Zach Miller
Colorado is home to some of the world’s great trails and a who’s who of elite mountain runners. Half of the state is covered in mountain ranges and even the plains have an elevation of over 1,000m above sea level – it’s a runner’s paradise. I stayed and cooked with ultrarunner Zach Miller at his home and workplace, Barr Camp, an off-grid hikers’ refuge located halfway up Pikes Peak in Manitou Springs. The camp is 3,109m above sea level and the only way to get to it is a six-mile uphill hike on the Barr Trail. On my visit, we had the first snow of the year, so, although beautiful, that made the hike a little trickier.
After cooking nightly suppers for up to 50 guests for the last couple of years, it’s no surprise that Zach is a very good cook. He takes his food and nutrition seriously, eating mostly whole foods and few processed ingredients. ‘Eating is training,’ he says. ‘We are asking a lot from our bodies, so we need to be mindful of what we put back into them.’
The morning after I arrived, Zach invited me to join him for a run up towards the summit of Pikes Peak. After a breakfast of Neal’s Pikes Peak power pancakes, peanut butter and coffee, we set off uphill. The altitude hit me after a few hundred metres. After four miles we reached a plateau (3,800m) and I gestured for Zach to run on. I headed back to camp with a new admiration for anyone who can move so well at that elevation.
That evening, I cooked spaghetti with kale, rainbow chard, cavolo nero and roasted almonds for the 20 or so hungry hikers at the camp; a simple dish, but packed with flavour and all the nutrients needed after a big day in the mountains.
The next morning, Zach was already in the kitchen when I woke up. As I was about to head off, he was lacing up his shoes to run to the summit of Pikes Peak, at 4:30am.
For me, it was a run down to town. There was barely a cloud in the sky and much of the snow had melted, leaving the trail clear and the views spectacular.