GLENWOOD SPRINGS — Snowboarder Louise Marron hit a kicker Sunday morning as she crossed the finish line on her sixth and final lap at 24 Hours of Sunlight, finishing the event with a jump.

The crowd cheered, welcoming her in, but for a reason totally unknown to the 27-year-old Glenwood resident: Her boyfriend, Sean Shuman, was waiting at the bottom and had announced his intentions to propose when Marron arrived.

He dropped to one knee to give her the ring, she dropped to both knees in exhaustion, and - through a few tears - Marron said yes.

"I thought everyone was just cheering for my big air," said Marron, who competed as one of five members on the Ute City Cychose team.

Their success story was one of many this weekend at the second annual event at Sunlight Mountain Resort. More than 170 skiers, snowboarders, split-boarders, snowshoers and runners competed in the event - quite a boost from the 100 competitors last year. Twenty men and women attempted the event solo, and 38 teams undertook the challenge. All together, the racers combined for a distance of 1,880.2 miles.

"The three organizing entities, Granny Gear, Real Time Marketing and Sunlight, we are all benefiting from the learning curve last year," said event founder Laird Knight, owner of Granny Gear. "That made a huge difference. I fully expect 80-100 teams here next year. Everybody had a blast."

Glenwood renaissance man Mike Schnieter, who along with winning the Day of Infamy Snowshoe race, finishing in the top five in the Colorado Ski Mountaineering Cup at Sunlight and coaching the Glenwood Springs High School cross country team, may have achieved his best accomplishment yet - a world record. On his split-board, which splits like skis to ascend and comes together like a snowboard to come down, the 31-year-old completed 24 laps, for a total vertical gain of 36,048.

"I had a great time. It was hard ... You just go and go and go. The pace is unrelenting," Schnieter said. "The night was really hard, really cold, but there was a beautiful full moon."

Schnieter crushed Jonathan Baker's 2006 mark of 20,215 human-powered vertical feet in 24 hours.

"I don't have a really good ski racing set up of my own, so I thought if I was going to do the splitboard, I might as well see how many laps I could do and maybe break the record since it was out there. Why not?" he said. "I really just wanted to get 24 laps and it turned out to be enough."

Skier Greg Hill defended his men's solo title, recording 32 laps for 48,064 vertical feet, but fell short of breaking his world record of 51,100 vertical feet in 24 hours. Although Hill logged the same number of laps last year, this year's course was slightly shorter.

Polly Samuels-McLean also repeated her victory from 2006 in the women's solo division, circling for 11 laps but couldn't up her world record either because of the shorter course.

Changing the course from last year's up-and-down Beaujolais to having separate uphill and downhill tracks allowed more room for competitors. That, along with sunshine and higher temperatures, made the event more enjoyable for competitors, support groups and spectators.

Bernie Boettcher, who, along with the four other members of the local Forty-somethings team, won the five-person open division, thought the new setup helped. Boettcher completed 35 laps for 52,570 feet.

"I liked that they didn't have people going down the same hill they were going up. That was huge," Boettcher said. "That was a big difference. It made it a lot safer I think."

Another local team combined for the most vertical feet in the whole event, as Mike McCoy, Dave Weidmann and Bob and Michael Lowe of Flippin' Sweet Moves covered 58,578 feet by doing 39 laps.

Proving they could still not only keep up at 55 and older, but also take 18th overall, Men at Their Peak team members Scott Fifer, Dave Sheriff, Bob Pattillo and Tom Sullivan totaled 28 laps for 42,056 feet.