Nicole Chyr grew up in Denver, so as she felt the sleety pellets begin to stick to her body as the Colfax Marathon course took her through Lakewood on a chilly Sunday morning, she was hardly surprised.
Welcome to Colorado in May.
The sleet and cold hardly slowed Chyr, 33, as she raced to a Colfax Marathon women’s record Sunday morning. She finished the redesigned course in 2 hours, 59 minutes, 1 second, becoming the first woman in the race’s six-year history to break three hours.
“I felt good going out, but I had a tough time coming back because of the downhills,” Chyr said. “The downhills started getting to my hamstrings. I’m a better uphill runner than downhill, I think. I usually come in the top 10. I never usually place first, so I’m really happy about that.”
Second-place finisher Amy Smith, 23, was in tears as she crossed the finish line in 3:10:24. Colfax was Smith’s first marathon and her longest run.
“These are tears of pain, joy,” said Smith, a former college runner at Regis who lives in Westminster. “I’m just so happy. I was getting frustrated at the end because I didn’t want to go anymore because I hurt so bad.”
Third time’s a charm.
Charles Hillig apparently was too quick for the race organizers.
Hillig, 24, a Denver native who ran for the University of Northern Colorado, won the half marathon in 1:11:33, crossing the finish line in City Park before race staffers were able to unfurl their Kaiser Permanente banner.
Hillig, though, had more than enough energy left to go back a few yards and run through the finish again. Twice.
Talk about a good sport.
“To finish three times is pretty cool,” Hillig said. “That’s a first.”
Heavy load.
Few runners drew as many cheers Sunday as Virginia Usher.
Usher, 26, ran the half marathon in her full Army uniform, including boots, with a 45-pound pack on her back. It was her third Colfax half, but her first in uniform.
“It was a lot harder,” Usher, from Aurora, said. “The last mile just about kicked my butt.”
Usher, who works full time for the Colorado National Guard, is preparing to attend air assault school in the fall.
“Everyone was really supportive,” Usher said.
New Year’s resolution fulfilled.
With her son now 2 1/2 years old, Natalie Davey of Boulder made a New Year’s resolution to “get fit again.”
Consider that goal fulfilled. In her first distance race in six years, Davey finished second in the half marathon in 1:24:08, only 16 seconds behind winner Joanna Zeiger, an Olympic triathlete.
“I’m really, really happy with my race,” said Davey, who is originally from Ireland. “I’m long overdue to get back into running.”
It’s about time.
Former elite racer Benji Durden finished his first Colorado marathon in 3:36:53.
Durden was a highly successful runner in the early 1980s, running 25 sub-2:20 marathons with a personal record of 2:09:57 at Boston in 1983. He moved to Boulder in 1985 but had never run a marathon here. He ran Sunday because he and his wife, Amie, are in the process of running a marathon in all 50 states.
“Until we started this 50-state thing, I didn’t see a reason to run an altitude marathon,” Durden said. “Why start one you already know is handicapped?”
Amie finished in 4:29:59.
Love story.
Jason Leszcynski and his mother, Kathy, finished the half marathon in 3:27:57. Jason, 31, is “nonverbal” and cannot hear because of autism, but Sunday marked his third half-marathon finish. Later this month he will do his 11th Bolder Boulder as part of a training group called Without Limits.
How does he communicate with his mother?
“It just happens,” Kathy said. “I don’t know how, but it just happens.”
Lindsay H. Jones and John Meyer, The Denver Post
