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Tuesday, April 18, 2006

InSanitas Indeed

Early Sunday morning, ultrarunner Paul Pomeroy completed his 30 laps of Mt. Sanitas—that's 100 miles and 40,000 vertical feet on stair-step trails up the 6,863-foot peak above Boulder, Colorado. In typical Colorado spring weather, Pomeroy endured temps in the 80s followed by high winds and scattered cold rain. Plagued by stomach problems and muscle cramps on his first day, Pomeroy was slower than he'd hoped and finished in 45 hours 5 minutes. To put that in perspective, Colorado's Hardrock 100, considered one of the hardest ultras in the world, covers only 33,000 vertical feet (albeit, much of it over 11,000 feet in elevation), and 40 percent of the Hardrock finishers last year spent more than 45 hours on the 100-mile loop course. No doubt Hardrock runners get better views, but I'll bet Pomeroy experienced interesting "inner views" during the second night of his epic on Sanitas.

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