Colorado Marathon

The 2021 Colorado Marathon was a well-organized, lovely race through the Poudre Canyon and Fort Collins in northern Colorado.

Packet pick-up was easy and straight forward with plenty of parking. There were great freebies like Hearts of Hemp and koozies. The t-shirt was long sleeved with a cool logo. I scouted out the parking situation the night before the race using the information from the race website, which included a helpful map of the parking sites. I'm glad I went the night before, because google maps gave me roundabout directions that had me going through the middle of very busy streets full of pedestrians. To give you perspective, I was coming from La Quinta by I25. I imagine others will use the hotels along I14. All you have to do is continue down this road, which turns into W Mulberry, and then take a right on Remington St. It was super easy to get to and there was plenty of parking on race day.

Buses were close to the parking and lined up along Mountain Ave. Again, easy to find and well-organized. It's about a 45 minute bus ride up to the start line. I HIGHLY recommend you bring warm clothes and/or a blanket with you. Depending on which bus you catch, you could potentially wait about an hour at the start before the race begins. It was pretty cold and I was lucky I had lots of layers. It was easy to drop off your bag (as well as get it at the finish line). You’re allowed to eat/drink on the bus and they have bathrooms. At the start, there were also lots of port-a-potties and free coffee/water.

The race starts up in the canyon and you follow along a river the whole time. It's a peaceful decent into the valley. You're always going downhill but it's never steep. I should note that the road was canted for a decent amount of the canyon. At least for me, this aggravated my nagging tendon issues. Things level off in the valley, and then, you weave your way through the town parks. It's an awesome way to tour Fort Collins by starting in nature and ending in the cute downtown area.

I never pay attention to the parties at the end. I'm pretty sure I heard a band playing. There were tons of food trucks and beer vouchers. It looked fun! From the race director to the participants, everyone involved with the race were fantastic. Everyone was friendly and encouraging. I had problems getting into the marathon, and the race director went above and beyond helping me. You could always count on water and Nuun appearing every 1-2 miles. There were no fans in the canyon due to the logistics of closing off the road, but there were lots of fans along the valley/town section. The race’s motto was to leave the course looking better than when it started. Racers were respectful and there was minimal litter along the course.

Overall, it was an awesome race! I loved the relative solitude the first part of the race brought. I was able to truly take in the beauty of the canyon without working hard due to the steady decline. The dreaded "wall" came right when the majority of fans appeared to carry you to the end. Again, the organization and thoughtfulness that went into this race were top notch. Combined with the beauty of the course and the friendly people involved, this is a marathon not to be missed!!

Beautiful course. Not very good support on course. Hate the zero calorie drink offered.

The last 10 miles is long slow grind...don't go out too fast.

Fort Collins is awesome. The afterparty is the best.

Don't let the downhill fool you. This can be a challenging course due to altitude, downhill grade on the quads, odd pitch road camber on the downhills. Also the water stops are short and not always quick at getting fluids to runners. The water stops may actually cause you to stop to refuel properly. While there are 12 water stops the first few have you running almost 3 miles to get them.

The first 16+ miles of the course is a runnable downhill. The issue though is that the runners must run along the left side of the road. The right side is left open for vehicle access even though not many cars are seen due to the early 6:30 am start time. The camber of the road going downhill on the left side tends to force runners to always be leaning to the left side. Thus forcing more straining on the left leg, and calves. Running with a pace group may work best on this race. I ran solo and it got pretty lonely out there as few runners were running a 3:10 pace nor were there many cheering groups along the first 20 miles.

Host Hilton is nice, but not close to the finish line. I would recommend grabbing a hotel near the finish - much more to do there then at the Hilton.