When he made it, he burst into tears.

“I felt like Forrest Gump,” Lauterbach said. “I ran, and I just cried. It’s been incredible.”

The 58-year-old, diagnosed with multiple sclerosis eight years ago, thought his running days were long over. But playing pingpong, he said, had brought back the gift of running.

Lauterbach credits table tennis for a vast improvement in his overall mobility. The Colorado-based NeuroPong program he participates in is now being researched by scientists investigating the link between neurodegenerative conditions and the game often associated with parents’ basements.

After his diagnosis, Lauterbach dealt with neuropathy along the right side of his body that rendered the movement of his arm, hand, leg and foot difficult. He developed balance problems and could no longer run or ride his bike around Fort Collins.

But about a year ago, Lauterbach received an email from the Multiple Sclerosis Society about a pingpong group established to help people with neurodegenerative diseases like MS, Parkinson’s and dementia.

The NeuroPong program, led by founder and CEO Antonio Barbera, marries medicine with the love of the game. Barbera brings his 31 years as a physician — interrupted by an MS diagnosis in 2017 — while 27-year-old Peruvian table tennis champion Francesca Vargas provides the pingpong expertise as head coach and fellow MS patient.

After about three months of sessions inside a Fort Collins church gymnasium under the tutelage of Barbera and Vargas, Lauterbach began regaining his balance and learning actual pingpong technique.

Researchers at the Movement Disorders Center on the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus were so intrigued by the anecdotal success stories they heard that they began studying the NeuroPong players’ symptoms and tracking their improvements for their research.

“Table tennis is not a miracle,” Barbera said. “The paddle is not a miracle. What is magic is your brain.”

Bridging physical, mental and social health

Barbera, a gynecologist for more than 30 years, lost his ability to work after his MS hindered control of his right arm and leg. He also experienced chest tightness, an uncomfortable feeling Barbera likened to an elephant sitting on his torso.

In 2019, Barbera was playing pingpong in his garage with his son when he noticed something.

“It was like the elephant was sitting in a chair on the other side of the room, leaving me alone,” he said.

Barbera felt better when he played the tabletop game, but the former physician wanted the backing of science to better understand why. He consulted neurologists, physical therapists and scientists to learn more about how exercise and socialization can improve cognitive function and whether pingpong might be an ideal form of rehabilitation for people with neurodegenerative diseases.

The motor function, quick decision-making, hand-eye coordination and side-to-side movement involved in table tennis could be a perfect storm for boosting cognitive function, he thought.

Barbera founded NeuroPong in 2021.

Now, he oversees the program with about 60 players between Boulder and Fort Collins sessions. Players come in various skill levels. Some have trouble walking and standing. Some use a wheelchair. Others have tremors or little control over their limbs, Barbera said. Many have never before picked up a paddle.

Players range in age from young folks to those in their 90s and have different neurodegenerative conditions that impact their nervous systems.

When a new player joins the crew, Barbera assesses them to see where they should begin. Some players hang onto the pingpong table and practice walking back and forth along it or tossing the ball into the air and catching it. Barbera and Vargas hover close by, keeping an eye on players’ balance and movement control.

Vargas teaches basic table tennis techniques, including how to serve and hit. She practices with the players, lobbing the ball in such a way as to set them up for success.

A successful volley is not the ultimate goal, though.

“What I care about most is the entire person,” Barbera said.

Patients’ mental health is considered, too, as Barbera and researchers inquire how players are feeling emotionally and socially.

For Lauterbach, the group has provided a community of people who understand what he’s going through — friends who can grab a coffee together after sessions.

Earlier this month, Lauterbach beamed in the Fort Collins church gymnasium while demonstrating his ableness to balance on one leg — something he once couldn’t do — while surrounded by his newfound friends.

“There is fellowship, and that helps, too,” Lauterbach said. “I work my whole schedule around pingpong because I hate missing it.”

Research is promising

Vargas also goes to great lengths to attend NeuroPong.

To get to her head coaching job, the 27-year-old bikes to a bus stop in her Highlands Ranch neighborhood, rides the bus to Fort Collins and then bikes to the church the group uses as home base before doing it all again to head home.

When the Peruvian professional pingpong player was diagnosed with MS two years ago, she thought her days of table tennis were over. Dizziness, balance and vision problems plagued her, but the athletic young woman felt she couldn’t let the diagnosis define her.

Instead, Vargas got back in the saddle with her pingpong paddle and competed in another Peruvian table tennis championship six months after her diagnosis — and won.

“Something inside me said I could do it,” Vargas said.

Vargas vacationed in Denver to visit friends soon after and ended up connecting with Barbera.

The pingpong champion had been private about her diagnosis, only telling close friends and family, because the medical condition put her in a dark place, she said.

Barbera offered her a job and a chance to be open about her journey, which Vargas couldn’t resist.

“Maybe this is my destiny, to help people that are doing the same as me and going through the same as me,” she said.

Throughout a recent NeuroPong practice, Vargas was met with smiling hugs from her trainees, who gushed over her friendliness and dedication. Vargas volleyed the ball back and forth, coaching with kindness and encouragement while Barbera came around correcting posture, recommending stretches and assessing how everyone was faring.

