because of the damp cold.

I wasn’t out to run a fast marathon, just to enjoy one last race before switching over to ski season. Still, I was a little shocked that in 3 hours I had covered only 17 miles. In three previous runnings of this race when it was called the Rim Rock Run, I had always hit the finish line at 22.6 miles under 3 hours.

This year, even though I had to go only 3.6 miles farther, it took me 4 hours and 40 minutes (and 34 seconds) to get to the new finish line at the James M. Robb Colorado River State Park adjacent to Interstate 70 in Fruita.

Not exactly a time to brag about, but at least I’ve got a shiny medal and my photos to enjoy. Here are some more photos.

The marathon features a steep ascent at the beginning, and an even steeper descent near the end.

Runners continue their ascent into Colorado National Monument.

Once on the mesa top, the running is flat for several miles.

After crossing the mesa, runners see a twisting road and a long view to Fruita and beyond.

After driving in the dark to Horsetooth Mountain Park, I enjoyed watching the dawning light reveal brush-covered hills studded with rock outcroppings.  The area around  Horsetooth Reservoir’s Inlet Bay looked like a beautiful setting for a trail run, and although the sky was overcast the forecast promised a dry warm day.

At the end of a long climb up a gravel road, about 4 miles into the run, the course turned onto a ridge-top trail and revealed a stunning view of Longs Peak. The rising sun shone through a patch of blue sky above the snowy mountain, bathing it in a soft light while the surrounding terrain was in the clouds’ shadow. I figured that clear sky would grow larger and this marathon would live up to its name.

The course looped back to the start/finish area after about 7 miles, and I decided to drop off the shell jacket I had worn at the start but since tied around my waist. At the last second I also left behind my gloves even though it was still chilly, a decision I would regret the rest of the day.

Runners arriving for the start of the half marathon yelled encouragement as I ran through the parking/camping area and on to the next trail section. By utilizing different trail loops in the park, race organizers hold a marathon, half-marathon and 50-kilometer race and keep things separated enough that runners aren’t tripping over each other.

The trail rolled gently up and down as I ran underneath a long rocky ridge, and I occasionally saw just enough of the sun through the clouds to realize that after looping around so much my sense of direction was messed up. It felt like I was running north, but with the morning sun on my left I had to be going south.

The Laughing Horse loop of the trail intrigued me; it felt like suddenly stepping out of northern Colorado onto southern Utah slickrock. Actually it was flagstone that made for a wide trail of solid rock leading to and from the turnaround point.

The turnaround in this race came at 16.6 miles, well past the halfway point because of the loop we ran at the start. And I was happy to be that much further along and closer to home. The energy I had at the start was long gone, my pace was slowing and I just couldn’t get my hands warm.

The sky never did turn blue and with almost an hour left in my run, the clouds lowered and surrounded me in drizzle. On a good running day I might have been done already, but this race had turned into a slow slog.

The few cheers I heard at the finish seemed muted; everyone was huddled into their coats. As glad as I was to be there, I quickly gathered my stuff and headed for what I needed most just then — my car and its heater.

Then again, the high point might be the fun everyone was having with the race. Where else  can you win a “Dumb Bunny” award, complete with the relentless teasing of the race director. I think his name is Fred Abramowitz, but he signed his e-mails to the racers variously as “Harvey” and “Da Folks at Da Hutch.”

The Dumb Bunny winner in Saturday’s race was Steamboat Springs Councilman Walter Magill, who lost his way on the course and hitchhiked back to the finish on U.S. Highway 40. A second Dumb Bunny was awarded to Jordi Caba Salva, of Barcelona, Spain, who followed Magill even though he had doubts they were going the right way.

Magill was Abramowitz’s teasing target the night before, too, at the prerace briefing when he pointed out that Magill had made the race part of his re-election campaign with the slogan, “Walter will go the distance.”

“What if you don’t finish?” Abramowitz asked: Imagine what your opponent can say to that.  Magill cheerfully retorted that he’s running unopposed. No word yet on whether his Dumb Bunny award has inspired a potential foe to grab his Elmer Fudd hat and go wabbit hunting.

