‘There’s always three more hills’ on Towers Road run
Sweat and sunscreen runs from my bald head into my eyes, I have some weird chafing going on from my cheap, red dri-fit shirt and my legs feel as heavy as anvils.
Breathing heavily, I catch up to a runner wearing a white T-shirt and gray visor. His name is Mike McDowell, a Fort Collins trail runner training for the Black Squirrel Half Marathon in Lory State Park. Towers Road is a regular workout for the gray-goateed runner.
“How’s it going for you?” I ask.
“It’s (insert curse word here) hard,” McDowell says, laughing.
Sharing laughs, we chat while ascending the dirt service road in Horsetooth Mountain Open Space. We’re more than 2 miles into the 3.4-mile route.
“Only three more hills to go,” McDowell tells me, as we break our shared pace and I pull ahead.
Only when I make the summit do I get the joke.
“It’s just up, up, up,” McDowell said after last Thursday night’s Towers time trial with the Fort Collins Trail Runners group. “It’s the grabbing-your-shorts kind of tired. No matter where you are on the run, there’s always three more hills to go. You just put your head down and chug along.”
Towers Road may not have the clout of the Manitou Incline, but running — or mountain biking — up the 3.4-mile road is no joke.
The popular and challenging running route in Fort Collins starts at the Soderberg Trailhead in Horsetooth Mountain Open Space. After a half-mile jaunt on the connecting Swan Johnson Trail, Towers Road begins climbing and, save for a couple of flat sections, never relents until you reach the 7,146-foot summit.
The road gains 1,700 feet in elevation, with an average gradient of 9 percent. Some sections reach a steep 20 percent grade, leaving your hamstrings and quads screaming.
Grand Slam of Ultrarunning finisher Nick Clark calls Towers Road “a real grinder” with four distinct grunt sections: the ¾-mile mark; just after the 1-mile mark past the Loggers Trail intersection; a curved push up to the Mill Creek Trail turn; and the final grinder that starts at the 3-mile mark.
Many runners slow their pace to a walk, or power-hike on the beastly hill. On several occasions, I slumped my shoulders, resting my hands on my quads, as I hiked up the steepest sections of the road. It took me 41 minutes to climb Towers.
Some of Fort Collins’ best runners shatter that mark. Steve Folkerts, a former Colorado Marathon winner, held the record a few years ago with a 30:36 ascent of Towers.
Since, that’s been lowered by Clark (29:20), Nick Davis (29:09) and Sam Malmberg, an elite ultramarathoner who holds the fastest known time on Towers at 28:32. Jenn Malmberg holds the women’s fastest known time of 34:05.
“You know what kind of shape you’re in when you run Towers,” McDowell said.
Alex May, a local trail runner and cyclist, and Clark even developed an unscientific Towers-to-marathon conversion chart. Using more than a dozen local marathoners’ Towers ascent personal bests and their marathon personal bests, the chart shows that to run a 3-hour marathon, a runner should be able to run 33:40 on Towers. A 2:46 marathoner should run a 30-minute ascent on Towers.
Every other Thursday, a dozen or so runners gather for the Towers time trial, organized by Clark and fellow trail runner Pete Stevenson. Runners start at staggered intervals based on their estimated ascent time, with the goal of getting everyone to the top at the same time. Most of the runners finish in the 40- to 50-minute range.
“I like running with the group a lot more. There is the pressure (of running with others) to keep moving at a sustainable pace,” said Christina Dennison of Fort Collins.
Zach Bennett of Fort Collins knocked two minutes off his personal best last Thursday. David Messerli, a graduate of Rocky Mountain High School and soon-to-be freshman cross country runner at Western State Colorado University, blazed up Towers in 33 minutes. Kelli Malloy of Broomfield ran her first Towers.
“I really enjoyed it. I love it because you work a different part of your body on each part of the trail. You get the cardio workout and get the calves burning and downhill it’s all quads,” said Malloy, whose boyfriend lives in Masonville.
The brutal, dizzying downhill is another challenge, pounding your quads after burning the hamstrings on the way up. And a twisted ankle is always a misstep away. Melissa Raguet-Schofield of Fort Collins said the downhill is harder on her body than the ascent.
About 30 runners finished Thursday’s Towers time trial. Gathered below the radio towers at the summit, men with their shirts off sucked in air and shared high-fives with one another. Women in bright yellow and pink shorts cheered the runners finishing their final steps up the road.
“Woohoo! Your first Towers!”
Clark herded up the group of tanned, thin trail runners for a group photo. Some cracked jokes and broke into running poses.
All this after running the toughest 3.4 miles you can find in Fort Collins.
“Running Towers just makes me so happy. It makes you strong and it’s just so pretty and the views are great,” said trail runner Corrie Stevens, who has run Towers for about five years. “And trail runners are so encouraging and inspiring because so many of them do these amazing ultraruns and have all this wisdom and knowledge to give you. It doesn’t matter what your ability is, they’re such a great group of people.”
Follow Xplore reporter Stephen Meyers on Twitter @stemeyer or Facebook.com/meyersreports.
Towers Road
• Distance: 3.4 miles one way
• Difficulty: Difficult run (1,700 feet of elevation gain)
• Trailhead: Soderberg Open Space. Take Larimer County Road 38E around the south end of Horsetooth Reservoir to Shoreline Drive, which is on the west side of the reservoir. Take a right on Shoreline Drive and go 1.2 miles to the parking lot for Soderberg Open Space.
• Fees: $6 for daily permit or $75 for annual Larimer County parks pass
• Information: www.co.larimer.co.us/parks/htmp.cfm or (970) 619-4570 and https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/FortCollinsTrailRunners/info
• Trail talk: Every other Thursday, the Fort Collins Trail Runners group meets in the evening at Towers Road for a time trial up the beastly hill that features 1,700 feet of elevation gain. The group run has staggered starts, so don’t worry if you think you’re a slowpoke, the goal of the run is for everyone to reach the summit at the same time. Your quads and lungs will hurt.