Paul Petersen and Samantha Kitchen live 1,900 miles apart, but they ended up at the same place Sunday, winning their respective divisions of the 17th running of the Colorado Marathon.
Petersen, 38, of Fort Collins won the overall title, running the 26.2-mile race down the Poudre Canyon in 2 hours, 33 minutes, 24 seconds.
Kitchen, who hails from Westwood, Massachusetts, was the top female finisher in a time of 2:55.40.
Petersen, a two-time winner of the Horsetooth Half Marathon and an Olympic Marathon Trials participant, ran by himself in second place most of the race before gaining the lead with 5K left to beat Gunnison’s Bashash Walio by a little more than a minute.
“I saw him (the leader) up the canyon, but he was a ways off and then on the county roads he was starting to come back and that egged me on,” said Peterson, who won the 2013 and 2015 Horsetooth Half Marathons. “This is where I live and so it’s always good to win the hometown race.”
Kitchen arrived in Fort Collins on Thursday and shrugged off the nearly 6,000-foot elevation gain from her hometown southwest of Boston to win by just more than 2 minutes over Laramie’s Lillie Romeiser.
What’s more amazing about the 23-year-old’s feat? It was her first marathon.
In the half marathon, 22-year-old Kyle Eller of Colorado Springs won in 1:11:09. Carol Smith, 32, of Louisville, was the top female finisher in 1:25:38.
In the 10K, Brian Lutze, 43 of Albuquerque, New Mexico, won in 34:53. Niki Hilgenberg, 37, of St. Joseph, Missouri, was the top female finisher in 44:15.
In the 5K, Ryan Donovan, 35, of Loveland, won in 15:57. Haley McCoy, 29, of Denver, won for the women in 22:04.
Read the complete article from the Coloradan: Colorado, Massachusetts runners win the Colorado Marathon