The bunny ears, bunny tails and bunny jokes lightened the mood, but this was one tough run. We started when it was still dark, at 6 a.m., with a relentless climb from the base of the Steamboat Ski Area to the top of Mount Werner, traversing 6 miles on a switchbacking gravel road and climbing 3,000 vertical feet.

By the time I reached the top, the gradually brightening sky had revealed aspens in their autumn gold, and a rosy hue graced the distant craggy profiles of Hahns Peak and the Flattops.  It felt good to get onto a singletrack trail and start jogging on a gradual descent.

The trail took us through pine and aspen forest, into grassy meadows and past deeply blue lakes — alternately descending and climbing and always winding. The sun shone brightly and I never had reason to regret leaving my jacket at the second aid station.

I was feeling every one of the 25 miles  I’d walked and run by the time I struggled up the final steep pitch to the base of the Rabbit Ears and the turnaround. A volunteer suggested I pause to look around at the grand view — the reward for getting there.

Good advice: The views of lakes, golden meadows and row upon row of tree-covered ridges melting into the distance were spectacular. I was glad that for the first time in my scores of trips over Rabbit Ears Pass I had finally ventured off the highway.

This was, however, a rather dramatic and strenuous way to finally see the backcountry and the iconic Ears. On the return trip, I bummed some ibuprofen from the search and rescue crew at the first aid station I came to.

I relished reaching each aid station, knowing I was that much closer to the finish, and in between I watched intently for the blue tape that would signal I still was on the right trail. The councilman and the Spaniard weren’t the only ones who missed a turn and got lost, and I became a little paranoid when I didn’t see another runner for more than an hour at one point.

Finally, I caught up with a runner resting on a log who reassured me I was on track and going in the right direction. Not long after that, I was running within sight of the Steamboat lifts and watching the sun sink toward the same distant mountains I had admired at dawn.

I was nearing the end of an epic day. And after finding the energy to jog up the final uphill stretch to the aid station, all I had to do was let gravity speed my legs down the steep 6 miles that had been such a challenging climb in the morning.

Running downhill on tired legs hurt, but the building satisfaction of knowing I would reach a difficult goal propelled me on. A band was playing in the finish area, and by the time I could make out the vocals over the instruments, I knew I was getting close. Twelve hours and 18 minutes after the race began, I was there.

The 5:15 a.m. bus loading on Telluride’s Main Street, volunteer coordinator John Hopkins poking his head into each bus to warn about hypothermia and dehydration, the anxious scanning of a black sky during the ride to Ouray for a hint of what the weather might be, the lineup at the community center for bibs and bathrooms, the shivering at the start line — all are routine rituals. So is the hard left turn immediately after the start that runners always take to get off the pavement and shortcut up a hill. It’s the first taste of the steep climbing to come.

It gets crowded here, which is fine, because it forces me out of a run and into a walk. My first mistake at Imogene on my first try was thinking that I needed to run the whole thing, and I didn’t abandon my “running” gait until part way up a steep hill when I saw I was being passed by people walking. By then I had put myself into an oxygen debt that would dog me all the way to the finish.

Now I know to walk whenever it gets steep to conserve strength until I can run on the gentler climbs and even a few downhill sections that will soon come. I still push myself, however, by breaking into a jog as I near the top of each hill and running hard  when the grade angles down. I get to Lower Camp Bird, the first aid station 5.5 miles into the run, in just over an hour.

The smooth gravel road we followed out of Ouray ends here and we get onto rough grades littered with rocks that can trip even the most careful runners. Running virtually ends here, too, for the next 4.5 miles to the summit; it’s simply too steep, with only a very few very short downhill spots.

The rising sun is peeping over a ridgeline as we break into a clearing above Lower Camp Bird, highlighting a mass of green foliage that is beginning to take on autumn hues. The line of runners angling up this hill presents a scene so beautiful that many runners pause to pull out a pocket camera. I’ve taken time out for photos myself some years on this picturesque course, but this year I’m intent on trying to win an age-group medal.

