The Nine Who Dared
Teens Bring New Meaning To Walking Colfax
Story and photos by Cara DeGette
GPHN Editor

There were no fancy support crews, no million-dollar sponsorships. Throngs of fans didn’t turn out to cheer them along. It was just nine East High School buddies out walking the entire 50-mile stretch of what Playboy once called the longest, wickedest street in the world.
In one day.
And walk the entire 50 miles of Colfax they did. On Oct. 20, the nine young men, all seniors, finished in 18 hours and 45 minutes. That’s an average of 2.7 miles per hour.
“We finished at just about 11:30 p.m., and we all made it — barely,” reported Carson Lerner. “We were all hurting pretty bad by the end, but we pushed through.”
Colfax is notorious for, among other things, being the longest continuous commercial street in America. Walking the entire stretch on one day was a feat the teenagers don’t believe anyone has ever done before. Their research found that in 2015 a speedwalker named Liz Thomas walked all of Colfax over two days. In 2019, Westword wrote about photographer William Horstmann-Craig spending a couple weeks walking the street. But one day? Nope.
The teenagers did it to raise awareness of just how un-walkable most cities are. This topic is clearly something they are passionate about. And, they added difficulty to their Oct. 20 challenge — they walked uphill, from east to west, rather than the downhill route. They chose that option for a couple reasons: experiencing the thrill of the early morning big prairie, and so they could make it through the less safe stretches of Colfax during daylight.
They began their journey at the street’s easternmost end, nearly 34 miles away in rural Strasburg. It was 4:45 a.m. They saw the stars and walked through sunrise. A skunk crossed their path. An hour or so in they were briefly stopped by a state trooper who wanted to know why nine high school boys were just out walking. They pushed ahead, playing word games. They saw lots and lots of roadkill. Passing truckers honked encouragement.
They felt relief, and a rush, when they finally arrived to civilization and the city began to grow around them. Their weirdest encounter? “We actually saw the stolen truck of a friend of ours being carried on a semi-truck — all the way out on Colfax and Dunkirk!”
They stayed hydrated and felt the blisters rising. They popped a few ibuprofen. Everyone they encountered was friendly. No one turned them away from using the facilities when they needed a break. Reid’s dad showed up at some point and supplied them with Snarf’s sandwiches. A little after 4 p.m. they crossed into Park Hill, where most of them live. They cheered. Just 16 miles to go.
The morning after, Lerner confirmed that “Everybody woke up and none of us can walk because of how sore our feet and legs are!”
So how walkable is Colfax?
“We found, as we knew, that a lot of it is super un-walkable. We were forced to walk on skinny sidewalks right next to traffic, and we had to spend a couple miles on the shoulder of highways. All of these obstacles reminded us of our cause — advocating for walkable cites, both in Denver and elsewhere.”
The only media they alerted to their record-seeking challenge was their local newspaper (thanks for the scoop, guys!). They don’t have plans to report their victory to the Guinness Book of World Records.
“It is more of a local record than a world one,” Lerner said. That said, “if someone else completes it faster than us, and takes our record, we may have to do it again to win it back.”