{"id":1312392,"date":"2019-07-14T08:36:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-14T14:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/cool-runnings-2-kory-cool-wins-second-aspen-valley-marathon\/"},"modified":"2019-07-14T08:36:00","modified_gmt":"2019-07-14T14:36:00","slug":"cool-runnings-2-kory-cool-wins-second-aspen-valley-marathon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/cool-runnings-2-kory-cool-wins-second-aspen-valley-marathon\/","title":{"rendered":"Cool Runnings 2: Kory Cool wins second Aspen Valley Marathon"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Kory Cool of Kansas celebrates after winning the Aspen Valley Marathon on Saturday, July 13, 2019, in Basalt. (Photo by Austin Colbert\/The Aspen Times)<\/strong>
Austin Colbert\/The Aspen Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Make that four in a row for Kory Cool.<\/p>\n

No matter the distance, the high school track and field coach from Kansas has the Aspen Valley Marathon pretty well dialed in. He couldn\u2019t quite get to his own course record on Saturday, but Cool was hot enough to outdistance the field to win the 26.2-mile race from Aspen to Basalt\u2019s Lions Park.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou just never know who is going to show up,\u201d said Cool, who did not expect to win. \u201cThere are a lot of people out there who are faster than me. They just didn\u2019t come here today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cool, 32, finished Saturday\u2019s ninth annual marathon in 2 hours, 41 minutes, 59 seconds, easily outdistancing Fairplay\u2019s Mason Mitchell (2:48:24) and Arizona\u2019s Gary Krugger (2:48:27), who finished second and third, respectively. Krugger is a three-time Aspen Valley Marathon winner (2012, 2013, 2016) and held the course record until Cool beat it when he won the 2017 Aspen marathon in 2:38:17.<\/p>\n

While it was only his second win in the full marathon, it was Cool\u2019s fourth straight win in Basalt. In 2016, Cool won the Aspen Valley Half Marathon and last summer he won the 5k, which he ran only because he felt he wasn\u2019t in marathon shape.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my training I\u2019ve been doing well leading up to this. I\u2019m healthy, so I wanted to do the full again,\u201d Cool said of returning to the marathon. \u201cIt was mentally very, very tough. I\u2019ve only run probably about three or four marathons since this win two years ago. So I\u2019m still kind of getting used to it again. The last probably eight miles were really, really tough.\u201d<\/p>\n

The top local finisher in Saturday\u2019s marathon was Carbondale\u2019s Guillermo Ceja, who was eighth in 3:02:53. Hayes Ward, also of Carbondale, was 12th in 3:12:38.<\/p>\n

For Cool, winning the marathon is certainly among the highlights of his summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really was just hoping to do well here. This was my main focus,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is always a big family thing. We love coming here. This is a great, great area and we plan on coming back for many more years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taking the women\u2019s race was Lakewood\u2019s Rebecca Smith. She was 15th overall with a time of 3:19:00. She didn\u2019t have much room to spare, as Boulder\u2019s Kay Borleis finished only 12 seconds back in 16th place. Whitney Dutton of Texas was the third woman, finishing 17th in 3:22:05.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s good. It was unexpected, for sure,\u201d the 34-year-old Smith said of her win. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t too big of a downhill. It was beautiful the whole way. It was nice and cool for the first three-quarters of the race, so it was awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than anything, Smith was hoping to again qualify for the Boston Marathon, a race she\u2019s ran three times, and did so with little difficulty. She said the Aspen marathon was her 11th at the distance and her second win. She also won in Estes Park a few years ago.<\/p>\n

Quintana, Connolly win half marathon titles<\/p>\n

Their matching shirts were certainly endearing. Both Donald Quintana and his wife, Melanie, took to the Aspen Valley Half Marathon with a similar wardrobe, their last name emblazoned across their chest.<\/p>\n

Turns out, that wasn\u2019t the first time the couple had run together wearing that attire.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe met about three years ago and we just got married last year,\u201d Donald Quintana said. \u201cThat\u2019s where the jerseys are from. We wore these at the end of our wedding and ran home from our wedding.\u201d<\/p>\n

They were a pretty formidable pair on Saturday, with Donald winning the half marathon with a time of 1:27:40, while Melanie was 10th overall and fourth among women in 1:36:19. Coming from New Orleans, Donald admitted to being intimidated by the elevation and certainly didn\u2019t expect to win.<\/p>\n

\u201cNormally I\u2019m that guy who is in that second pack right behind the winner. So I was surprised,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m coming from sea level. I don\u2019t get to see pretty mountains and everything. It\u2019s just a beautiful course out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quintana, 36, won the half marathon by more than a minute over Arvada\u2019s Tyler Thyfault (1:28:56), with Danny Chester taking third (1:29:05).<\/p>\n

The women\u2019s half marathon was won by Aspen\u2019s Ashley Connolly. She was fifth overall in 1:30:30, edging out Missouri\u2019s Emily Lanter, who was seventh overall in 1:31:52. Mary Cote of Snowmass was the third woman in the half, finishing eighth overall in 1:35:16.<\/p>\n

\u201cUsually there is a ringer or two ahead of me. I can\u2019t think of a half that I\u2019ve won, at least recently, so this is exciting,\u201d said the 43-year-old Connolly, who also won the Boogie\u2019s Buddy Race 5-miler on the Fourth of July. \u201cI was shocked to win this one because last year I ran and my time was about the same and I was like the seventh girl. There were so many fast girls last year, but this year apparently I was the fast girl. So I\u2019ll take it.\u201d<\/p>\n

A 5k wrapped up Saturday\u2019s festivities, with Tennessee\u2019s Abigayle Gawthorp stealing the show. Not only was the 21-year-old the top woman in 26:06, but she also beat all the men to take the overall race title. Jeffrey Trendel was second overall and first among men in 27:14.<\/p>\n

acolbert@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kory Cool of Kansas celebrates after winning the Aspen Valley Marathon on Saturday, July 13, 2019, in Basalt. (Photo by Austin Colbert\/The Aspen Times)Austin Colbert\/The Aspen Times Make that four in a row for Kory Cool. No matter the distance, the high school track and field coach from Kansas has the Aspen Valley Marathon pretty […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1312392","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-20 17:07:29","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1312392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312392\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1312392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1312392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1312392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}