Boulder – About 500 red- cheeked runners braved a biting wind at Boulder Reservoir on Sunday before scampering into warm-ups at the finish line.
Julie Hirman picked Sunday’s fourth annual Panicking Poultry 5K Run/Walk for MS as her first race.
“I just started running,” she said, as she tucked her icy hands into her long sleeves. “It’s fine while you’re running, but it’s afterwards that is so cold.”
Even temperatures in the 30s at race time couldn’t keep some runners from sporting tank- tops and shorts, making one wonder if Boulder runners could brave some of the world’s coldest competitions.
Alaska’s Running Club North regularly features events that make Sunday on the Front Range seem balmy. The club has a standard cancellation policy for temperatures lower than 25 degrees below zero, but in 1999, 15 runners weathered a 6.5-mile Mid-Winter Hill run that dipped to 40 below.
The bottom of the planet regularly attracts more than 100 runners each year for the annual Antarctica Marathon. The race seeks athletes “looking to run 26.2 miles on what is known as the coldest, windiest, driest and most remote continent on Earth.”
Even some of the Panicking Poultry runners said they had braved worse than Sunday’s blustery chill.
“Oh, this is a lot better than last year,” said Scott Brown, after finishing in shorts. “It was cold and wet – it was misty the whole race.”
Brown said he turned out to do more than test himself against Mother Nature. The Panicking Poultry run benefits the Colorado Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.
Colorado has one of the highest rates of MS in the country, said Sean Wolfe, a volunteer development manager with the MS society. Nationally about 400,000 people have MS, according to the society. There are about 7,900 Coloradans living with the disease.
Brown said his mother died from complications related to her MS.
“It’s really important to come out and show support,” he said.
Staff writer George Merritt can be reached at 720-929-0893 or gmerritt@denverpost.com.
