The Two Shoes Trek Challenge

One of the nation’s first destination resorts, Colorado Springs is now the state’s second-largest city and one of many faces. Its natural beauty and pleasant climate attract legions of visitors from around the globe, who come to ascend the summit of majestic Pikes Peak and admire the exquisite sandstone spires of the Garden of the Gods.A handful of sights, from the excellent fine-arts museum to the historic Air Force Academy, add to the undeniable appeal of the monumental Front Range. With that being said, the American Discovery Trail Half Marathon is the place to be.
A roughly six-and-a-half-mile-long stretch of the American Discovery Trail that runs through Colorado Springs is the setting for the 13.1-mile event in the annual Labor Day running of the American Discovery Trail Marathon, Half Marathon & Relay.
The ADT Half Marathon is the RRCA Colorado State Championship Race. The half marathon starts at 6:45 AM. Runners will run north on the Pikes Peak Greenway to a turnaround just north of Garden of the Gods Road and then turn back south along the same trail, continuing to the finish line at America the Beautiful Park. The trail is an urban trail with some sections of concerete, asphalt and crushed granite. Some of the concrete sections have an adjacent soft shoulder.
The race is organized by the local running club known as the Pikes Peak Road Runners and designed to benefit both the club as well as the Trails and Open Space Coalition, a locally-based nonprofit that works to create and preserve networks of nature trails and greenways in the Colorado Springs area and the Pikes Peak region.
Course Highlights
The event’s half-marathon starts and finishes at the city’s America the Beautiful Park, which lies just off Conejos Street, between West Colorado Avenue and West Cimarron Street. From there, the out-and-back loop course for the race takes runners on what is largely a north-south route through the city.
From there, the course proceeds along the sections of the trail that wind through local parks like Sonderman Park, Monument Valley Park and the Pikes Peak Greenway, with ample views of nearby Pikes Peak and the Rampart mountain range. Largely fast and mostly flat, much of the half marathon course unfolds on trails along Monument Creek.
The first half of the course takes runners northward from the park to Garden of the Gods Road, which is the turnaround point for the return back to the park for the finish. About half of the race course takes runners along trail surfaces with hard-packed gravel, while the other half of the race is run on paved surfaces. Runners also will experience a slight uphill along parts of the first half of the race, and a slight downhill along parts of the course coming back to the finish line.