“I can see that this program is improving people’s symptoms,” Vargas said. “People are getting stronger. People who could not stand on their own at first are now doing so. People are having better control of their movements. They tell me they can open jars when they couldn’t before. It’s really improving quality of life.”

So far, the science agrees.

Matthew Woodward, a fellow at CU Anschutz’s Movement Disorders Center, said the results of their studies to date — looking at outcomes like balance improvement, movement and mood — show no negative results. The results need to be tested on a larger population to be statistically significant, Woodward said, but the research — this first study focuses solely on Parkinson’s disease — looks promising.

Additional research is on the way, Barbera said.

Exercise is the only thing doctors and scientists have found to slow the progression of Parkinson’s, Woodward said. He recommends 30 minutes of exertion, four to five times per week.

Table tennis is unique in that it combines several challenges to stimulate the brain, including hand-eye coordination, balance, motor functions and speed, while also being a bit more low-impact and manageable than other sports, Woodward said.

Mark Kelley, 73, helped pack up the pingpong tables in the Fort Collins church after a November practice with his friends.

The program is so much more than pingpong, he said. The physical therapy and friendship have changed his life.

“When I’m playing, it’s like my Parkinson’s melts away,” Kelley said.

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“He called me out of the blue,” Olmsted said recently, two months after her son passed away at age 26 due to medical complications related to his cerebral palsy. “He said, ‘I watched Luke and saw how much joy he had with someone pushing him fast on the track. I’m a runner, and it got me thinking, how fun would it be to push him in a race? I’m just calling to ask your permission. Would you give us the blessing of doing a race together?”’

“Are you kidding?” she replied. “We would love to do that.”

Thus began a relationship that enriched Luke’s life throughout his four years at Alameda and the eight years that followed, until he passed away on Aug. 31. At a celebration of life held in Golden Gate Canyon State Park, Lakewood police commander Randy McNitt described the bond between Luke and Chavez as a “bromance.”

Luke and Chavez did a half dozen races together, most of them half marathons. Chavez worked with the school’s athletic department to have Luke awarded a letter in track and field, which he received at a school assembly in his honor. The student body gave him a standing ovation.

“We’ve worked really hard together,” Chavez said the day Luke received his letter. “I know that sounds a little weird, but as much as I push him, he pushes me.”

Chavez also pushed Luke in his wheelchair at his graduation ceremony in 2015.

“When we put him in Alameda High School, I wanted him to be around typical kids, but I was a little concerned about his safety because sometimes kids can be  extremely cruel,” said Luke’s father, Mark. “Moose being there definitely helped that. He probably facilitated all the other kids embracing Luke. I think he helped build that link for all those kids to see Luke as a person.”

Chavez, who is in his 15th year as an SRO at Alameda, says he can’t find adequate words to describe the depth of his relationship with Luke.

RELATED: “Luke pushed us through,” officer says after half marathon in 2013. “All I did was steer.”

“When we were together, you could tell he was happy,” Chavez said. “He couldn’t talk, but he would make this awesome sound that just made you feel so good. It just got to your heart, like, ‘Wow, I actually did something.’ I will never know if he was truly happy with me running, or just happy that I paid attention to him. People like Luke, special needs students, are always forgotten. Or people are afraid to interact with them because they don’t know how. They’re the forgotten class of students.”

On race days, Luke was always raring to go.

“He was wired,” Gretchen said. “He loved it. I think it was about all the people, being around all that energy, being with Moose, being partners in the race with Moose.”

Gretchen hopes Alameda grads who saw the devotion Chavez had for Luke when they were classmates will remember it now, at a time when the presence of armed school resource officers has become controversial to some school districts, like Denver.

“He went above and beyond, trying to keep Luke included,” Olmsted said. “Moose always saw the possibility, not the disability with Luke, and it inspired us.”

Chavez is saddened by the “negative connotations” some apply to SROs, saying he spends more time advocating and standing up for students than arresting them.

“Arresting is easy,” Chavez said last month in his office at Alameda. “I’m not just here to arrest you, I’m here to help you. If you read or watch the news, we’re all blackhearts and robots, and we’re taking kids to prison more than we are to graduation. My thought is, I fail kids if I don’t help them get to graduation. Without that simple piece of paper from high school, I know they’re going to suffer because I have family members who suffered, not having that little piece of paper. I hope, and I push kids to be better.”

Luke was born at 27 weeks, Gretchen said, “fighting for his life.” He spent eight weeks in the neonatal ICU at Lutheran Hospital before coming home. Despite his struggles and limitations, he grew up with plenty of personality and spirit.

“He was non-verbal, but man, could he tell you a lot just with his eyes and his facial expressions,” Gretchen said. “We used to call him Happy Go Lukey, because he was just so smiley, happy in the moment. His name translates to ‘light,’ so we named him very appropriately. A lot of people said Luke lit up the room. He would laugh at you. Like, if we got upset or frustrated, he would just giggle. He was such a teacher for us.

“We knew he was on loan to us. We also knew that more than likely, we were going to outlive him.”

Luke had two major hospital stays prior to the third one this year that preceded his death. The first one in 2018 nearly cost him his life. Chavez spent a night with him during that stay so his parents could go home and get a good night’s sleep. There was another long hospital stay in 2020 during the pandemic. His final hospital stay began on Aug. 6.

