By Phil Lindeman, Summit Daily
You ain’t never seen the Fourth like this.
Around 3 a.m. this morning, an unofficial band of triathletes, road cyclists, trail runners and other endurance fiends dressed in jean shorts, Norwegian Speedos and thigh-high socks loaded their mountain bikes at Peak 9 for one hell of a day: a three-mile ride up 3,100 vertical feet to the base of Peak 10, where they’ll transition to skis for sunrise turns down Fourth of July Bowl — the curved, wide-open expanse of fading snow that hangs over the ski resort long after chairlifts stop spinning — in time to catch the 7 a.m. start of the Independence Day 10K trail run back in town, followed at 9:30 a.m. by one 25-mile lap with 4,000 vertical feet at the wildly popular Firecracker 50 MTB race.
Some 12 hours and 40 total miles later — around 2 or 3 p.m. this afternoon, if all goes as planned — the crew will rendezvous at the Carter Park finish line for a traditional Fourth of July picnic, complete with lots of sitting, stretching and good-natured smack-talking, not to mention plenty of beer. So much beer.
Ladies and gentlemen, introducing the first-ever Breckenridge Triathlon: a homemade challenge led by the town’s own jorts aficionado, Joe Howdyshell, that may or may not become a Summit County tradition.
“Me and some of my friends like to do these crazy adventure things,” said Howdyshell, who recruited folks like road cyclist Matti Rowe and former XTERRA triathlete Jaime Brede for the (literally) half-day tour of Breck on Independence Day. “I like the idea of a human-powered adventure, all based in Breckenridge. The cool thing about this is we won’t be getting in a car at all. Everything will be happening from town, on bikes or on foot.”
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