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Marathon Details - Colfax Marathon

North America Marathons > USA > CO > Denver > Colfax Marathon

Colfax Marathon

Colfax Marathon & Half Marathon, 10 Miler, Marathon Relay, 5K

Denver, CO USA

May 18, 2025

http://www.runcolfax.org

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Race Details

2015 is your year to run the 10th Anniversary Colfax Marathon! Denver's ultimate urban tour: Marathon, Half Marathon, 5-person Marathon Relay, Urban 10 Miler and one big after party in City Park!

Contact Information

Name:	Wally
Address:	City Park Denver, CO 80206
Phone Number:	303-770-9600
Email:	Email the organizers

Race Organizer

10th Anniversary Colfax Marathon (8/24/14)

Colfax Marathon

2015 is your year to run the Colfax Marathon - Denver's springtime race! 26.2 epic miles of Denver's best landmarks: through Mile High Stadium, along 7 miles of rivers, lakes and bridges, through a fire station and on America's longest Main Street: Colfax Avenue. The Half Marathon is fast, flat and fun, with a one mile trek through Denver Zoo.
Run for one of 150 Charity Partners!
Register now for the 10th Anniversary race on Sunday, May 17, 2015 at www.runcolfax.org. The earlier you register, the lower the price.

Runner Reviews (87)

Course 3.6

Organization 3.7

Spectators 3.3

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Number of comments: 87 [displaying comments 1 to 11]

More Comments: [ < 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 9 > ]