Experiencing serious lung and bowel problems, Luke was discharged to a hospice facility on Aug. 31. His parents planned to bring him home, but the doctor advised against that. Gretchen said Luke came “undone” when they put him on the gurney for transport because he sensed something was wrong.

“He was a brave kid,” Gretchen said, “but he fell apart when he realized that we were not taking him home.”

An hour and 12 minutes after arriving at the hospice facility, Luke died in his mother’s arms.

“I’m so sad to see him gone,” said his father, “but the suffering is over, and I am so thankful I had those 26 years with him. It was absolutely the best gift of my life.”

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Officially called The Outside Lab at CU Denver, its mission will be to provide a space where faculty, students, Outside editors and entrepreneurs in the outdoors industry can test skiing, running, hiking gear and other outdoors equipment using highly sophisticated machinery.

Outside will use laboratory findings to enhance gear review features across its platforms by introducing objective testing data to augment subjective field tests, while students will gain valuable experience operating in a laboratory setting, the university said.

“They might create the next Gore-Tex,” said Outside chief executive Robin Thurston, a CU Denver grad. “Obviously we already have a very robust outdoor industry, but it creates an opportunity for even more start-ups and outdoor companies to come to Colorado for a whole number of reasons — for brands, for individual entrepreneurs — and ultimately all this will benefit the consumer because they’re going to end up getting better products, more innovative products, better materials, even crash-testing for helmets.

“CU has really taken a visionary position on this, on how to get diverse students into the lab, how to expose the lab to their engineering department, as well as other programs,” he added.

Colorado’s outdoor industry has a $9.6-billion impact on the state’s GDP annually, according to the Colorado Office of Economic Development & International Trade.

The College of Engineering, Design and Computing will manage the lab, which received $200,000 from the Colorado State Outdoor Recreation Grant Program, according to Conor Hall, director of Colorado’s Outdoor Recreation Industry Office.

The college already has some testing equipment, according to Dean Martin L. Dunn, but much more is coming. “We’re kind of working on things ranging from behavior of wear of shoes to behavior of skis, helmets, even an area we’re soon going to be ramping up, (testing) permeability and behavior of garments,” Dunn said.

“Being able to exercise our engineering chops on really cool products that students will be able to see in a few months, when they’re at the ski lift seeing a pair of skis and saying, ‘Hey, I worked on those skis in the lab,'” he added.

The seed of the idea came from Thurston, who was chief digital officer at Under Armour, a sportswear company, from 2013-16.

“We had a very robust, amazing innovation lab,” Thurston recalled. “It was everything from 3D printing to reliability testing to fabric testing in heat and cold rooms. Having had the experience of seeing an innovation lab like that, I felt like there was a big opportunity to have something that was more open to the industry as a whole, a place where start-up founders could potentially come and test their products, a place for Outside to do more in-depth reviews similar to a Consumer Reports — which does a lot of lab testing on products — but in the outdoor category. CU Denver was just the perfect partner for that.”

For example, Outside gear guru Will Taylor foresees being able to measure the flex and torsional stiffness of skis with a machine that can test a lot of skis in a short period of time. That data can be combined with subjective on-mountain testing conducted by teams of Outside’s expert skiers, which is how skis have been tested for gear reviews for decades.

“You’re bringing those two things together to create very compelling results for our readership,” Taylor said. “We can be like, ‘OK, we felt this ski flex this way on the mountain. We think it compares with this other ski in this way.’ Now we’re going to be able to go to the lab and test that and see if we’re right. Our goal is to give the best objective gear reviews that we can. This takes us light years ahead of where we were before.”

Another machine will be able to test the durability of hiking boots, trail running shoes and road running shoes by simulating the human gait in hiking and running over hundreds of miles in a matter of days to identify the most durable footwear.

“You can take measurements of how the midsole has been affected, how the traction on the bottom has been affected, whether things are wearing evenly or not,” Taylor said.

Students will benefit by gaining experience that is hard to get elsewhere, preparing them for jobs at outdoors industry giants such as Patagonia and VF, a Denver-based outdoors company that includes The North Face, JanSport, Timberland, Eastpak, Smartwool and Vans.

“The student part of it is super cool,” Taylor said. “Engineers that I’ve talked to, these are outdoors people that are like, ‘We wish we had this opportunity when we were in college, that we could touch these machines, work with them, instead of having to get on-the-job training.’ We’re really hoping we can provide a well-trained workforce for people like VF, or maybe it’s one person who’s building bike frames and can use someone who knows how to use the equipment so they can test that stuff. There’s a multitude of ways a student with that training could go into the work force.”

Facilitating the lab at CU Denver fits with the mission of the state’s Outdoor Recreation Industry Office to attract outdoor industry players to Colorado. The grant from the state will be used largely for purchasing more testing equipment.

“In this industry, the big players — the VFs and Patagonias of the world — have their own gear testing labs, but very few others do,” Hall said. “They don’t have the size and economies of scale to make that practical. It’s a great opportunity for our industry here, and a really attractive thing for companies looking to come to Colorado. We see the value in this, and we’re going to do everything we can to help this effort succeed.”

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The company, which owns the train and the segment of track it was running on, said this week that it used a combination of techniques to test the track in the months and hours before Sunday afternoon’s derailment. The disclosure in response to media questions comes as federal officials are investigating the crash, which killed a truck driver and closed Interstate 25 for several days after a rail bridge collapsed onto the highway.

