This past weekend I did the Leadville Trail 100 (a.k.a the race across the sky). It starts in Leadville, goes around Turquoise Lake, along the Colorado trail to Twin Lakes, then over Hope Pass to the ghost town of Winfield, then after a nice 50 mile warmup, you get to turn around and go back home. It was a lot of fun, I hope to do it again some day.
Here is my race report in case you’re interested:
I knew it was going to be hot when I checked the weather at 3 am and it was already 46. Most days it doesn’t get that warm until well after 9 am. I started the race in a singlet and didn’t ever need anything warmer until about 2 am the next day (and even then only for a couple of miles near the lake)
At Mayqueen (13.5) and Fish Hatchery (23.5) I was about 2 minutes ahead of my estimated times for a 25 hour finish. I was feeling good at that point (mile 24), by mile 25 not so much. After mile 24 the pavement starts for about 3 miles and there is no shade. The sun was out and it was already very warm. Around mile 25 I was thinking that 25 hours would be very unlikely. By mile 30 I was thinking i’m going to have to really work to break 28. At mile 31 I filled up my camelbak w/ powerade at an aid station, but for some reason it tasted terrible to me. By mile 35 I wasn’t sure if I would keep going past Twin Lakes (mile 40). I was way overheated. I was drinking and taking as much salt as I could, but I couldn’t get cool. I’ve felt worse during an Ironman, but in an Ironman I’ve never had a possible 20+ hours of racing left. It was a mentally very tough place to be.
At Twin Lakes my crew had some ice for me. With that in my hat and in a bandana around my neck and a bunch of water to drink I felt a little better. The creek crossing about a mile later felt so good. I stood there for awhile just to cool off. I felt much better for about a 1/2 mile, then I reached the start of the Hope Pass climb and the heat and the climb hit me like a hammer. I’ve hiked that section many times and that was by far my slowest ascent of Hope Pass. I had so many people passing me that I started to think I might be going backwards. At the Hopeless aid station I had some soup and cola, but I was really feeling bad. At that point I was trying not to look too pitiful because I was afraid that if they took my vitals they might pull me.
I made it over the top and finally felt a cool breeze which lasted until the treeline. Even without the breeze it was definitely cooler on the south side of the pass, I shuffled down to the bottom of the pass and then walked the road to Winfield. I reached Winfield (50) in 12:08 which was about 1:20 slower than what I had hoped for. I was in 217th place.
At Winfield I drank a bunch of coke and ate some soup and a ham sandwich. I left Winfield w/ my pacer around 12:20 feeling much better mentally, but still not very good physically. I jogged a little, but because I had eaten so much I didn’t feel very good running, so I still walked a lot of the 3 mile downhill to the trailhead.
The climb up Hope Pass was slow (this is the steep side), and I still didn’t feel good, but having my pacer helped (this was her 5th or 6th year pacing, so she knew what she was doing) and I passed a few people although there were still more people passing me. Once I got above tree line and felt the breeze again I started to feel better and the closer I got to the top the stronger I felt. I ran from the top all of the way to Hopeless (55) passing about 10 people over that stretch. I had some soup and water and started running again. I ran most of the way down and passed a bunch of people. (I’ve become a pretty good downhill runner this year and I knew that section of the trail really well, I think the downhills are probably the hardest thing for a flatlander to train for). I made it to Twin Lakes at 15:30 (it took 4:10 from Twin Lakes to Winfield and 3:10 from Winfield to Twin Lakes, the return was actually much faster than I had estimated even for my 25 hour finish). At this point I was feeling really good. I ate, changed shoes and decided that I was going to try to push as hard as I could to see if I might still break 25 hours.
I felt good hiking the hill out of Twin Lakes . I had estimated it would take about an hour and I made it in 50 minutes. By the time I got to the top it was dark. I started running and was passing lots of people. This was a lot of downhill from mile 63 to 72 and I ran quite a bit of it. When the road flattened out I did a lot run/walking, but I was still making pretty good forward progress. I made it back to the Fish Hatchery (76) at 19:16. I left about 19:25 which gave me around 5.5 hours to cover 24 miles.
The climb over Sugarloaf was rough. My hamstrings were really hurting. I got passed by a few people but was still making relatively good time. Once I got to the top I started running again and passed about 15 people. I made it to the start of the Colorado trail with about 3 hours to cover 15 miles in order to break 25.
About 5 feet into the trail I literally almost fell off the trail (and it would not have been a nice fall, it was very steep at that point). If it hadn’t been for a small tree, my race would have been over right there. At that point it became apparent that my brain and body weren’t communicating very well. This was probably one of the most technical sections of the whole course and I had to take it very slowly just to stay on it. It took me about 40 minutes to make the 2 miles or so to Mayqueen. The combination of pushing so hard for the past 25 miles and knowing that I wasn’t going to break 25 hours, put me into both a mental and physical downward spiral.
I left Mayqueen (86.5) still feeling pretty bad. It was a lot of walking/shuffling. It took me 2 hours to cover the next 5.5 miles. Around mile 92 all the food my pacer had been forcing me to eat started to kick in and I began to feel a lot better. I started running a little bit more and even passed a few people who had passed me earlier. By mile 94 I was feeling really good. Once the sun started to come up around mile 98 I felt great. Crossing the finish line was indeed an awesome experience. I finished 82 overall (I was 81st at Mayqueen) and am very happy with my race, especially the second half.
Recovery has been going well. The hamstrings were really sore the day after and my toes were really achy for about 2 days. I’m going to lose one or two toenails, but things are mostly feeling pretty good.
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