Course records fall at Summer Roundup 12K trail run

Aaron Rubalcabo-Lopez and Lauren Dunsmoor set course records Sunday while winning the men’s and women’s titles at the Summer Roundup 12K trail run at Bear Creek Park.

Rubalcabo-Lopez finished in 45 minutes, 20 seconds — nearly two minutes ahead of runner-up John Gaudette — on a course that took runners up nearly 1,000 feet in elevation during the opening 3.7 miles before turning around and descending the same route.

“I’m feeling pretty good,” said Rubalcabo-Lopez, after running the course for the first time. “Last week I had the U.S. Mountain Championships and I ran pretty horrible. I just wanted to come out here and push it up that hill and have a good race.

“My strategy was to push the uphill and coast on the downhill. That’s pretty much what I did.”

Dunsmoor, who will be a senior at Colorado State-Pueblo this fall, finished in 53:47, beating Stephanie Jones — the 2006 co-champion — by 30 seconds.

“This is just summer running, getting ready for cross country,” Dunsmoor said. “This is just such a fun run. The course was beautiful. The scenery just kind of takes you away.”

Gaudette, a senior at St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y., also uses this event as a tune-up for the fall season.

“As compared to school in upstate New York, where people are used to running more flats, Colorado is going to be a bit different,” he said. “I’ve done this race and Garden of the Gods the last two or three years and it’s always been a tune-up for the cross country season at school.”

The race set a record with 634 finishers.

“Typically I run all the local races,” Jones said. “I rarely travel to anything because they do such a good job putting these on.”

Veteran runner and cancer survivor Martha Kinsinger finished in 1:3404. She has run the race each year since its inception in 2000, as well as the rest of the Triple Crown of Running series, which includes the Garden of the Gods 10-mile run in June and the Pikes Peak Ascent and Marathon in August.

“I’m tired but I feel good,” Kinsinger said. “Nothing hurts. I’m retired and I love to run.

“I do the whole triple crown. I do the Steamboat half marathon. I do the Georgetown half marathon. I was running before (getting cancer) and I kept running all through it.”

Jill Montera talked her 14-year-old son Jordan into running with her, only to watch him run off to set the 14-and-under age group record in 57:31, beating the record by more than 10 minutes.

“He barely runs and then we bring him to these things and, I don’t know,” Jill Montera said of Jordan, who plans to run cross country this fall at Pueblo West. “He’s gifted. I used to be able to run with him and I would encourage him at the end, but now he’s looking for me at the end.”