{"id":1313423,"date":"2019-08-10T21:08:01","date_gmt":"2019-08-11T03:08:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/aspen-olympian-noah-hoffman-wins-backcountry-marathon\/"},"modified":"2019-08-10T21:08:01","modified_gmt":"2019-08-11T03:08:01","slug":"aspen-olympian-noah-hoffman-wins-backcountry-marathon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/aspen-olympian-noah-hoffman-wins-backcountry-marathon\/","title":{"rendered":"Aspen Olympian Noah Hoffman wins Backcountry Marathon"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Aspen’s Noah Hoffman approaches the finish line of the Aspen Backcountry Marathon on Saturday, Aug. 10, 2019, at Rio Grande Park. Hoffman, a former professional cross-country skier and two-time Olympian, won the race in 3 hours, 30 minutes. (Photo by Austin Colbert\/The Aspen Times)<\/strong>
Austin Colbert\/The Aspen Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

His professional skiing career behind him, Noah Hoffman has dialed back the training, only doing enough to take part in \u201cadventures\u201d in between going to classes at Brown University in Rhode Island.<\/p>\n

Yet, the natural athleticism that led him to a pair of Olympic Games doesn\u2019t disappear overnight, nor does the knowledge that comes with years of racing at the highest level.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had no idea what my fitness was going to be like,\u201d Hoffman said. \u201cKnowing how to race is a huge thing, and I have so much experience racing that absolutely that\u2019s a huge advantage. I was a little nervous at the start, but once I got out there I was, \u2018Oh, I\u2019ve done this hundreds of times.\u2019 I know what racing is like.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hoffman traded in the snow for the dirt on Saturday, returning to his home to take part in the ninth annual Aspen Backcountry Marathon for the first time. Looking every bit like a professional athlete, Hoffman won the race in 3 hours, 30 minutes, 2.18 seconds, beating Gunnison\u2019s Joshua Eberly by about eight minutes and third-place finisher Chris Copenhaver of Fort Collins by 15 minutes.<\/p>\n

Eberly won the Aspen Backcountry Marathon in 2018 and won the Audi Power of Four 50-kilometer trail race only a month ago in Snowmass, so Hoffman\u2019s victory was certainly earned.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always wanted to do this race, but it never quite fit into my training schedule when I was an athlete. So this was the summer to come back and do it, finally check it out,\u201d Hoffman said. \u201cI was a little nervous about the distance, for sure. I\u2019ve never raced anywhere near this far. My longest races in skiing were two hours, plus or minus, and this is three and a half. So it\u2019s a big jump.\u201d<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s been a while, Hoffman isn\u2019t exactly new to running. As a senior at Aspen High School, he won the Class 3A state cross country championship in 2006 before embarking on a successful cross-country skiing career that included competing in both the 2014 and 2018 Winter Olympics. Hoffman retired from skiing following the 2017-18 season and the Pyeongchang Games.<\/p>\n

\u201cI almost walked away that year before Pyeongchang and I\u2019m so glad I went to one more Olympics and skied that last year,\u201d Hoffman said. \u201cBut I really feel I\u2019m at peace with the decision (to retire). I didn\u2019t really miss it that much. I was excited to cheer on my teammates from afar.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hoffman will soon head back to Brown for his sophomore year where he is tentatively studying economics and public policy, although he hasn\u2019t officially declared a major. While having a two-time Olympian in class with you might be unique, Hoffman probably stands out more for being a 30-year-old sophomore more than anything.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a little interesting being in class with 18 year olds,\u201d Hoffman said. \u201cMy social life, as you\u2019d imagine, is not centered around my classmates so much. There are other people in the community that are closer to my age. It was not as hard as I anticipated to get back into the groove. Brown did a great job of supporting me and the professors are wonderful. So I\u2019m looking forward to going back this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

PERSYN REPEATS AS WOMEN\u2019S CHAMPION<\/p>\n

Kelsey Persyn\u2019s first significant win as a trail runner came when she torched the field by more than 40 minutes in the 2018 Aspen Backcountry Marathon. Her margin of victory was a mere nine minutes on Saturday, but it\u2019s still a repeat title for the 23-year-old Texas native.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt a little pressure going into it,\u201d Persyn said of being the defending champ. \u201cThis is like my third trail race ever and I love them, so I\u2019m hoping to go down that path eventually and see how far I can go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Persyn won the women\u2019s marathon in 4:17:52.86, holding off Aspen\u2019s Julia Rowland (4:26) and Boulder\u2019s Anna Widdowson (4:30) for the title.<\/p>\n

A former track and cross country runner at Texas A&M, Persyn has spent the past couple of summers working as a park ranger at Rocky Mountain National Park. Her ties to the Aspen area go back a few years, as she also won the 2016 Aspen Valley Marathon road race.<\/p>\n

Persyn said she was using the Aspen Backcountry Marathon as training for the upcoming Grand Traverse trail run, which goes from Crested Butte to Aspen.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt felt really good. I didn\u2019t have hope that I was going to be the winner until a mile \u2018til,\u201d she said. \u201cI made sure my focus was just to focus on yourself and have fun with it. Results are going to come if you just have fun. But it was a different course this year. It was more in reverse, so it was kind of cool to see it from a different angle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also repeating as a champion was James Gregory of Fort Collins, who won Saturday\u2019s half marathon in 1:57:54.21. Only 17, he will be a high school senior this year and finished 16th in the Class 5A state cross country meet last fall.<\/p>\n

Denver\u2019s Rob Kosick was second among men in 2:05 and Jason Contino of Manitou Springs was third in 2:07.<\/p>\n

Golden\u2019s Brittany Charboneau took the women\u2019s half marathon title in 2:02:50.42, which was good for second overall behind only Gregory. Norway\u2019s Yngvild Kaspersen was second (2:11) among women and Lauren Warkentin of Edwards was third (2:27).<\/p>\n

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

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

Aspen’s Noah Hoffman approaches the finish line of the Aspen Backcountry Marathon on Saturday, Aug. 10, 2019, at Rio Grande Park. Hoffman, a former professional cross-country skier and two-time Olympian, won the race in 3 hours, 30 minutes. (Photo by Austin Colbert\/The Aspen Times)Austin Colbert\/The Aspen Times His professional skiing career behind him, Noah Hoffman […]<\/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-1313423","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-24 02:24:11","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\/1313423","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=1313423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1313423\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1313423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1313423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1313423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}