I reach the Upper Camp Bird aid station in an hour and 51 minutes, comfortably ahead of the 2-1/2 hour cutoff. The summit of Imogene Pass is a little over 2 miles away, but it will take me almost an hour to get there as the increase in both altitude and steepness take their toll.

My legs feel like jelly as the course climbs straight up, briefly leaving the switchbacks of the jeep road, and even though I’m walking already I have to walk slower. I soon get feeling stronger, however, and settle into my best power-hiking stride as the course gets back on the road and the grade eases a little.

The first view of the summit and the vehicles parked there at the aid station is always a thrill. One of the trucks is mine, driven there by my wife, Ann Williams, who has volunteered to help runners at the summit for all my runs except the first. Grabbing a quick hug from her at the top is perhaps a greater thrill even than reaching the finish. It’s all downhill from here, with 10 miles behind me and 7.1 miles to go.

The road is steep but uncommonly smooth as it descends from the pass to a switchback and I run it fast. But it quickly gets rocky again, and I have to balance speed against caution — the urge to fly tempered by the danger of a tripping and falling onto sharp rocks.

At the Tomboy Townsite, I see I’m on pace to finish under 4 hours; last year I crossed the line in 4:10:45. I try to go even faster as the grade eases and the footing smooths, but at the first level section my legs are leaden and it’s all I can do to keep up a running pace.

That period of suffering mercifully ends as the course dips downhill again, and I pound feet as fast as I can.

Somewhere under a mile to go, my tired right foot fails to lift enough to clear a rock and I flop down hard. I manage to roll onto my shoulder to minimize the damage, but it still hurts. Worse, the muscles in both calves and just above my right knee seize into debilitating cramps. I sit up, pull on my toes and and tell a runner who stopped to help that she’d just have to leave me there for a while.

In probably less than a minute, I stand up and begin a slow jog to shake off the pain. A passing runner makes a sympathetic comment about the dirt on my shirt, and as he eases on ahead I notice his gray hair.   Perhaps he’s in my age group.

Running for an age-group medal is like racing ghosts: You know your rivals are out there, but you don’t know who or where they are or how fast they’re going. All you can do is run your best race and never slack off. But here was a potential rival I could see, so I vowed to catch him

It took some hard running, but I catch him a few hundred yards from the finish and press even harder to avoid being passed back. As I come off the jeep road and onto pavement, I’m elated to see that the numbers on the huge finish-line clock start with a 3. I cross in 3 hours, 52 minutes, 33 seconds.

Finishing 18 minutes faster than last year put a big smile on my face as I headed to the first-aid tent to get my bloodied knees and one elbow cleaned up. The scrapes turned out to be shallow and didn’t require bandaging. I smiled even more when the results sheets showed me second in the 60-64 age group. Perfect: I had earned a bronze last year and now I had a silver.

But I was stunned to see the gold-medal winner was a mere 31 seconds ahead. Where did he come from? Was he always ahead and I failed to catch him or did he pass me while I was sprawled in the dirt? He didn’t show at the awards ceremony, so I got no answers there.

No matter: I savored reaching both my goals of a faster time and a higher medal even if I did just miss going higher still.

Heading into my 20th Imogene Pass Run, I had said I might make it my last — a good round number to retire on. Then Ann brought up that next year would be her 20th as a volunteer. She needs her 20th year, and I could use another shot at gold. So I’ll be back for my 21st.

But this year TEAMSKI is gone. Owner and President John Arnold announced in mid-July that he was ending the program after losing money last season. His announcement was immediately followed by a flurry of e-mails among team captains and other racers eager to find a way to keep the program alive. I was a witness to all this as captain of the Titans, one of several teams that competed against each other in TEAMSKI.

Some promising ideas were thrown out, but saving TEAMSKI boiled down to time and money. No one had enough of both, and the e-mails dwindled until they have now stopped.

TEAMSKI celebrated its 30th year last season, but clearly it was in trouble. You only had to look around at the start of each race to see there were far fewer competitors than in previous seasons. Arnold reported he had 165 dues-paying racers last season, a big drop from the 239 in 2007-08. In comparison, he said, TEAMSKI had 383 members in the 2001-02 season. So membership had fallen by more than half from 2001 to 2008.

