Running against time through thin air.

Rob Starbuck would like everyone to read this article in The International Herald Tribune.

Manitou Springs, Colorado: The course follows old Ute tribe trails 20 miles up, down and around Pikes Peak, a narrow, gravely passage rising 7,815 feet to crest 14,110 feet above sea level. Tourists with respiratory ailments are cautioned against making such an ascent, even by car. Motorists on nearby roads are advised to employ manual transmission. Promotional materials for the summit warn of altitude sickness, lightning, hypothermia, rattlesnakes and wild animals carrying bubonic plague. Matt Carpenter expected to run it in about three hours.

At 44, Carpenter is known as the grand paladin of high-altitude distance running. In 1993, he set record times - still standing - for the 13.3-mile, or 21.3-kilometer, Pikes Peak Ascent and the Pikes Peak Marathon, races he won again in 2001 and 2007, both times on consecutive days. He has also set speed marks in a high-altitude flat-surface marathon, a 50-mile race and a 100-mile race.

"Somebody told me you don't know who you are until you do a 100-miler," Carpenter said. "I said, 'Damned if I'm going to die and not know who I am."'

Rob comments, "We will all know a lot more about ourselves after 65 miles and I for one will come away knowing who I am."

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