Rim Rock Half Marathon
Fruita, Colo. | Saturday, Nov. 6, 2021
“Gravity-defying boulders and tunnels carved of stone” are what you’ll find at this stunningly beautiful downhill run through the Colorado National Monument, whose multi-colored rock formations and canyon walls span more than 20,000 acres near Colorado’s border with Utah. Named for the Colorado River, the park is known for its gorgeous views along Rim Rock Drive, the sole paved road through the park, which starts in nearby Grand Junction and winds uphill and downhill through the park’s canyons, all the way to where runners will cross the finish line for the race in Fruita. (The half marathon route, however, is all downhill. From the starting line, you’ll run 10 downhill miles until you reach the final, three-mile flat stretch in to the finish.)
$110 and up
A great running read
How Eliud Kipchoge Broke Running’s Mythic Barrier. I missed this excellent spring 2020 piece on the legendary Kenyan runner, but I love as much as anything the photos the GQ photographer took, allowing Kipchoge to show off a side of himself we don’t normally see.
“I once had a professor who said poetry is about revealing a truth in the listener. Sitting in the garden with Kipchoge, I realize that he's revealing a truth in me. Every time I ask him something, he pivots—what about my marathon, my team, my moon shot?”
Words to run by
“I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.”
— Agatha Christie