Terminal Velocity - Murphy, a competitive runner since high school, was an avid user of the exercise app Strava, and he frequently checked the app while traveling to see where locals liked to run.

It was 2 am at Denver International Airport, and Jared Murphy was only a few hours into a planned 17-hour layover. His options at this quiet hour, in the expansive halls of the concourse, were pretty much nil. There would be no nibbling on ahi tartare at the Crú Food & Wine Bar for at least another seven hours, and the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory's signature caramel apples had long since been cached for the night.

- By David Howard

THE PLACE

Gate Change Gnar

THE PORTAL

Strava

THE PROMISE

Race anyone, anytime

It was 2 am at Denver International Airport, and Jared Murphy was only a few hours into a planned 17-hour layover. His options at this quiet hour, in the expansive halls of the concourse, were pretty much nil. There would be no nibbling on ahi tartare at the Crú Food & Wine Bar for at least another seven hours, and the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory's signature caramel apples had long since been cached for the night.

Some may have looked upon this overnight interval as a welter of halogen-lit misery. But Murphy, a competitive runner since high school, was an avid user of the exercise app Strava, and he frequently checked the app while traveling to see where locals liked to run. In particular, he looked for segments: user-generated pathways, often with notable features a particularly hairy climb, for instance where you can compete to have the best time and be crowned king or queen of the mountain.

Sitting in Terminal B, Murphy opened up Strava on his phone and searched for a segment at the airport. "Sure enough," he recalls, the map showed a few of the telltale orange icons.