Blame it partly on the recession; more than one team captain told me last year that some of their racers had lost their jobs, making ski races an unaffordable luxury. Some blame Arnold, saying he wasn’t doing enough to secure good sponsors and attract new racers. But the single biggest factor has to be the absence of the next generation.

Hordes of youngsters ages 4 on up race every year in NASTAR and fill up the youth racing programs at Colorado ski areas, but somewhere after college they vanish. It became rare to see someone under 30 racing in TEAMSKI, and last season the single biggest age-group was 55+ male, known as the “OldeTimers.” I was among them.

I’m going to miss TEAMSKI — not only the thrill of the races but, even more, the camaraderie among teammates and competitors. We had great fun together. Among the things I’ll always remember were smacking into the timer at the finish line in Steamboat to earn a Ski Patrol toboggan ride, and the ridiculously cold keggers hosted by one team or another in ski area parking lots after the lifts had closed. And I treasure the individual medals and team trophies and plaques won.

So where to race now? There’s always NASTAR, and I was happy to learn that while the National Championships are moving from Steamboat Springs they’re going to Winter Park. Count on me to be there again. I probably will try Masters, and another bit of good news to come my way lately is that my favorite racing coach, Ron Emery, has been appointed the Swiss Am Masters coach at Loveland.

And I should have the time now to seriously try the COSMIC backcountry races instead of just dabbling in the easiest ones. But that would mean I need some new equipment.  Sniagrab, here I come.

I decided to go for it, based primarily on the flimsy evidence that I felt strong in an 8-mile training run just four days after finishing the Pikes Peak Marathon. I tend to bunch races together and twice have run marathons two weeks apart, but this will definitely be pushing the envelope.

It wouldn’t be a unique feat, however, or even unusual. Other runners have set the endurance bar high, and the Pikes Peak Marathon provides some ready examples. Keith Wood, of Sultan, Wash., on Aug. 16 became the first 80-year-old to complete the marathon, and he did it after running the ascent the day before. He was one of 119 “doublers” to complete both the Saturday and the Sunday race up the 14,115-foot peak (and back on Sunday).

Anita Ortiz, of Eagle, won the women’s division of the Pikes Peak Marathon and a week later lined up at the start of the TransRockies Run, a 113-mile run through the Colorado mountains being staged over six days.

The most impressive such feat I’ve found was by Marshall Ulrich, of Idaho Springs. Some years ago, Ulrich completed both the Leadville Trail 100 and the Pikes Peak Marathon on the same weekend. That truly was unique; according to Ulrich’s web site, he’s the only one ever to have done it.

Ulrich is a marvel of human endurance: Last year he ran across America from San Francisco to New York City, covering 3,063 miles in 52-1/2 days — the equivalent of running two marathons plus a 10K every day, and that’s just one entry on his long resume.

However, Ulrich also is an object lesson in pushing the body too far. The most intriguing blog I’ve read all year was posted July 19 by his wife, Heather, in which she describes the foot injury and other ailments that Ulrich refused to give in to as he ran across the nation and how it caught up to him last month in the Badwater 135-mile race across Death Valley. I don’t want to spoil the impact of Heather’s heartfelt blog by saying more — read it.

In an interesting twist, Ulrich’s partner in the run across America, Charlie Engle, finished fourth in Badwater this year. Engle had to withdraw from the Running America 08 project because of injury, although he continued to participate on a bicycle. At the time of Engle’s withdrawal, I mused in a blog written for the Rocky Mountain News (still available in the Rocky’s online archives) about who made the harder decision: Ulrich to go on or Engle to quit.

I’m still not sure I know the answer. But it’s a rich question that I think every endurance athlete, whether running, climbing, paddling or something else, has to face at times:  Go on in the face of physical pain and the risk of serious injury, or withdraw and deal with all the disappointment and self-doubt that come with quitting.

Somewhere next month in the 50-mile run from Steamboat Springs to Rabbit Ears Pass and back, I may have to face the question myself.

