Kyle Ewing has run marathons in Tanzania, Australia and Dubai, but Sunday, along with his closest friends, he chose to stick closer to home.
Ewing and four teammates from the Seven Ribbons Foundation passed their pink ice ax as they competed as a relay team in the 26.2-mile Colfax Marathon course. The ax — the team’s “baton” in this race — is their “conversation starter,” said Ewing, 26, a Denver native.
“After the handoff, I could feel energy coming out of it from all these other guys,” said Ewing, who ran the anchor leg, a 6.15-mile run from Invesco Field at Mile High, through LoDo and back east to the finish at City Park. “I kept hearing people along the way going, ‘Hey, it’s the pickax, guys!’ “
The relay team finished in 3 hours, 18 minutes, 14 seconds, just over the team’s goal time of 3:15, but the guys accomplished a bigger goal: to get people talking about breast cancer.
After two of his aunts were diagnosed with the disease, Ewing decided to pair his athletic goals with a cause. Thus, the Seven Ribbons Foundation was born last year. Along with adventuresome friends dating to high school in Steamboat Springs and from college at the University of Denver, Ewing plans to run a marathon on all seven continents as well as summit the highest mountain on each continent, planting a pink ribbon at each peak. The group has already climbed Mount Kilimanjaro (19,341 feet) and plans to climb Mount Aconcagua (22,841) in Argentina in December.
Sunday’s race, though, was about training for summer climbs and fall races, and mostly about camaraderie. The buddies, each wearing a white T-shirt with the foundation’s pink logo, decorated leadoff runner Will Orgain’s Toyota FJ Cruiser with pink ribbons and writing, and drove to each of the handoff zones.
“It was cool to do it as a group, running all around town,” said Kyle Broughton, who ran the second leg.
The Seven Ribbons Foundation team, which also included Matt Carr and Jonathon McMahon, was one of 527 five-person teams participating in the marathon, with legs ranging from 3.27 miles to 6.46 miles.
The Boulder Express team won the relay, finishing in 2:23:20. Each of the team’s five runners is hoping to run sub-2:20 marathons in the fall to qualify for the 2012 Olympic Trials.
“This is an opportunity for Boulder Express to re-emerge. We had a couple of rebuilding years,” said Ramin Razavi, who ran the anchor leg. “This was our coming-out part. It was just a great day, a great community event.”
Lindsay H. Jones: 303-954-1262 or ljones@denverpost.com
