February 19, 2008 12:15 AM

Play hard, show off

“A competition is just to show off how hard you’ve been playing.” That quote from champion freestyle kayaker Eric Jackson in Outside magazine sums up perfectly why so many of us get out there to compete. We live in a state that offers multiple ways to play, and it follows that Coloradans are also blessed with a multitude of events for showing off.

Look at the upcoming weekend as just one example.

I’ll be at Keystone for the fifth Teamski race of the season, exactly where I was for the first race back in December before missing the next three races because of foot surgery.

If I wasn’t committed to this race, I could head to Monarch for the Mountain Dew Vertical Challenge, or simply jump into a NASTAR http://www.nastar.com/course just about anywhere.

If I was in shape, I could opt for the third annual 24 hours of Sunlight, which has to be the most grueling show-off opportunity of the weekend. At Sunlight Mountain Resort in Glenwood Springs, teams will hike up then ski, snowboard or snowshoe down in continuous laps for 24 hours. Last year, 58 teams of more than 170 racers competed.

Snowboarders (and skiers, too) can also choose the Copper Mountain Snowboard Series, with superpipe and slopestyle competition both Saturday and Sunday, or the American Cancer Society Vertical Rally, a contest to accumulate vertical feet and raise money at Loveland Ski Area on Saturday.

If snowshoeing is your game, head to the Gold Run Nordic Center near Breckenridge on Saturday for the Swift Skedaddle, a 4-kilometer fun run and walk and a 10-kilometer competitive run – all on snowshoes, of course.

Front Range runners need travel only as far as Cherry Creek State Park for the Snowman Stampede on Saturday. These 10-mile and 20-mile runs are the third and final event in the Winter Distance Series. The first two, Rudolph’s Revenge and Frosty’s Frozen Five, attracted close to 600 racers each at Chatfield State Park.

Runners can also go to the heart of downtown Denver on Sunday for Run the Republic, a stair climb to the 53rd floor of the city’s tallest building.

Whew! I was out of breath even before I got to that last one.

Posted by Bob Findlay at 12:15 AM | Comments (0)