Breckenridge Running History- Modern Era of 1970s+
You may have seen the picture of miners racing on Main St. Breckenridge for a 4 of July celebration back in the 1800's. Good guess that would be the start of running/racing in Breckenridge.
Early runners in the “modern era of the 1970s+” were Greg Birk and Gene Dayton and Wally Taylor. Three more “serious runners” were Skip Sutton and John Swartz and Sam Williams who would end up being training partners with local knowledge of running and racing options.
The 70's running boom hit Summit County and a variety of different running races were being organized at the time. Copper Mountain 4th of July weekend 1978 was a bit of a crazy course looping around the trails and gravel parking lots of the base area of a very different Copper Mountain.
The original Run the Rockies had both a half marathon and marathon--the Summit County Marathon. The courses were all down in Dillon and running around Lake Dillon--Highway 9 and over Swan Mountain Rd--before any bike paths down that way.
The paved bike path to Farmer's Corner had just recently been completed. It started at Cemetary Road--remember everything between Breckenridge and Farmers Corner on the west side of the highway was rock piles...nothing else except where some had been leveled for an air strip and you could fly into Breckenridge back then along with a bowling alley and a movie theater. The original bike path actually crossed the highway at Tiger Run and continued on the east side of the highway ending at Swan Mountain Rd.
The new course for the 1979 Summit County Marathon with Greg Birk as RD was the highest certified marathon course in North America at the time. It was a great hit with the net elevation drop and incredible scenery...and it was fast for such elevation. (Starting at the base of Hoosier Pass, running down Main St. Breckenridge down to Frisco--Main St. Frisco, up the Copper Mt. bike path and back across Dam Rd and finish in Dillon at the amphitheater.)
Another interesting annual local race was the Como to Breckenridge run--this was actually organized by people from front range. The course ran the old railroad bed back when it was entirely gravel coming into Breckenridge and before they regraded the road into the Wakefield mine area.
A new running club was started in the 1980s with Greg Birk and others as founders. It was called Summit Striders and had red shirts made up. The club was also a social group and enjoyed getting together for runs and beers. Another member was Kenny Buck who owned a wine and cheese shop at the time. John Swartz was a premier runner of Breckenridge ---roads, trails, uphill, downhill—and won the Vail Hill Climb multiple times--held a couple age group Pikes Peak records. Other local runners from the earlier days were Dr. Jim Oberheide and Shirley Davis Rainney and Coleen Richmond.
Running options were very different back then--we could run on Highway 9 and not worry about cars and trucks--the old mining roads and trails were virgin--no mountain bikes. Our go to training runs for the uphill races were running up to the towers on Peak 10 and up the ski area service roads to the front bowl.
Vertical Runner store was operating on Main Street and then sold to Dean Eastham but the store closed in 2019. A new running store owned by Tiffany Cruickshank is Peak Running and has a location at the south end of Main Street.
In May of 2023, new leadership took over the club to create a sustainable running community in the “high country”. Over the next 16 months, the club grew on Facebook from 200 “members” to over 540 “members”. Obviously, running is popular in Summit County. With growth came the realization that the group of FB members needed to elevate and become an actual running club.
President Dwight Mikulis along with VP Jenny Wong, Treasurer Christine Garcia, Secretary Karen Mahakian, Immediate Past President Michelle Lyman and the board of Susan Loken, Tracy Larson, Meghan Hill and Kevin Daly converted the group into a non-profit corporation under the RRCA organization.
