You could try to get a copy of this book and try this websiteOriginally Posted by Trimm Trab
You could try to get a copy of this book and try this website
Fox Avatar "Protected" by Hester Cox - Printmaker
That's uncanny! Cheers XRunner - will have a butcher's at those. I first figured that bearing in mind the distance and the amount of ascent a time of about 4 1/2 - 4 3/4 hours would be a good target, but then I saw that Simon Booth did it not much quicker than that, so maybe it's a tad optimistic! The altitude must kill you if you're not used to it.
There's certainly no shortage of info on the Pikes Peak...
Altitude affects different people differently. The highest I've ever been is 11500ft on the Sierra Nevada of Spain and I began to feel the altitude from about 10,000ft upwards (roughly 3000m). I'm sure I'd be struggling badly by 14,100ft!
This is the sort of height to which you can acclimatise completely but you'd need to spend two or three weeks at Barr Camp with regular periods even higher up. It's not a luxury I can afford so I'll probably just 'take it like a man....' (which may include crawling on all fours and blubbering like a baby)
I was in Colorado Springs a couple of years ago and took the train up Pikes Peak. The day before we'd heard people talking about the fantastic view from the top, stretching for hundreds of miles across five states, etc. etc. Next day we set off in glorious weather at the bottom, T-shirts and ice cream. Half way up it started to snow, then we were enveloped in ice-cold clag and at the summit we had a blizzard! Couldn't see the cafe from the train stop (even though it was about 10 feet away). Sat in the cafe, freezing cold, had a drink, then got the train back down. Saw nothing.
What amazed me at the time was that the people working in the cafe drove up there every day, on a ramshackle 'road' of hairpin bend after hairpin bend.
Anyway, it's not just the altitude you need to be wary of. All the stuff on the website about the unpredictable weather (50 degree difference between bottom and top, sun turns to blizzard) is real. Running up the thing? Not for me I think.
[quote=this is my real name;170562]I
What amazed me at the time was that the people working in the cafe drove up there every day, on a ramshackle 'road' of hairpin bend after hairpin bend.
Yes and they have a car race (time trial as per rallying) up that road every year. Around '85, Michelle Mouton, then an Audi works driver, set a new record in one of their 700 h.p. rally cars. I've seen the video of her spending around 75% of the route travelling sideways - awesome.
i'm in the junior mens race which is 10 miles 3000ft ascent,just using it at as training for the ben really and an excuse to get out to the alps for some training
If you want to know about running Pikes Peak you could try asking Geoff Garnett of Bingley - he ran it in the 1960s!
You couldn't. You'd have to go out a few weeks early.
Pikes Peak rally drivers are certifiable - here's Ari Vatanen doing it in 1989 in a souped-up repmobile (panning shot at about 2.50 is awesome). All things considered, I'd rather run up it in a blizzard than be a passenger at the Pikes Peak rally!Yes and they have a car race (time trial as per rallying) up that road every year. Around '85, Michelle Mouton, then an Audi works driver, set a new record in one of their 700 h.p. rally cars. I've seen the video of her spending around 75% of the route travelling sideways - awesome.
I've already started looking into the logistics of doing the PP Marathon; I really do think I'll give it a go.
OMG!!!
At about 3:50 it looked like he was going to go over the edge for half a sec.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote