Martin Rodriguez to ride Delaware for Uvalde relief fund

On July 30, Seashore Strider Martin Rodriguez will bike ride the length of Delaware, starting in Wilmington and ending in Fenwick Island, to raise funds for the Uvalde, Texas Elementary School Shooting Relief Fund. The ride will be about 114 miles, essentially traveling on secondary roads until he gets to Smyrna. From Smyrna, it will be Route 113 to Route 13 through Dover and Camden. He will pick up Route 1 in the Magnolia area. From there, he will remain on Route 1 to Fenwick Island.

Another Jake challenge

In 2020, he threw the “I’m swimming from Cape May to Cape Henlopen” at me, then July 27, he stayed on land with an uphill challenge inside Rocky Mountain National Park.

It was an interesting day, as I drove to the top of Estes Park with an elevation of 12,100 feet as my son, Jake Bamforth and teammate Ben Randal ran an uphill half marathon to get to the top. They started at 8,000 feet and climbed to 12,183 feet in 2:15:00 on Old Fall River Road. What I learned is that many runners do loop courses in the park with hundreds of miles of trails, and most of the trails have uphill and downhill segments, but very few athletes do straight uphill workouts. “The trend in high-level athletes is to go train at higher elevations for increased fitness, and more high-level athletes do uphill runs to reduce the stress and pounding that downhill running puts on your body,” said Jake. “It is much more difficult to run at higher elevations the higher you go. For example, going from 0 feet to 5,000 feet in Ft. Collins for a Delaware runner is far easier than going from 8,000 to 12,000, as we did today. The air is simply thinner.”

When asked why they chose this run or challenge, Jake said, “We have talked about doing this run for a while, and we were looking for any last-minute fitness to grab before we compete in a big well-known tri called the Boulder 70.3 Aug. 6.”

Estes Park is a town in northern Colorado. It’s known as a base for the Rocky Mountain National Park, home to wildlife including elk and bears, plus miles of trails. The park’s Trail Ridge Road winds past craggy peaks, forests and tundra. Nearby are the wilderness areas of Roosevelt National Forest. The Estes Park Aerial Tramway connects the town to the summit of Prospect Mountain for views over the valley.

Old Fall River Road was the first auto route that led to the high country in Rocky Mountain National Park. It opened in 1920. Unlike the newer Trail Ridge Road, which is well known for being the highest continuous paved road in the nation, the Old Fall River Road is much more a motor nature trail. The difference I saw was that Trail Ridge Road had some guardrails, while Old Fall River Road had no sides to the road.

Rocky Mountain National Park's heavily traveled highway to the sky, called Trail Ridge Road, inspired awe before the first motorist ever traveled it. "It is hard to describe what a sensation this new road is going to make," predicted Horace Albright, director of the National Park Service, in 1931 during the road's construction. "You will have the whole sweep of the Rockies before you in all directions."

The next year, Rocky Mountain National Park's lofty wilderness interior was introduced to the first travelers along an auto route the Rocky Mountain News called a "scenic wonder road of the world." Trail Ridge Road is one of 10 America's Byways in Colorado and a nationally designated All American Road.