Probably every Colorado schoolchild knows the story behind America the Beautiful, but who knew the Pikes Peak Marathon holds such a place in the march of women’s rights? Apparently not even Pieper, until race officials verified the facts and tracked her down in her Fresno, Calif., home.

She completed the Pikes Peak Marathon in 1959, seven years before Roberta Gibb hid in bushes at the start and sneaked into the Boston Marathon in 1966. Gibb and Kathrine Switzer, who ran Boston as K.V. Switzer in 1967, are generally credited as the pioneers of women’s marathon running.

Pikes Peak obviously didn’t have the same stodgy rules as Boston (which didn’t allow women until 1972), and so history was made in Colorado, apparently with no one realizing it at the time.

To note the 50-year anniversary, female finishers in Sunday’s marathon and Saturday’s Pikes Peak Ascent received a black jacket with “50 Years of Women Marathoners, 1959-2009″ embroidered on the sleeve. Male finishers got a gray jacket minus the sleeve embroidery, but I noticed that mine has the left-side zipper pull generally used in women’s clothes. That likely was a manufacturer’s mistake, but I’ll take it as a subtle reminder of history and equality.

The important thing is that I earned the jacket with the Pikes Peak Marathon emblem embroidered on the front and “14,115 FT,” the peak’s elevation, embroidered on the back. The finisher’s medal is nice, too.

It’s no easy feat running the 7,815 vertical feet to the summit from the start in Manitou Springs then plunging back down to cover 26.2 miles. But I was rewarded with views that inspire poetry, the amiable company of about 800 other runners and the tired satisfaction of a big challenge met.

I’d run this marathon once before, in 2000, and using that experience as a guide on Sunday I placed myself farther back in the pack at the start and went out slower. At the base of the Barr Trail and its steep switchbacks I tapered from a jog to a speed-hike to avoid the early exhaustion and pain I had inflicted on myself nine years ago by continuing to run at this point.

But I didn’t want to go too slow, so I kept passing other runners until I reached a group going at my pace. Like a Tour de France bicycle racer, I stuck with them and fed off their momentum until I felt strong enough to leapfrog ahead to the next group. Passing wasn’t easy on the narrow trail, but the runners were unfailingly polite and moved to the side whenever I or someone else called out, “On your left.”

Occasionally the trail would flatten enough to allow a faster pace, but it wasn’t until about eight miles into the race that I could do any sustained running. It didn’t last long, however, as the trail steepened again just before reaching treeline.

Once out of the trees, below me I could see a broad sweep of the mountain’s flanks, the grid of Colorado Springs and fields stretching to the hazy horizon of the Great Plains. Above was a massive rock wall with a zigzag line of runners following the switchbacks to the top — which looked tantalizingly close but was still about three trail miles away.

I also soon saw the first runner who had reached the top and was heading down — who else but Matt Carpenter,  on his way to his fourth consecutive victory in this race and his 10th  overall.

Descending runners were a trickle at first but eventually became a steady stream. The rules of the race dictated that they had the right of way, but constantly moving aside and stopping for them meant a loss of momentum.

A runner below me grew frustrated and yelled at people to keep their pace up; as his group passed I got on their heels and adopted their tactic of stepping aside only at the last second so I could keep moving forward. By now the trail was more a staircase than a path and I was scrambling over small boulders.

A couple of switchbacks below the top, a volunteer “guaranteed” there would be more oxygen there once we were coming back down, and she was right. Sucking in the exhiliration of reaching the top and starting the descent did indeed feel like the thin air had suddenly grown rich.

I felt like I was flying as I ran back down, even with all the braking to avoid tripping over the thousands of rocks in the trail and to dance around the runners still coming up.

As I reached the switchbacks in the final few miles, my knees were hurting from the downhill pounding but not nearly as bad as nine years ago when I was clutching a fencepost at each switchback and sliding around to ease the agony. My slower pace and improved downhill technique had made a huge difference.

Once off the steep dirt trail and onto gently sloping pavement, I felt good enough to run hard and covered the last mile in under eight minutes. I reached the finish line and all its welcome rewards in a total of 7 hours, 14 minutes, 8 seconds, much slower than my 2000 time and not fast enough for bragging rights or an age-group award but just about right to thoroughly enjoy a run on a magnificent mountain on a beautiful day.