N. S. from FL (5/23/2022) "Good Way to Get CO Done" (about: 2022) 11-50 previous marathons \| 1 Colfax Marathon COURSE: 4 ORGANIZATION: 4 FANS: 5 This course has less elevation changes in it than many in CO. However, it's still at altitude so, unless you live at altitude, expect it to feel tougher and be slower than your usual time. Organization was good, but there are a lot of races going on consecutively, which I'm not a big fan of (in addition to full & half, there was a relay, a 10 miler, and a 10k all on the same morning/venue). At least they didn't start at the same time haha. There's a 5k the day before- maybe they could shift the 10k & 10 miler to Saturday?? The course is okay; the highlight is running through Mile High Stadium twice. Also runs through a fire station (interesting). Otherwise standard stuff on roadways mostly. Some music and some nice spectators, great volunteers of course. 48th race marathon or longer distance for me, I recommend this race to anyone doing states that doeesn't want to seriously beat themselves up. :)
G. G. from Guadalajara, Mexico (6/25/2019) "Challenging course but few spectators" (about: 2019) 50+ previous marathons \| 1 Colfax Marathon COURSE: 4 ORGANIZATION: 5 FANS: 3 Very well organized, from the start (with each corral having 90 seconds difference, which allow you to run confortable the first miles) to the end (very well separated from the half marathon arrival). Nice to run through the fire department station (with entusiastic firefighters cheering), and also through the Mile High stadium and the Arts and Design Academia. I liked the course, despite the lack of spectators in some parts. A little bit difficult to run with relayers in the narrow parts, as they go with different pace. Also with the 10 milers, that made a small 'bottle neck' when they join marathoners for the last part of the course. Great job from the volunteers and police. Nice expo at Mile High, and very good technical shirt, which is very comfortable to run with. I think that they should have timing at the 13.1 mark. I agree that time splits could be better.
D. M. from Denver (5/21/2019) "Extremely well organized and staffed!" (about: 2019) 11-50 previous marathons \| 1 Colfax Marathon COURSE: 3 ORGANIZATION: 5 FANS: 2 The race-day coordination was extremely efficient. City Park is easy to access, the corrals and start sequence were the best I've encountered in 21 marathons and the water stops were well sequenced and staffed. For football fans, going to Mile High Stadium 3 times (once for registration and twice during the race) is awesome.
J. T. from Colorado (5/21/2019) "Good well run Marathon, but..." (about: 2019) 6-10 previous marathons \| 1 Colfax Marathon COURSE: 4 ORGANIZATION: 4 FANS: 2 To start off the marathon is well run. Everything you would need to run it as well as possible is there. Plentiful porta-potties. More aid stations then you need, I skipped a few of them. Packet pickup was orderly. Plenty of post race goodness at the end. They have a bag drop off that I didn't use because of where I parked, more on that latter. And plenty of fellow runners so the course doesn't feel empty for us mid packers. So it was well run. Getting there was easier then I expected. I live in Denver surrounded by the half marathon course. The half goes it's own way till about the last quarter mile. So I was expecting complications finding parking. I got out early and found a parking spot at the far end of the Zoo parking lot that was about 100 feet from where the end of the corrals are. So that was nice. Also where they tell you could be dropped off there too. It's closer then where they tell you to be dropped off if someone is driving there. The course is not a pr course. It's not flat. It's has hills. And there is a steep one around mile 23. But the course is nice. Running down the street that Jack Kerouac made famous is interesting. Other highlights include Running though mile high, running through a fire station, Sloans Lake and the Dragons and the finish at my running home City Park. Spectators are spread out in pockets along the course so there was long stretches with no one. West Colfax was the least supported section. But as you got on to 17th ave headed back to the park things got better. The timing mat placement was weird. Most races put them every 5k and at halfway. In Colfax the seemed to be placed to correspond with the marathon relay so the splits in the results are not nice and even distances. The not half split was annoying. Overall it was a good race.
B. B. from Pittsburgh, Pa (5/23/2018) "Lackluster Big City Marathon" (about: 2018) 50+ previous marathons \| 1 Colfax Marathon COURSE: 2 ORGANIZATION: 2 FANS: 2 A disappointment overall. While there were definite pluses for the race, especially the excellent start/finish area in City Park, this race did not have the excitement of a big city marathon. I detected no buzz in the city prior to the race and there were few spectators until the finish area, which was very nice. I found the water stations to be poorly organized. There was no water until mile 4, even though there seemed to be a crew of volunteers at mile 2 with no water to give. The placement of the other stations seemed haphazard and the stations seemed to be understaffed. I found the port a potties on the course to be inadequate. Where there were toilets they were clumped together, but one had to run long distances to find them. Finally, the course was way too narrow in spots. There was a lot of running on bike paths without much room to move. Even as late as mile 16, I still had to adjust my pace because of the crowding on the course. This was especially bad near the Urban 10 start area. This race does not seem worthy to be called Denver's Marathon. Lots of great beer choices in the city. We especially liked Wynkoop Brewing and Station 26. If you go, enjoy the city but keep expectations for the race muted.
