A mountain runner headed into the Colorado hills late Sunday night with a committed support crew, a sturdy training base, and a big goal.
On July 31, Andrea Sansone set out to break a coveted Colorado mountain running record — anxiously. The athlete’s challenge was to summit the most ever 14,000-foot peaks in the state in under 24 hours.
The mark stood at 11, and she and her partner Andrew Hamilton had built a plan to put her atop 12. Sansone had trained rigorously for the task, but according to Hamilton, she still felt plenty of nervous energy the day before she took it on.
“Andrea doesn’t like posting her attempts beforehand because I think she has a serious fear of failing,” Hamilton said on the running forum 14ers.com. “But I convinced her to let me do it because I’m totally confident she will do great and so that those of you who are interested can watch.”
Long story short, she did great. Sansone tagged one peak after another in a concerted effort that ended after she summited Mt. Evans (14,265 feet) early this morning. It was 8:01 a.m. local time, and Sansone had just completed 39 miles and a staggering 40,000 feet of elevation change to break the men’s and women’s records for the most “Fourteeners” in 24 hours.
And it only took her 22.
View this post on Instagram
As soon as she hit the mark 3,000 feet below the Mt. Evans summit, thus technically completing the challenge, 14ers.com erupted with congratulations. (In Colorado’s mountain running culture, the “3,000-foot” rule demands that athletes ascend and descend at least 3,000 feet on any peak or group of peaks.)