BNSF’s communications staff did not provide detail on the exact timing of the inspections, but Lena Kent, the railway’s general director of public affairs, said Wednesday that the most recent inspection of the track section occurred Sunday prior to the incident.

On Tuesday, investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board said they believe the crash was caused by a broken rail on the track just east of the I-25 bridge — a failure that one expert said normally is caught by detection equipment “99.99%” of the time.

“Nothing is 100%,” said Allan Zarembski, the director of the University of Delaware’s Railway Engineering and Safety Program.

He said the ultrasonic equipment used to test and look for rail breaks is the industry standard and state of the art. “When you’re in the 99.9% or 99.99% success rate, it’s really, really difficult to pick up those outliers.”

Railroads identify roughly 200,000 broken rails every year, Zarembski said, and there are usually 60 to 80 derailments caused by broken rails annually. The rails typically break because of “internal fatigue,” he said, the result of steel bearing “millions and millions” of loads.

It’s a serious issue, he said, though railroads “tend to do a very effective job” of identifying and fixing them.

Still, inspections — like those using ultrasonic detection methods — can miss the breaks if they’re too small or if there’s something on top of the rail blocking the detection.

Thirty of the BNSF train’s 124 cars derailed Sunday, spilling coal and debris across the interstate and likely triggering the bridge collapse that killed 60-year-old truck driver Lafollette Henderson, the NTSB said.

The NTSB’s derailment investigation may not conclude for a year or two, agency officials said this week, and the agency may not confirm the cause until that work is finished. But investigators are expected to issue a preliminary report in the coming weeks.

Generally speaking, Zarembski said, the moment when broken rails fail is often while a train is on top of them.

“It’s not unusual to have a broken rail under a train going at full speed. And when that happens, there can be a lot of damage,” he said.

I-25 was open in both directions as of late Thursday afternoon, after a partial reopening of the southbound side Wednesday.

Though the derailment happened Sunday, throughout the week state and railroad officials were sorting out who owned the collapsed bridge, which was built in 1958, and who had ultimate authority for its maintenance.

Zarembski, the University of Delaware expert, said he’d never seen such ownership confusion before.

“It’s the first time I’ve heard of it,” he said. “I’ve never heard of a situation where nobody knows who owns the bridge.”

A spokeswoman for the NTSB previously told the Post that the bridge didn’t have a name. It also doesn’t appear in publicly available federal bridge records. On Wednesday, Colorado Department of Transportation spokesman Matt Inzeo identified the bridge by its official designation.

It does appear in state records, where its condition is rated as “poor,” and Inzeo said it was not part of a federal schedule of bridges requiring regular state inspection. But CDOT confirmed that the state inspected the structure in 2022. The Post has requested records from that and other state-run inspections, though Inzeo said they may not be released until after the NTSB completes its investigation.

The state and the railroad appear to have decided on a path forward: Spokespeople for CDOT and BNSF told The Denver Post that the railway would assume responsibility for replacing the bridge.

“I can confirm that BNSF does have responsibility for inspections and maintenance of the structure and will be replacing the bridge,” Kent from BNSF said in an email.

The railway will continue handling inspections and maintenance of the bridge once it’s replaced, CDOT’s Inzeo said.

Saturday. Join Woods Boss Brewing, which is a bright spot downtown, as it shuts down the 2200 block of California Street for its fourth annual Block Party. There will be outdoor games, live music, special beer releases and collaboration beers, and a marketplace with more than 50 local arts and food vendors. Several neighboring businesses will also be participating.

The event “aims to bring together the incredible community in this rapidly growing and changing area of Denver and remind folks that there are some great businesses in Denver’s Ballpark District,” the brewery said. The party runs from noon to 10 p.m. at 2210 California St. It is free to attend and open to all ages. woodsbossbrewing.com.

Choctoberfest’s sweet bounty

Saturday. It just wouldn’t be Colorado culture without a beer: this year’s Choctoberfest, the toothsome celebration of all things dark and sweet, is back with samples and to-go boxes from dozens of regional and national vendors, organizers said.

That means chocolate candy, cakes and pastries, truffles, cookies, drinks, toffees, macrons and more will be available, along with (of course) a beer garden, chocolate martini bar, and chocolate fountain, beer garden. As you sample, check out the kids activities, competitions, costumes and “chocolate bingo.” (We’re game.)

Admission: $10 for adults, free for kids 12 and under. Taste Tickets (sampler passes) are another $10 per dozen. The event runs 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 6 at Arapahoe County Fairgrounds, 25690 E. Quincy Ave. in Aurora. Parking is free. cochocolatefests.com

Virtual doors, swinging wide

Friday-Oct. 16. Alliteration alacrity looms large in Doors Open Denver — often your best chance of the year to check out Denver’s architectural and historical gems from the inside out. This year, however, Doors Open Denver is a virtual affair due to producer Denver Architectural Foundation’s search for a new executive director, with 24 featured video tours made available from its archives.

That also means it’s entirely free, along with a pair of new audio tours in the form of Five Points Fortitude, which “showcases the architecture and cultural history of Five Points, the seat of African-American history in Denver. The tour comes in two versions: one for adults and another made especially for families to enjoy together.”