D. D. from Las Vegas NV (5/20/2018) "Fun marathon in the mile high city!" (about: 2018) 11-50 previous marathons \| 1 Colfax Marathon COURSE: 4 ORGANIZATION: 5 FANS: 4 I was a bit concerned after reading reviews from last year but I need not have worried! The expo was smaller than with bigger marathons but good. We stayed at the Marriott cherry creek and had a nice shuttle to the race @5. The race started @6 so we had plenty of time for bag check-which was easy and smooth-and potty's. It was a bit hilly and the road was rough in patches but it was a great course circling a beautiful lake, running through the firehouse complete with high 5s from firefighters and a couple runs through the mile high stadium-which was a rubberized course and felt great on the legs. Cliff gels were served twice but you could take a coupe each time if needed. Water and Gatorade every 2 miles. Overall good race!
J. A. from Minnesota (5/23/2017) "Disappointed" (about: 2017) 11-50 previous marathons \| 1 Colfax Marathon COURSE: 3 ORGANIZATION: 2 FANS: 4 Not having run a bigger marathon in a while, I expected more. As a few people have noted, the 'packet' contains a bib/chip and your shirt. Period. This would be fine only the website does not give you much information either. At the expo, you had to run the gauntlet through the vendors with signs saying 'shortest way to your car' only at the end of the gauntlet, you were left on the other side of Mile High stadium. The race itself is very flat, but the bottlenecks are ridiculous for a race this size. Finally, they didn't have enough volunteers and someone needed to give them more training as several people kept stopping in front of runners while crossing over to hand out cups. I shouted to one elderly gentleman who was about to get knocked over by a runner too tired to suddenly veer around him. Also the volunteers were still setting up the second water stop when I came by (corral F). Denver is a great town, we had great weather, but the Colfax marathon left me disappointed. (This was my 40th state).
A. A. from Colorado (5/22/2017) "Nice course, unnecessarily crowded." (about: 2017) 4-5 previous marathons \| 1 Colfax Marathon COURSE: 4 ORGANIZATION: 4 FANS: 2 Course was a nice trip through Denver, weather was great. Limited spectator support along the course. The marathon field was decent size (about 1200) but the course felt very crowded in spots along the river and especially in finish chutes due to the large numbers of marathon relays and 10-milers who finish with the last 10 miles of the marathon. So if you like fresh runners zooming by every few miles and crowding the bottlenecks, this may be the race for you.
C. M. from CO (5/22/2017) "One of my annual Faves" (about: 2017) 11-50 previous marathons \| 6+ Colfax Marathons COURSE: 5 ORGANIZATION: 5 FANS: 5 I've run this marathon for the past 6 years. It's my annual fun race! I've run a lot of marathons and this is the most well organized marathon, with tons of community support, thousands of charity dollars going to local charities, and a weekend long running celebration. I love everything about this race (and lots of distance options!).
R. P. from Wilmington, Delaware (11/11/2016) "Very memorable marathon! Loved it, loved Denver!" (about: 2015) 11-50 previous marathons \| 1 Colfax Marathon COURSE: 5 ORGANIZATION: 5 FANS: 5 As a Denver native, but one whose family moved away when I was still a kid, I was thrilled to come back to the city of by birth and run a marathon on my 50th birthday. A friend painted a shirt for me that said 'I'm 50 today! Born 5/17/65 in Denver'. Literally hundreds of fellow runners and spectators wished me 'Happy Birthday!' during the race. My wife and son had no problem finding me several times on the course by driving around using the runner tracking info and GPS. I had no problems seeing them either, thanks to the huge '50' mylar balloons they were holding. A few people thought that parts of the course were ugly, particularly Colfax Avenue, but I don't feel like every mile has to be postcard worthy. It is historic - you run right by the Colorado Capitol building. You also run right past Casa Bonita, which to me in the 1970s, was the next best thing to Disney World. Sadly, this once iconic Mexican restaurant featuring divers and live music is a pathetic shadow of its former self. You also get to run right through a Fire Station. That was cool. The run through Mile High Stadium was fun, and the part around Sloan Lake was very pleasant (and flat, accounting for the fastest 2 miles of my race.) Weather was spectacular, with a brilliant blue sky and the snow-covered Rockies in full view. Temps were probably low 40s at the start, and maybe upper 50s by the time I finished. Start and finish at City Park was perfect. A fair amount of traffic, but parking was available at the Denver Nature & Science Museum (also worth checking out), and along neighborhood side streets. Overall, an excellent race experience. I highly recommend it.

