observations from Leadville

I spent a week in Leadville before the 2013 Leadville Trail 100 mile race.  Let me make it clear up front - I was there to watch the race and run some parts of the course, but I wasn't in the race.  I had a great week anyhow, exploring the course and seeing the race itself.

Leadville is a great small mountain town.  After a couple of days I was feeling like a  regular at City on a Hill Coffee Shop, I  ate at High Mountain Pies (pizza) enough times that I had to buy the official t-shirt, and had a steak dinner at Quincy's - twice.  Life is good.  The people are really nice.  I met Bryon Powell of "IRunFar.com" in the City on a Hill coffee shop and got to tell him I really liked his blog.  I mentioned I planned to be on the course at various locations on race day, and he encouraged me to send him some texts or pictures as the leaders came by.  I think I provided some useful reports from my early location up on Powerline hill as the leaders came down.  But reporting later from Twin Lakes aid station as the runners came off the trail and crossed the electronic timing mat was clearly not useful ...it wasn't until a while later - when I had internet access again - that I realize how good the real-time updates were from the official Leadville site, the IRunFar blog and tweets.  The coverage was pretty darn good.  Sorry Bryon if I spammed your texting inbox!  (and I look forward to following your UTMB coverage this weekend).

I think the ideal Leadville training plan would include a couple of weeks in Leadville to get acclimated to running at altitude.  I think altitude is going to affect you two ways - it might cause real physical problems (make you sick), or at a minimum it will reduce your level of performance.  My own reaction this week was mostly that I just slowed down.  But my Leadville training plan would include staying in Twin Lakes for a couple of days and running across-Hope-Pass-and-back at least once.  I'd also make sure to try Powerline both ways, and run around Turquoise Lake.  Even though I wasn't racing, I did a lot of running during the week - here are a few shots of some of the course.

Me - after running up and down Powerline (only about a third of the hill is visible)

Hope Pass from the Twin Lakes side

Hope Pass - wind will cool you down fast as you go over the top

Running back down to Twin Lakes a ran into the Hope Pass aid station team coming up with a pack of llamas carrying supplies for the aid station.  Quite a sight!

Llamas hauling supplies up for Hope Pass aid station

Going down the trail later in the week on the Winfield side, I saw about eight mountain sheep cross the trail just ahead of me (by the time I fumbled my camera out they were gone though).

The start on race day was 4:00 a.m. - pretty early.  I enjoyed seeing Scott Jurek at the starting line before the race.  There were quite a few runners who wanted a picture taken at the start with Jurek and he wasn't turning anyone down.  It must be a distraction for him, taking his focus off the start ... I just don't think the other favorites were having the same sort of demands  made on them.  Jurek may have become the unofficial Ambassador of Ultrarunning in the US, the face of the sport.  He's doing a fine job of it.

After the race started, I had breakfast, then headed out to Powerline.  I climbed about a third of the way up the hill and waited to watch the leaders coming down that hill.

Scott Jurek coming down Powerline

Next I spent quit a bit of time at Twin Lakes, watching the leaders come through on their way up Hope Pass, and then eventually seeing the leaders returning after making the turn-around in Winfield and coming back over the pass.

For the finish, I walked from the finish line toward Turquoise Lake, until I decided I didn't really want to be that far out in the dark.  So I was getting back towards the finish line when Ian Sharman passed me on his way to winning the race in 16hrs 30 min.

Ian Sharman and pacer, about half mile from finishing in first place

There is a huge difference in what the elite runners are doing and what the run-to-beat-the-cutoff runners are doing.  For example - when Scott talks about leaving the 100 miler scene and making a 24-hour record attempt he's talking about running much longer races.  I think the runners just trying to beat the cutoff times just aren't as fast or efficient as the elite runners, and might need to adjust their nutrition planning to account for the time they are going to be doing... gels are interesting but it might be better to just stop for a couple of real meals sometime during the 30 hours.  To think that the spaghetti dinner you had the night before the race has much to do with powering you to the finish almost 40 hours later is crazy ...

I had a great week in the mountain, watching a lot of great runners, and getting to think about running all the time.  Life is good!

Keep your feet under you ...