They’re all available for free starting Friday, Oct. 6, at denverarchitecture.org, and running through Oct. 16.

There’s a bRUNch Run for that

Sunday. If you couldn’t tell by the cheeky capitalization, The bRUNch Run is here to both challenge and feed you — in that order. The Sunday, Oct. 8 event — for which registration is still open — offers a 5K, 10K or 15K followed by brunch menu items ranging from French toast and bacon flights to juice and chia bowls, courtesy of Postino 9CO, MyFitFoods, Morning Story, We Knead Donuts, Blackbird and more.

The event is the annual fundraiser for Metro Caring, a hunger resource center that meets people’s immediate food needs, organizers said. If you’re swayed by the swag that comes with registration, there’s plenty: a coffee-scented finisher’s medal, a commemorative YETI tumbler, a brim hat from For the Run, and “unlimited brunch bites and beverages.”

The races take place along the flat paths of Central Park Denver, 8801 Martin Luther King, Jr., Blvd., which make it stroller, wheelchair and dog-friendly. Race waves start at 8:30 a.m., with a Kids Fun Run at 11 a.m. $60-$80 per person. runsignup.com/race/co/denver/thebrunchrun

What year is it, again?

The parallels between Denver’s 2022 and 2023 season openers are downright scary.

New coach making an anticipated debut. An actually pretty efficient Russell Wilson-led offense. Red zone failures. Double-digit penalties. A defense that wilted one too many times. A pesky opposing quarterback new to his West-division team picked to finish at the bottom of the barrel.

Even the final score — 17-16 for the other guys, 363 days ago in sunny Seattle, and again on a cool, rainy Denver afternoon — fits snugly in this Broncos bizarro world.

Make it seven straight for those Raiders against these Broncos.

Make it three straight wins for Raiders Josh McDaniels over the team he once coached.

Make it another game that easily could have served as a jumping-off point for Denver and now threatens to become an anchor.

Make it another year of heading into Week 2 not with a tailwind but instead with one body blow already landed and more accomplished punchers ahead.

Denver head coach Sean Payton has spent the past seven months changing everything about this franchise he could possibly think of, hoping to change the Broncos’ fortunes by sheer force of will.

Instead, more of the same.

“Look, our plate is going to be full every weekend,” Payton said after he watched his offense go three-and-out with a chance to recapture a fourth-quarter lead and his defense allow the Raiders to bleed the game’s final 5 minutes, 8 seconds off the clock.

“The exceptions are the games that aren’t close, really. Playing in these one-score games, in the end trying to get a stop and use the time, obviously it was frustrating they were able to run the clock out. … And offensively we had our opportunities as well.

“Those close games aren’t going away. That’s kind of our league.”

Schematics? Talent? Yeah, they’ll matter over the next 17 weeks. But what Payton has on his hands now is a test fit for a psychologist: Convince this Broncos team, which looked a lot like past Broncos teams over a seven-year playoff drought Sunday, that this time is different.

“We’ve been in this situation too many times, so for us it’s all about finishing,” safety Kareem Jackson said. “Like I said, they finished and we didn’t do enough. We have to be better.”

If that sounds like something that’s been said in the past, check any of the nine one-score losses from last year.

Here’s the thing about parallel tracks, though: They’re not destined to run side-by-side forever. Divergence is possible.

A Week 1 result doesn’t have to preordain what comes next.

“It’s a new year and it’s Week 1,” inside linebacker Alex Singleton said after starting his own season with a team-high eight tackles, a pressure and a third-quarter tip that led to a Kareem Jackson interception.

“At the end of the day, we’ve got 16 more. It’s not college. You don’t have to go undefeated to make the playoffs. We’ve just got to learn from it, take these early ones and not treat it like the end of a season. It’s not Week 10, not Week 12.

“Every team has to get better. Whoever gets better the fastest will be the best team.”

Denver looked like it had a chance to best the Raiders when Jackson came down with that interception with 2:01 remaining in the third quarter, thwarting a 13-play drive.

Russell Wilson (27-of-34 passing for 177 yards, two touchdowns) then guided the Broncos to a first-and-goal at the 8-yard line, but three straight passes from there netted only three yards and Denver settled for a 24-yard Wil Lutz field goal and 16-10 lead.

Instead of vanquishing demons and a losing streak against the silver and black that dates to Oakland, Vance Joseph’s defense allowed Jimmy Garoppolo to complete four straight passes for 60 yards and put his team right back on top.

From there: a three-and-out and Vegas’ put-away drive. See you Week 18 for a rematch in the desert.

What will the Broncos be at that point? What will they be by Week 6, when they turn around after a bout with the New York Jets and prepare for Kansas City on a short week?

“The entire NFL tries incredibly hard, and it’s a race to see who can get really, really good in these first four weeks,” right tackle Mike McGlinchey told The Post, echoing his head coach last week that the opening of the season is a sprint. “Because of the limited training camp, because of the limited offseason, you’re still trying to catch your stride. We have a huge opportunity to continue to improve, and that’s all it’s about is trying to get better each and every week. It’s not about trying to reinvent the wheel to try not to lose.

“It’s just about getting better at the things we didn’t execute the right way.”