More Comments: [ < 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 9 > ]



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N. S. from FL (5/23/2022) "Good Way to Get CO Done" (about: 2022) 11-50 previous marathons \| 1 Colfax Marathon COURSE: 4 ORGANIZATION: 4 FANS: 5 This course has less elevation changes in it than many in CO. However, it's still at altitude so, unless you live at altitude, expect it to feel tougher and be slower than your usual time. Organization was good, but there are a lot of races going on consecutively, which I'm not a big fan of (in addition to full & half, there was a relay, a 10 miler, and a 10k all on the same morning/venue). At least they didn't start at the same time haha. There's a 5k the day before- maybe they could shift the 10k & 10 miler to Saturday?? The course is okay; the highlight is running through Mile High Stadium twice. Also runs through a fire station (interesting). Otherwise standard stuff on roadways mostly. Some music and some nice spectators, great volunteers of course. 48th race marathon or longer distance for me, I recommend this race to anyone doing states that doeesn't want to seriously beat themselves up. :)
G. G. from Guadalajara, Mexico (6/25/2019) "Challenging course but few spectators" (about: 2019) 50+ previous marathons \| 1 Colfax Marathon COURSE: 4 ORGANIZATION: 5 FANS: 3 Very well organized, from the start (with each corral having 90 seconds difference, which allow you to run confortable the first miles) to the end (very well separated from the half marathon arrival). Nice to run through the fire department station (with entusiastic firefighters cheering), and also through the Mile High stadium and the Arts and Design Academia. I liked the course, despite the lack of spectators in some parts. A little bit difficult to run with relayers in the narrow parts, as they go with different pace. Also with the 10 milers, that made a small 'bottle neck' when they join marathoners for the last part of the course. Great job from the volunteers and police. Nice expo at Mile High, and very good technical shirt, which is very comfortable to run with. I think that they should have timing at the 13.1 mark. I agree that time splits could be better.
D. M. from Denver (5/21/2019) "Extremely well organized and staffed!" (about: 2019) 11-50 previous marathons \| 1 Colfax Marathon COURSE: 3 ORGANIZATION: 5 FANS: 2 The race-day coordination was extremely efficient. City Park is easy to access, the corrals and start sequence were the best I've encountered in 21 marathons and the water stops were well sequenced and staffed. For football fans, going to Mile High Stadium 3 times (once for registration and twice during the race) is awesome.
J. T. from Colorado (5/21/2019) "Good well run Marathon, but..." (about: 2019) 6-10 previous marathons \| 1 Colfax Marathon COURSE: 4 ORGANIZATION: 4 FANS: 2 To start off the marathon is well run. Everything you would need to run it as well as possible is there. Plentiful porta-potties. More aid stations then you need, I skipped a few of them. Packet pickup was orderly. Plenty of post race goodness at the end. They have a bag drop off that I didn't use because of where I parked, more on that latter. And plenty of fellow runners so the course doesn't feel empty for us mid packers. So it was well run. Getting there was easier then I expected. I live in Denver surrounded by the half marathon course. The half goes it's own way till about the last quarter mile. So I was expecting complications finding parking. I got out early and found a parking spot at the far end of the Zoo parking lot that was about 100 feet from where the end of the corrals are. So that was nice. Also where they tell you could be dropped off there too. It's closer then where they tell you to be dropped off if someone is driving there. The course is not a pr course. It's not flat. It's has hills. And there is a steep one around mile 23. But the course is nice. Running down the street that Jack Kerouac made famous is interesting. Other highlights include Running though mile high, running through a fire station, Sloans Lake and the Dragons and the finish at my running home City Park. Spectators are spread out in pockets along the course so there was long stretches with no one. West Colfax was the least supported section. But as you got on to 17th ave headed back to the park things got better. The timing mat placement was weird. Most races put them every 5k and at halfway. In Colfax the seemed to be placed to correspond with the marathon relay so the splits in the results are not nice and even distances. The not half split was annoying. Overall it was a good race.
B. B. from Pittsburgh, Pa (5/23/2018) "Lackluster Big City Marathon" (about: 2018) 50+ previous marathons \| 1 Colfax Marathon COURSE: 2 ORGANIZATION: 2 FANS: 2 A disappointment overall. While there were definite pluses for the race, especially the excellent start/finish area in City Park, this race did not have the excitement of a big city marathon. I detected no buzz in the city prior to the race and there were few spectators until the finish area, which was very nice. I found the water stations to be poorly organized. There was no water until mile 4, even though there seemed to be a crew of volunteers at mile 2 with no water to give. The placement of the other stations seemed haphazard and the stations seemed to be understaffed. I found the port a potties on the course to be inadequate. Where there were toilets they were clumped together, but one had to run long distances to find them. Finally, the course was way too narrow in spots. There was a lot of running on bike paths without much room to move. Even as late as mile 16, I still had to adjust my pace because of the crowding on the course. This was especially bad near the Urban 10 start area. This race does not seem worthy to be called Denver's Marathon. Lots of great beer choices in the city. We especially liked Wynkoop Brewing and Station 26. If you go, enjoy the city but keep expectations for the race muted.
