After running and power walking 487 miles from Littleton to Durango to complete the Colorado Trail in record time, trail runner Kyle Curtin had plenty of time to reflect on the experience because the physical wear and tear he endured put him in a Durango hospital room.
Curtin’s goal was to finish with the “fastest known time,” the vernacular endurance athletes use to describe record efforts, and to become the first to do it in less than a week. He succeeded and completed the trek, which entails more than 92,000 feet of climbing from Waterton Canyon to Durango, in six days, 15 hours, 33 minutes. He arrived in Durango shortly before 11:30 p.m. Sunday in a pouring rain. About 20 friends were waiting for him with champagne and glow sticks.
Kyle Curtin of Durango kept moving 20 hours a day during his 487-mile trek from Waterton Canyon to Durango, which he completed on Sunday. After finishing he went to the hospital with a badly swollen right ankle. (Maggie Guterl/Tailwind Nutrition)
“Done, and I’m dead,” he wrote on the Strava running cycling app after finishing the feat. Soon he was in Durango’s Mercy Hospital due to a badly swollen right ankle.
“The ankle is why I came, but they did blood work, too,” Curtin said Tuesday from his hospital room, expecting to be released later in the day. “That’s what the doctor people are more worried about. But that’s not painful.”
X-rays on the ankle were negative, so it wasn’t broken. Probably muscle or tendon damage, Curtin suspects, some sort of overuse injury. And, of course, it’s part of the sport.
“It’s just a long way, and it’s pretty hard to get out of there unscathed,” said Curtin, 37. “The last 75-80 miles it just slowly built and built, pretty (intense) pain at the end. Pretty glad it ended when it did. I don’t know how much further I had left in me, or how many miles I had on this ankle. Pretty toasted now.”
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Curtin generally ran the downhill sections and walked the rest. He caught a couple hours of sleep each night and grabbed afternoon catnaps of five to 10 minutes beside the trail, much of which was above 12,000 feet. He averaged more than 80 miles daily, with 20 hours on the move each day, and averaged 3.7 mph excluding rest breaks. The last three days he encountered hail and lightning.
“There were some pretty phenomenal areas I hadn’t seen before, so the uniqueness of those really stood out,” Curtin said. “But then, getting into the San Juans, that’s the part most hikers say is the best, and I agree with them. Everywhere you look, there’s giant mountains and gorgeous waterfalls. I got to run across Colorado with some of the best runners in the state, some of my closest friends. That part was really cool, the support of friends and crew and fellow runners, and to be in this amazing atmosphere while we’re doing it.”
Support crews in “ultra” events like this provide emotional encouragement and logistical support, including pacing and restocking the runner’s nutritional and hydration needs.
“No one can go that fast without a team of people like that,” said Maggie Guterl, also a Durango ultra runner, who was one of Curtin’s crew members. “As for how Kyle did, I think a lot of his success was due to his attitude. He was super focused and very positive the whole time. Even though he was in so much pain and very tired, I don’t think there was ever a moment that it wasn’t going to get done.”
Curtin grew up in Ohio and spent six years in the Army before moving to Colorado and discovering trail running. Through his Colorado Trail trek, he raised more than $7,000 in pledges for Big City Mountaineers, a national organization based in Arvada which provides mountaineering experiences for young people from “disinvested” communities.
“I think it’s a cool organization with a good mission,” Curtin said. “It seems like something that’s right in line with my values and what I care about with the outside world. Also, it was really motivating to have that external force, knowing that all these people who donated to this cause were expecting me to accomplish this. That was a motivating factor during the run, knowing there were people who wanted me to finish and were counting on it.”