Carpenter’s winning time was 3:37:02, a new age-group record for the 45-year-old Manitou Springs runner. Women’s winner Anita Ortiz, of Eagle, also 45 and also setting an age-group record, came in at 4:28:20.

This was my seventh crossing of the pass between Winfield and Twin Lakes near Leadville  but the first in which I wasn’t in a hurry to move on. So I lingered to take in the sweeping views of ridges and rock well above timberline and to listen to the pikas protesting my presence in their home at 12,580 feet.

I had encountered nine other people on the Hope Pass trail during the day, six of them runners. One or two paused to thank me for my work, but most were too intent on their training run to even notice. I understood: On my previous trips up and over Hope Pass, I was either on a training run myself, running the Leadville Trail 100 race or pacing a friend who was running it.

Hope Pass is a kind of long-distance runner’s mecca — the place you go to achieve the physical stamina needed to run 100 miles at high altitude and perhaps also the place to gain some insight into why you’d want to do such a crazy thing in the first place.

It’s the highest point on the LT100 course, which will be run Aug. 22 and 23, and it can inspire hope in the runners who reach it and find they have the legs to go on or crushing despair in those who lose all their energy in the struggle to climb its steep flanks. Runners cross it a few miles before reaching the turnaround at Winfield and again as they head back to Leadville.

Hope Pass will also be traversed this year by participants in the TransRockies Run, a multistage race that begins Aug. 23 in Buena Vista and ends six days and 113 miles of trail running later in Beaver Creek.

It was the TransRockies Run that brought me to Hope Pass this year, not as a runner but as a volunteer clearing the trail of brush and deadfall. I had to get out my saw only three or four times on the trail to cut away fallen trees but used my long-handled pruning shears extensively to trim back branches and other woody plants crowding the trail from either side.

I took the assignment from the Continental Divide Trail Alliance, an organization I’ve long been volunteering for, and cleared about 30 miles of trail. Much of that involved simply hiking the trails and noting that they were clear. But there was a lot of work, too, such as the 10-inch deadfall tree near Vail that I had to hack through with my backup 7-inch handsaw after breaking the blade on my bigger bow saw.

I enjoyed the assignment, especially the hiking of unexplored trails, plus I figured all the high-altitude walking and some jogging helped get me in shape for my own trail races, including the Pikes Peak Marathon coming up Sunday (Aug. 16).

Hope Pass was the final piece of my task. I had done all the clearing as I worked my way up the pass from the Sheep Gulch trailhead near Winfield and continued on down the other side toward Twin Lakes. So as I crossed the pass again on the way back to the car my work was done, and I could revel a little in the weary satisfaction of a mission accomplished.

I also thought about TrailFest, the CDTA’s celebration of the Continental Divide Trail held Saturday (Aug. 8) in Buena Vista, where I had listened to a couple of visiting Washington dignitaries.

Jim Bedwell, the U.S. Forest Service’s director of wilderness, recreation and heritage resources, noted the CDTA’s motto, “The trail unites us,” and spoke of building a connection to the trail among the communities along its route.

Then USFS Deputy Chief Joel Holtrop talked about reinforcing the link between the trail and future generations through the work of the Youth Corps and other young people — inspiring in them a love for the resource and a willingness to care for it.

Good stuff for contemplation atop Hope Pass, which is part of both the Continental Divide Trail and the Colorado Trail. But I couldn’t linger too long; it would be near dark by the time I descended the trail to the car and I had left my headlamp behind to save weight.

The finisher's medallion and silver bracelet awarded upon completion of the Leadville Silver Rush 50 Mile Trail Race.

Bike tires rolled and feet pounded over the maze of mountain roads and trails east of Leadville this past weekend during the Leadville Silver Rush 50 Mile Mountain Bike Race and Trail Race.

The mountain bikers had their day on Saturday. I was among the 180 or so runners who lined up Sunday to cover the 50 miles on foot.  That included  a handful who had biked the day before and were going for the double.