The Broncos aren’t among the NFL’s upper crust when it comes to talent, but that’s not a Week 1 revelation. It’s been clear even after a March free-agency spending bonanza. They’re not entirely outmanned, either. They’re right in the group of teams that can win or lose pretty much any time they take the field.

What ultimately will determine whether this picture plays out like recent renditions on the Front Range, or if Denver can produce a new script, is whether all the talk about improvement precedes actual, on-the-field gains next weekend against Washington and beyond.

“It’s a long season and I feel like we’re going to bounce back,” running back Javonte Williams said. “I feel like we shot ourselves in the foot with penalties, gave up a couple of explosive plays. I don’t think there’s too much that’s going to go into it.

“We’ve just got to shake back, put this one behind us and get ready for the Commanders.”

Sean Payton’s Rocky start

Does the Broncos’ 17-16 loss to Las Vegas in Sean Payton’s first game as head coach portend trouble ahead? Or is it a small bump in the road? Only time will tell. Judging by the debuts of each Broncos head coach since the end of Mike Shanahan’s 14-year tenure in Denver, things could go either way:

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“After a game like that,” the Nebraska football coach said when team staff offered to end his postgame news conference, “I should answer everything.”

Rhule and the Huskers were left humbled by fumbles, self-inflicted blunders and a bludgeoning from the Buffs on Saturday afternoon. Only a literal last-second touchdown slightly saved rival Nebraska (0-2) from maximum humiliation. Instead the final margin was merely 36-14. The Buffs (2-0) even left some points on the field as they pulled away in the second half. It was a thorough rout.

“They’re obviously a super-high-tempo operation, and we knew that coming into it,” quarterback Heinrich Haarberg said. “But they did a good job executing.”

“I thought they made an adjustment, and they just threw a couple balls up on third down that hurt us,” Rhule said, acknowledging Buffs offensive coordinator Sean Lewis. “And the screen game. They went to the screen game because we were kind of showing max. … They’ve got a ton of skill. They’ve got a great young quarterback.”

While Shedeur Sanders emphasized a perceived sign of disrespect that he used as motivation, Rhule and Nebraska players didn’t hesitate after the game to heap praise on Sanders’ 393-yard performance. On third downs in the second half, the Colorado quarterback completed all six throws for 147 yards, one passing touchdown and one rushing touchdown.

“He’s a great quarterback,” Nebraska defensive back DeShon Singleton said. “He knows how to scramble. Find his guys downfield.”

But Sanders’ scramble magic didn’t explain what happened on the other side of the ball. Nebraska’s offense was a procession of unforced errors. The Cornhuskers fumbled four times throughout the course of an ugly morning — the Buffaloes recovered three of them — but the “how” was more troubling than the “how many.”

Two of the four fumbles were dropped snaps by quarterback Jeff Sims. One was a botched handoff. The other was a snap that never reached Sims, because the ball intersected with a fullback in motion before it could reach the QB’s hands. The Huskers were completely out of sync in timing and communication.

“We always talk about not beating ourselves,” receiver Billy Kemp IV said. “And protecting the ball is the main key of that.”

Sims looked more confident in his legs than he was in his arm for most of the game. When Nebraska had flashes of success, it was from pushing aside CU’s front seven and creating massive running lanes.

Rhule thought that his offense was in control in the trenches for the entire first half, but the snap mishaps snapped Nebraska out of its most positive habits.

“I think part of it is just going back and figuring out what it was (causing the fumbles),” Rhule said. “Is it the cadence? Is it the noise?”

In terms of the latter, he chose to debunk that possibility moments later by asserting that CU’s sold-out atmosphere didn’t have any effect on the Huskers. At least, no more than other road environments do. It was the closest Colorado’s rivals came to throwing any shade at the Buffs. There wasn’t much else the Huskers could say.

“I think every game is a big game that we play in,” Rhule said. “When we go on the road, there’s going to be a packed crowd. There was a packed crowd for Minnesota. There was a packed crowd here today and I’m sure when we go on the road next, there will be a packed crowd.”

“Last summer, I saw someone had broken the men’s stroller mile record, and out of curiosity … I looked up (the women’s),” Gracey said. “I was like, ‘I’m pretty sure I’ve already done that, just running around my neighborhood with my kids.’”

She made it official on June 30 at Englewood High School, with her helmeted son Rome riding, breaking the previous mark — held by Sally Onn of the U.K — by over 30 seconds. Her new record is 5 minutes and 24.17 seconds. But the actual process of applying for and verifying a Guinness World Record is a lengthy one. It required plenty of paperwork, the presence of USA Track & Field officials and video evidence to verify the length of the track, system of the timing, and legitimacy of the witnesses to her feat. For Gracey, all that work was a no-brainer and a shining opportunity to showcase a combined love for her sport and her family.

“As a mother runner, I really love that there’s a new approach to parenting where you don’t have to give up your own goals,” Gracey said. “For the longest time in the athletics world, once (female athletes) had kids, that was the end of (their) athletics career. I wanted to show that … it’s important to still have goals and still chase down those goals and to take your kids on the way.”

Running has always been a family affair for Gracey. Summers in her early childhood were spent in Boulder with her father and Olympic athlete Steve Spence as he trained for long-distance races at altitude. As she was approaching high school, she saw the national high school cross country championships on TV and was instantly determined to set foot on that track herself. By the time she graduated high school, she was a four-time Pennsylvania state champion.

