The Colfax Marathon Goes Off-Course

Dave Walstrom, the longtime Colfax booster who's president of the Colfax Marathon Partnership, sounded chagrined last Friday when he confirmed that the route I'd checked on just a week or so before — I had to make sure that Mezcal would open at the ungodly hour of 6 a.m., since the half-marathoners would be passing by early, and would have enough Tecate for a marathon party — had changed again. "I had to make a judgment call in terms of economics, look at all of our costs, including traffic and barricades," he explained. "It's the last thing I want to do, but I have to try to break even," he said. "Last year, we didn't hit our numbers in runner registration, so we surveyed them. They said the course was too difficult, and there was that uphill slog. We looked at reversing things, but then you run into the sun." So first they decided to split the course at City Park, and then they decided to take the Colfax Marathon off Colfax for an inexplicable two miles, moving it to 17th Avenue from the park to Bellaire Street.

"I hope next year we will be back on this section of Colfax," Walstrom told me. "It's such a wonderfully redeveloping part of Colfax. It's really Main Street."

The race may be back, but whether Walstrom will be is uncertain. He went on emergency leave this week, and his office says he won't return until after race day. But the Colfax Marathon continues.

From my perch on the Mezcal patio, I've watched families who live in old Denver squares and hipsters who live in new lofts come out to cheer on the runners, watched crowds in front of nearby cafes raise their coffee cups in salute, watched the clerk from the adult store across the street check on the runners' progress, watched the racers themselves absorb energy from this thriving stretch.

For such a straight street, the story of Colfax takes a lot of twists and turns.