Watching the tens of thousands who routinely set off in the Bolder Boulder every year is a stirring sight, and one that often provides motivation for weekend warriors before and after the annual Memorial Day festival.
However, even if folks can’t actually make it to Boulder, the race’s influence still can be very powerful.
Gavin Holmes is one case in point. In even more extreme fashion, so is Todd Hinschberger.
Holmes, a 57-year-old teacher from the Gold Coast of Australia, has never been to Boulder. His only connection to Colorado is a friend that owns the Horse and Dragon Brewing Company in Fort Collins, a place he longs to visit but has yet to do so.
Hinschberger is a 39-year-old Wyoming native currently working as a power plant operator and mechanic at a research facility in Antarctica. After participating in the Colder Boulder last winter, Hinschberger will put new meaning into that phrase when he joins next week’s Bolder Boulder from his outpost at the South Pole.
Neither of these avid runners will be in Boulder on Monday. Yet both will proudly be among the hundreds who will participate via long distance when the 43rd Bolder Boulder takes off. For reference, Hinschberger will be about 9,000 miles from Boulder, Holmes a mere 8,000.
“We have weekly organized 5K runs and this led to me competing in the Gold Coast Marathon 10K event and other such events over the past few years,” Holmes told the Daily Camera via email. “My aim is to be in Boulder next year for the race, catch up with my mate at the H and D Brewery for a recovery ale or two and watch the Rockies play baseball in Denver. Hopefully, the Nuggets are in contention for the NBA Finals which would make being in Colorado at that time of year pretty cool. The organizing crew does an amazing job and really goes above and beyond to make sure the virtual runners have a fantastic experience.”
The self-professed “proud owner of a dad bod,” Holmes says he took up running as recently as 2018 and has run the Bolder Boulder virtually the past three years (in addition to Atlanta’s Peachtree 10K). Via his friend in Fort Collins, Holmes was introduced to the Bolder Boulder after participating virtually another sister event, the Fort Collins-based Fortitude 10K.
While Holmes will get to enjoy sandy beaches and scenic views of the Pacific Ocean for the 10K route he has mapped out for the Bolder Boulder, Hinschberger estimates it will require about 219 laps around the small gym at his outpost to cover the 10K route. Also unlike Holmes, Hinschberger has participated in the Bolder Boulder in person, running in 2018, and plans to return at some point.
Like any runner, Hinschberger would prefer to tackle this obstacle outside. Yet a two-mile outdoor excursion earlier this year made it clear he’d need another approach.
“I wanted to do it outside and earlier in the season we did a two-mile run outside and that kind of showed it wasn’t safe to do it,” Hinschberger said via email. “I would probably lose a finger or a toe to frostbite. The weather right now is usually between minus-70 (degrees Fahrenheit) and minus-90 and even with a small wind the wind chill is between minus-100 to minus -130. Last winter I was working at (the National Science Foundation’s) McMurdo Station which is on the coast and I did not think about doing the BB virtually but that is more reasonable to do it outside and if in the future if I work there I again I will probably do it outside.”