From there, the goals set themselves, and Gracey only climbed higher. At Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania, her dad’s alma mater, Gracey won eight national titles and became a professional athlete after graduating in 2008.

“Once I checked off all the boxes and I got to be the most successful that I could in (each) phase, I tried the next thing, and it was the same,” Gracey said. “I had checked off all my goals, I then became a pro right out of college … and I’m racing the best athletes in the world.”

Her athletic career culminated in a top 10 finish as the top American overall at the Boston Marathon in 2016, where her father finished 19th the day she was born in 1990.

All of these professional achievements and progress towards her athletic goals were time-consuming and, according to Gracey, didn’t leave much room for relationships outside her tight training schedule. She says her life didn’t feel truly balanced until the birth of her two sons, Athens, now 5, and Rome, 2. It was then that she was able to introduce her family to her passion for running and include them in her active lifestyle.

“I didn’t really do anything socially … it made me hyper-focus on my running to the extent that I felt like it became unhealthy,” Gracey said. “I’ve thrived a lot more in having a much more balanced lifestyle – having friends, having the kids, having my job.”

Running is still at the core of what she does, but now, it’s not just a reflection of her own personal performance. It’s a bridge to a well-rounded way of life. She runs a coaching business, called Get Running Coaching, where she and another “mother runner” help more than 100 people create personalized training schedules and meet their athletic goals. Much like her own life, running is the center of her business, but at its heart is a holistic understanding of her clients’ lives and goals.

“There’s a science to running, like anything, but I think the art of it is a lot more fun to me than the science – learning about who the people are, and about them as a whole person, not just as a runner,” Gracey said. “I have to build this trust and relationship with them so that they feel comfortable sharing big things that are going on in their life that may be impacting them positively or negatively when it comes to their training.”

Beyond personalized training assistance for aspiring athletes, her love for her sport and her family manifests into a specialized drive to support female runners. She co-authored a book called “Breakthrough Women’s Running” (2022), which, according to Gracey, contains all of the information she wishes she had as she was starting her journey. It combines aspects of her own experience and the insights of female runners around her, including breathing in rhythm, mindfulness exercises, and training in harmony with women’s hormones through the menstrual cycle, pregnancy, and after childbirth.

“I felt like I had to navigate and learn so much on my own,” Gracey said. “At the end of the day, I just wanted female athletes to feel supported by other women, inspired by other women, and recognize that – ‘hey, well, if they can chase their goals, so can I.’”

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Two decades later she was diagnosed with left ventricular non-compaction cardiomyopathy, and 15 years after that she received a new heart. In the five years since the transplant, running helped her discover what she calls the “athlete inside” of her. Three weeks ago she ran the Slacker Half Marathon, 13.1 miles from the foot of Loveland Pass to Georgetown, and on Sunday she will run the Donor Dash 5K in Wash Park.

“Right before my transplant, I couldn’t walk up a single flight of stairs without pausing to catch my breath,” said Ogg, 57. “I couldn’t walk across my living room without pausing. I could no longer go to the grocery store by myself. To go from that — remembering how hard it was to take those first few steps after my transplant, trying to learn to make my legs move again — to running down this massive hill (in the Slacker race) with all of these other people whom I think of as legitimate runners, wow.

“What an incredible thing that I’m only able to do because of a selfless stranger, and the decision they made to donate their organs,” she added.

Ogg doesn’t know the identity, age or gender of her donor. All she was told was that the person was young. “I’ve written to my donor family and shared my unending gratitude with them, but I never heard back,” Ogg said. “And while I would love to know who my donor is, of course I absolutely respect the family’s wishes.”

Ogg was unable to have children because her weak heart couldn’t support a pregnancy. Her condition was diagnosed when she was 36, giving her feelings of validation because it proved she wasn’t lazy after all. It would be 15 years before her condition deteriorated to the point where she was placed on a heart transplant list.

“One Saturday morning, I stood up and walked over to my bathroom sink, and before I made it all the way to the sink, I could feel that I was starting to lose consciousness,” Ogg said. “I grabbed the edge of the counter. My husband was laying in bed and he heard me say, ‘Oh my God, oh my God.’ Then he heard me hit the floor and I died. I was fortunate to have an implanted defibrillator that brought me back to life.”

With her heart racing at more than 320 beats per minute, she was rushed to the hospital, unaware the defibrillator had saved her life. That was late in 2017. She went on a transplant list in March of 2018 and received her new heart that July.

“All those years, people had been like, ‘Hey, how are you feeling?’ and I’d say, ‘Oh, I’m feeling good, I’m feeling great.’ I never felt good,” Ogg said. “I only realized what it felt like to feel good when I woke up with a fully functioning heart for the first time.”

A couple of months after receiving her new heart, she started cardiac rehab and soon joined a gym to gain fitness and strength. When the pandemic hit, she was forced into “serious lockdown” because she was immuno-suppressed.

“I decided to use that time getting into shape,” Ogg said. “I lost a bunch of weight. In 2020 I started hiking, and in 2021 I started hiking a lot more, doing brisk walking.” Early this year she decided to do the Slacker half, in honor of her donor, after a friend suggested they run it.