The race started tough with a mass charge up a hill steep enough for winter sledding and it stayed tough. Except for a few short dips, the first chance to run downhill didn’t come for 10 miles.

By then we had climbed above timberline to 12,000 feet, and my lungs and legs were grateful for the chance to descend.

It had been a spectacular morning. The rain that pounded on my camper shell and woke me up at 4 a.m. had eased to just a sprinkle by the 6 a.m. race start. The clouds lifted to reveal the vista of Mount Massive and other peaks to the west, graced by drifting fog banks turned bright white by the sun.

The 4-mile downhill segment was over all too quickly, and at the second aid station, 14 miles into the race, it was time to climb above timberline again.

From here, the race became a blur of one beautiful scenic turn after another, interspersed with tailings piles and other vestiges of Leadville’s mining heritage. Gold and silver were discovered here in the 1800s and the area bears such place names as Nugget Gulch, Oro City and California Gulch.

I recognized one particularly steep climb, followed by a trot along a gentle slope, as the same terrain I’ve run in past Leadville Marathons, but most of the roads and trails were new to me.

A short distance past the third aid station and 4 hours, 20 minutes into my run, I was stunned to see a runner wearing the No. 2 bib going the other way. He had already reached the turnaround point about six miles distant and come back that far on his return.

Ryan Burch, of Fort Collins, would go on to win the race in 7 hours and 1 second — a tremendous athletic achievement in a race run over rocky terrain between 10,000 feet and 12,000 feet, with several thousand vertical feet of climbing.

The turnaround at 25 miles was a welcome sight, and I searched the aid station tables for something my stomach, which had been rebelling all morning, might accept. I settled on a turkey and cheese wrap, which seemed to go down better than the energy bar I had tried earlier.

Several miles into my return, a hailstorm closed our window of dry weather and ushered in a series of thunderstorms that eventually seeped through my waterproof/breathable rain jacket.

My fading cheer got a big boost when I recognized the ATV rider coming up the trail as Ken Chlouber, the man who co-founded the Leadville Trail 100 and has since added the Silver Rush 50 and many other races to the Leadville running (and mountain biking) tradition.

Ken greeted me by name with a hearty, “My buddy!” and leaned from his ATV seat to give me a hug. We’ve been friends since I ran the LT100 five years ago.

Long after Ken had moved on to keep checking the conditions of the runners still on the course, I came to the base of that long sweet descent I’d enjoyed on the way out. Now, of course, it was a climb, and one that seemed never to end as I slogged on through the rain.

When finally it did end, I discovered I had little leg strength left for the 10-mile descent to the finish — partly the cumulative result of so much running but more because my queasy stomach had prevented me from properly refueling.

I couldn’t do the strong downhill running I might have pulled off with some food in the tank, but I could still shuffle pretty good, and only two or three runners passed me the rest of the way. I focused on two goals: finishing under 12 hours and holding onto whatever place I might have in my 60-69 age group.

Hints of the finish tantalized me: the whistle of the Leadville train, the Arkansas River Valley opening up as I came out of the trees on a ridge. The rain stopped, and I was almost euphoric as I once again pulled off my jacket and tied it around my waist — a runner’s high or just knowing I was close to stopping?

A steep uphill pitch cruelly intruded; I didn’t remember coming down that after the start. But it was short, and soon I was plunging toward the finish banner.

Volunteers gave me the medal and silver bracelet awarded to all finishers and I moved to greet race director Merilee Maupin. Then another volunteer rushed out and gave me a prize I hadn’t dared hope for: a gold pan bearing an age-group plaque. I had managed third place among my geezer peers with a time of 11 hours, 34 minutes, 8 seconds.

I had coveted a gold pan trophy through five runnings of the Leadville Marathon but was never quite fast enough. Ah, mine at last.

Now I was hungry. I didn’t even bother changing out of my wet clothes before devouring the bratwurst, beans and salad served up by the Lions Club.

The author's 3rd place trophy in the 60-69 male age group.

For information on all the Leadville races, visit the Leadville Trail 100 Web site.