D. D. from Las Vegas NV (5/20/2018) "Fun marathon in the mile high city!" (about: 2018) 11-50 previous marathons \| 1 Colfax Marathon COURSE: 4 ORGANIZATION: 5 FANS: 4 I was a bit concerned after reading reviews from last year but I need not have worried! The expo was smaller than with bigger marathons but good. We stayed at the Marriott cherry creek and had a nice shuttle to the race @5. The race started @6 so we had plenty of time for bag check-which was easy and smooth-and potty's. It was a bit hilly and the road was rough in patches but it was a great course circling a beautiful lake, running through the firehouse complete with high 5s from firefighters and a couple runs through the mile high stadium-which was a rubberized course and felt great on the legs. Cliff gels were served twice but you could take a coupe each time if needed. Water and Gatorade every 2 miles. Overall good race!
J. A. from Minnesota (5/23/2017) "Disappointed" (about: 2017) 11-50 previous marathons \| 1 Colfax Marathon COURSE: 3 ORGANIZATION: 2 FANS: 4 Not having run a bigger marathon in a while, I expected more. As a few people have noted, the 'packet' contains a bib/chip and your shirt. Period. This would be fine only the website does not give you much information either. At the expo, you had to run the gauntlet through the vendors with signs saying 'shortest way to your car' only at the end of the gauntlet, you were left on the other side of Mile High stadium. The race itself is very flat, but the bottlenecks are ridiculous for a race this size. Finally, they didn't have enough volunteers and someone needed to give them more training as several people kept stopping in front of runners while crossing over to hand out cups. I shouted to one elderly gentleman who was about to get knocked over by a runner too tired to suddenly veer around him. Also the volunteers were still setting up the second water stop when I came by (corral F). Denver is a great town, we had great weather, but the Colfax marathon left me disappointed. (This was my 40th state).
A. A. from Colorado (5/22/2017) "Nice course, unnecessarily crowded." (about: 2017) 4-5 previous marathons \| 1 Colfax Marathon COURSE: 4 ORGANIZATION: 4 FANS: 2 Course was a nice trip through Denver, weather was great. Limited spectator support along the course. The marathon field was decent size (about 1200) but the course felt very crowded in spots along the river and especially in finish chutes due to the large numbers of marathon relays and 10-milers who finish with the last 10 miles of the marathon. So if you like fresh runners zooming by every few miles and crowding the bottlenecks, this may be the race for you.
C. M. from CO (5/22/2017) "One of my annual Faves" (about: 2017) 11-50 previous marathons \| 6+ Colfax Marathons COURSE: 5 ORGANIZATION: 5 FANS: 5 I've run this marathon for the past 6 years. It's my annual fun race! I've run a lot of marathons and this is the most well organized marathon, with tons of community support, thousands of charity dollars going to local charities, and a weekend long running celebration. I love everything about this race (and lots of distance options!).
R. P. from Wilmington, Delaware (11/11/2016) "Very memorable marathon! Loved it, loved Denver!" (about: 2015) 11-50 previous marathons \| 1 Colfax Marathon COURSE: 5 ORGANIZATION: 5 FANS: 5 As a Denver native, but one whose family moved away when I was still a kid, I was thrilled to come back to the city of by birth and run a marathon on my 50th birthday. A friend painted a shirt for me that said 'I'm 50 today! Born 5/17/65 in Denver'. Literally hundreds of fellow runners and spectators wished me 'Happy Birthday!' during the race. My wife and son had no problem finding me several times on the course by driving around using the runner tracking info and GPS. I had no problems seeing them either, thanks to the huge '50' mylar balloons they were holding. A few people thought that parts of the course were ugly, particularly Colfax Avenue, but I don't feel like every mile has to be postcard worthy. It is historic - you run right by the Colorado Capitol building. You also run right past Casa Bonita, which to me in the 1970s, was the next best thing to Disney World. Sadly, this once iconic Mexican restaurant featuring divers and live music is a pathetic shadow of its former self. You also get to run right through a Fire Station. That was cool. The run through Mile High Stadium was fun, and the part around Sloan Lake was very pleasant (and flat, accounting for the fastest 2 miles of my race.) Weather was spectacular, with a brilliant blue sky and the snow-covered Rockies in full view. Temps were probably low 40s at the start, and maybe upper 50s by the time I finished. Start and finish at City Park was perfect. A fair amount of traffic, but parking was available at the Denver Nature & Science Museum (also worth checking out), and along neighborhood side streets. Overall, an excellent race experience. I highly recommend it.

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Marathon Details - Colfax Marathon