I’m not officially adding this to my bucket list quite yet because quite frankly, I don’t know whether I have what it takes to finish this thing. But I found a race perhaps like no other: the Pike’s Peak Marathon. Even non-runners have heard of the big marathons like New York and Boston, but this one is much smaller and MUCH more difficult. It starts around 6300 feet at the foot of Pike’s Peak and climbs to the summit at 14,115 feet and then back down. That’s about 7800 vertical feet in a span of roughly 13 miles before you reverse it, a grade of roughly 11 percent.

Sweet. Holy. Moly.

They say you can estimate your time to the summit (roughly a half-marathon) by adding 30 minutes to your normal full-marathon time. At the summit there’s roughly half as much oxygen as you have at sea level. The winning men’s time is usually close to four hours, compared to just over two hours for the world record on a flat course. The course limit is ten hours.

I might never get to try it, but if I did, I’ll bet it would be one of the most memorable experiences of my life.