Here’s the latest development in our weather contingency plans.
We currently have a plan in place for snow removal on the course and have a very good chance of running our original race route as planned.
Race management and our course traffic control team will evaluate the Centennial road conditions behind the first plow run Sunday morning to determine if it will be safe to send runners and volunteers onto the hilly Centennial road portion of the course.
By approximately 6am (or as close to 6am as we can), we will publish a public announcement via Facebook and will follow with a direct email to entrants and a post on our race website to confirm the race will be run as planned or if we will change to our alternate route plan.
If road conditions are safe, we will proceed with the race as planned starting from Hughes Stadium at 8:30am. There is a chance of slight delays on the start time if plowing and traffic control set up are slower than expected.
We will not be allowed to park at the Hughes Stadium parking areas but the Holiday Twin Drive In has been extremely generous to allow us to move our race morning parking onto their property and we have made arrangements to plow the lots in time for the 7am check in start. We are incredibly thankful for their generosity and willingness to work with us this weekend.
The Holiday Twin Drive in parking lot is located at 2206 South Overland Trail. This is almost directly across from the turn off Overland onto Dixon Canyon Rd (42C) that leads to the race start. We will have volunteers and flaggers on Overland to direct traffic and runners on race morning. It will be a short 3/4 mile walk from the parking area across Overland Trail and down Dixon Canyon Road (42C) to the race starting area so please give yourself plenty of time to drive safely, park, walk to the start, check in, and be ready to run on time. You will be able to leave your extra warm layers in the finish bag truck at the start. (**Please bring your own bag. A bag check ticket is included with your bib and extra tape and markers will be available at the start to label your bag.**)
Parking space on race morning will be fairly tight – especially if we need to plow the lot on race morning. If at all possible, please try to carpool or have a friend or family member drop you off at the race start. Drop offs will be allowed on Dixon Canyon Rd (42C) closer to the starting area. Volunteers will direct drop offs onto Dixon Canyon Rd (42C) and we will have a drop off zone on the right side of the road. There will be no parking on Dixon Canyon Rd (42C) and drop offs are limited to 5 minutes. After dropping off, vehicles will make a U-Turn to exit back onto Overland Trail. Please be careful driving in and out – there will be runners walking down the road to the race start.
If the roads are unsafe to run the race, we will move check in and the start to the finish area on Linden Street to run an out and back from New Belgium to the bottom of Bingham Hill near the Centennial intersection. The start will be delayed 1 hour until 9:30am to give anyone who arrives at Hughes time to drive over to the finish, park, and check in.
Parking is available throughout Old Town. Linden Street will be closed for the event and participants can find parking anywhere south or west of Willow Street. There are parking garages located just a short walk from the start/finish area at Mountain and Remington or at Laporte and Mason.
The alternate route will follow the course up the bike path to Lyons Park and over Bingham Hill to turn around just before reaching County Rd 23 (Centennial). We are evaluating options to make a small loop around Buckingham and Linden at the start to give runners more time to spread out before getting onto the bike path. We will have pace group leads available to help runners line up at the start to alleviate congestion. One full lane will be closed over Bingham Hill so there will be plenty of room for runners to pass at the turn around end of the route. Aid stations will be located in the same places at Lee Martinez Park, Taft Rd, and Lyons Park.
We can’t thank the City of Fort Collins, Larimer County, and the Holiday Twin Drive In enough for going above and beyond to work with us to ensure that the race will be run this Sunday barring untenable amounts of snow.