“I had always wanted to run, I had just never been able to run,” Ogg said. “It was like a bucket list item for me, so I decided to start training for a half marathon.”

When she went to a running store to pick up her race packet, she was stricken with imposter syndrome. She thought, “All these people are real runners. I’m not a real runner,” but she soon realized it was “ludicrous” to feel that way.

“I am a real runner,” she said. “One of the things I so love about the running community is that the community sees me as a real runner, too. Just like everyone, I’m out there trying to get better at it.”

That awakening left her wanting more of the kind of experiences she’d lived without for five decades.

“I had no idea that I had this athlete inside of me,” Ogg said. “Now I do. That athlete woke up, and I don’t want to not be able to do anything. I don’t want to miss a thing. I feel like I lived kind of a half-life for 52 years. I’m trying to make up for all that lost time.”

In Sunday’s race, she will get to connect with other transplant recipients, donors and their families. The Donor Dash, in its 24th year, is organized by the Donor Alliance of Colorado and Wyoming. Spokeswoman Cheryl Talley said organ donors can save as many as eight lives, and save or heal up to 75 others through tissue donation.

“This gives us an opportunity not only to honor the generosity of the heroic donor who made that decision to give the gift of life but also to celebrate alongside other recipients who are having, like Andrea, this miraculous second chance at life,” Talley said. “She is living it to the fullest, and honoring her donor while she’s doing it.”

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The popularity of Golden’s New Terrain Brewing Company tap room and beer garden among runners, hikers, cyclists and mountain bikers has been fueled almost entirely by word of mouth. And, in at least one case, the sound of live music heard high atop North Table Mountain.

Thomas Eggar discovered New Terrain from a vantage point 670 feet above it while trail running on North Table.

“It was a random Thursday night and I had no idea this place existed,” said, Eggar, 41. “From the top of North Table Mountain, you could hear the faint (sound) of a banjo and drums. I looked down and saw a bunch of lights, a bunch of people.”

Eggar was intrigued, so he ran down to check it out. It happens that New Terrain has a stage with live music on Thursday evenings.

“The trail literally leads you right here,” Eggar said on a more recent visit. “It’s just the perfect place to unwind after a hard run or a hike, grab a beer and some food, and enjoy what Golden has to offer.”

You don’t have to be an endurance athlete to enjoy New Terrain, but its proximity to North Table inevitably makes it a refueling station for those who are.

“You’ll find everybody out here from hikers, runners, triathletes, mountain bikers, avid cyclists,” Eggar said. “That’s the beautiful part of it.”

That was the plan for New Terrain from its inception in 2016, according to Michael Roberts, the brewery’s director of marketing and social media. Owners Josh and Kaylee Robbins picked the location because it’s so close to the eastern access point for the North Table Mountain Park trail system. It’s also adjacent to the Golden Bike Park and a dog park. The motto of New Terrain is “For those who wander.”

“The whole idea of the brewery was to be that Colorado outdoors destination,” Roberts said. “They saw the potential in the land, with it being right next to the dog park, the trail all the way up North Table Mountain, the bike park behind us.”

Specialized Bicycles holds bike demos on the last Wednesday evening of the month, and there are yoga sessions on Monday evenings. A first-time visitor can be taken aback, seeing so many folks at a seemingly out-of-the-way brewery tucked into the Coors Technology Center. The last time they held a Specialized bike demo night, the parking lot (which accommodates 86 cars) was full — as it usually is — and there were at least as many cars parked along the road out front.

Many treat New Terrain as the trailhead for North Table, passing through the New Terrain property en route to the mountain, then stopping for a beer at the end of their ride or run.

“Day one it was kind of, we’re in the middle of nowhere, hopefully people show up,” Roberts said, “and then it just was out of control how many people showed up and continued to show up over seven years. We really haven’t done any advertising at all. During the year this was being built, people coming off that trail, hiking and biking, seeing the brewery (were saying), ‘When are you guys opening?’ It just all built up from there.”

A trail from the back of the New Terrain property leads to the Jeffco Open Space east access trailhead for North Table Mountain Park, which is only a quarter of a mile away. There are two options from that trailhead for ascending the mesa:

• Mesa Top trail: From the Jeffco Open Space trailhead, head north 0.2 miles on the Fairmount trail, then turn left onto the Lithic trail. Climb a series of switchbacks 0.2 of a mile to the North Table Loop. Head north 0.45 of a mile and turn left onto the Mesa Top trail. After climbing about a third of a mile on the Mesa Top trail, you’ll pass through a really cool rock gully with a waterfall. Continue another third of a mile to the top of the mountain. Total distance from the trailhead to the top of the mesa, 1.5 miles one way.
• Cottonwood Canyon trail: Follow the same directions to the North Table Loop, but from there head south and west 0.9 of a mile to the Cottonwood Canyon trail, which leads to the top of the mesa. Total distance from trailhead, 2 miles.

On top of the mesa, the views are wonderful, and there are several trails to explore. You can even take the Cottonwood Canyon trail to its intersection with the Mesa Top trail and take Mesa Top back down to the trailhead.

When you get back to New Terrain after your workout, there are 20 brews on tap, food trucks for lunch and dinner, and lots of folks who may or may not  have had a harder workout than you did.

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