Marathon, Ascent spots fill quickly

More than 1,800 runners registered Tuesday for the Pikes Peak Ascent and Marathon, taking 25 minutes to fill most of the remaining spots in the Aug. 18-19 races.

There were no problems at www.active.com, the Web site that endured a crashed server March 1 because of a flood of entries for those races and other events across the country.

Registration for the 1,000 spots in Wave 2 of the Ascent filled in less than 10 minutes. Registration for the 815 spots in the Marathon filled in about 15 minutes. Wait lists for both races are full.

Eighteen of the 463 spots available in Wave 1 of the Ascent remained unfilled as of 8 p.m. Tuesday. To register, runners must meet the qualification standards listed on www. pikespeakmarathon.org.

“It worked as planned,” said Ron Ilgen, president of the Pikes Peak Ascent and Marathon. “It was much closer to a first-come, firstserved basis. That’s the way we advertise it.”

Ilgen said he didn’t want the second goaround to seem like a lottery after the race’s board of directors decided March 5 to honor the registrations of 452 people who signed up for Wave 1 of the Ascent.

The board invalidated the registrations of 1,815 people who signed up for the Marathon and Wave 2 of the Ascent before the active.com server crashed. The board allowed registration for Wave 1 of the Ascent to pick up where it left off because it was less than 50 percent full.

There’s a 915-runner limit for Wave 1 and a 1,000-runner limit for Wave 2 of the Ascent, a 13.32-mile race that starts in Manitou Springs and ends on the summit of Pikes Peak. The Marathon, which stretches 26.21 miles up and down the mountain, has an 815-runner limit.

Ilgen said registration filled so quickly Tuesday because of the high demand for the remaining spots. He estimated nearly 1,200 people attempted to register for the Marathon and more than 2,000 people tried to register for Wave 2 of the Ascent.

“I expected it to be a matter of minutes,” Ilgen said. “That’s fairly typical. People know that they fill fast and that you better get in there.”

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0256 or brian.gomez@gazette.com