The JJW Blog

Leadville 100

Renee and I went to the Leadville 100 this weekend to soak up the race atmosphere and to get some friend time in with a few new and old friends.

This was my second time to get up close with Leadville or any ultra.   A couple of years ago I had the privilege of pacing a 9 time finisher in from Fish Hatchery to a 26 hour finish at 6am. That man, named Bill (I forgot his last name), taught me a lot about the optimum makeup for enduring that race.  Bill was  gritty, personable, positive, and uhh loved running a lot.  It’s a pretty simple make but my take on it is that if you dont’ have all those characteristics in abundance you probably can’t survive something as challenging as the Leadville course.

For those of you who don’t know, Leadville is a 100 mile race through the mountains of Colorado that competitors must finish in under 30 hours (they start at 4am on race day).  Once you start to grasp what this means, simply that finishers must keep moving relentlessly for this amount of time, you start to realize how brutal 100 milers can be.

Ever since my first encounter with the race I have wanted to keep in contact with the race, and learn more about it.  This year I wanted to go down to watch a few friends compete, perhaps pace, let my daughter Renee see the race, and hopefully get some good training in for Imogene.

Just watching that race is kind of epic.  Renee and I settled down at Twin Lakes at about 11 am to watch the pack of racers come through at miles 40 and 60.   We we early enough to get good parking but just missed the top 3 leaders coming through, Anton, Tim Parr and Duncan Callahan.  I regaled Renee and my friends with stories about the “Jesus” runner, Anton Krupicka,  so they were happy to nestle into Twin Lakes to wait for his soon return across Hope Pass and back through Twin Lakes, an appropriate thing to do for a runner nicknamed “Jesus”.  (I should mention that I find the “Jesus” moniker a bit naiive for what Anton communicates through his persona and am a bit ashamed that I use it).

Soon I felt myself pulled into the drama of the race forcefully.  I am always an active spectator of any race but Leadville offers another form of participation that is irresistible for someone like me, pacing.  Pacing is where you run with a Leadville competitor for some section of the race after 50 miles, to set an actual hiking or running pace, to carry food and water (to be a packhorse), and most of all to offer some encouragement over the challenging last 50 miles of the course.  I was dreaming/hoping to pace later in the night but found myself confronted with a quick opportunity when I overheard a runner asking his crew member whether he had found a pacer for the section back over Hope Pass.  Before I knew it I was volunteering and telling Renee to wait for me and I would be back across the mountains later in the afternoon with my runner, #205, Kevin.

When you pace a stranger at Leadville you are quickly thrust into a year or longer very personal goal.   This might feel strange to some, but I like it, because you get to know somebody very quickly.   I drove over to Winfield with Kevin’s one and only crew member, Todd, to wait for Kevin.  The course of questions was typical.  Where are you from and why are you here to race Leadville.  The answers were a bit unexpected, Kevin was from Atlanta and was coming to Leadville to race his first 100 after a series of accomplished 50 milers.   An newbie flatlander sounded disappointing at first, but Kevin proved to have respected the race enough to prepare for it adequately with 100 mile weeks, lots of local hill training (“run on Kennesaw so I can walk on Hope” was his training mantra)  and a very detailed plan for race day includling putting these great race plans on each water bottle with expected cutoff times, paces, and cumulatives times for each aid station to use as a barometer for his crew and pacer.   I was happy to join in to help complete such a planned and respectful effort.

Kevin came into Winfield 30 minutes behind his schedule, which was calibrated to I think a 25 hour finish, so he had plenty of buffer.   That was impressive because Hope Pass can destroy even well prepared runners.  Kevin was jogging (a good sign) as I approached him to inform him that I was now on his team and would pace him at least over Hope Pass.  I was happy to get into the race and see him over Hope Pass and I knew the return climb was going to be very difficult for him.  He claimed that he was climbing well but that his knee was really bothering him on the descent and he was descending very slowly.  Since there are significant flat portions on return trip to Leadville, if we could just get him back over Hope Pass without too much damage, he had a chance of finishing his first ever Leadville and first ever 100 miler, an impressive feat.

We left Winfield about 3 and headed over Hope Pass.  This was the first time I had seen that famed section of the LT100, a 10 mile section over an 12,500 pass.  Yesterday was the hottest day on record at the race, and it was quickly evident that the hot exposed pass was probably killing more runners than usual.  Runners who were still descending as we ascended looked for most part totally demoralized and few were puking or staggering.    Kevin however greeted every single one with some encouraging word or joke.  ”I was just there buddy, keep it up.”   “I looked worse than you believe me”.  ”We are flying now, keep it up.”  ”Good job man.”    You learn a lot about somebody when you join up with them in a partnership at hour 12 of one of their biggest challenges of their life.  Kevin was not just a “me” person, he really cared about others on the trail.  And every time there was a potential “ego” situation he bypassed it.  ”Is your knee ok, you might not be drinking enough” came a quick assessment from somebody passing us.  Instead of being pissed off at the unasked for advice, Kevin replied “Pacer, are you taking notes?”.

Kevin had weighed in 9 pounds lighter at Winfield then the start of the race and worried that they might make him drop at a later aid station we were following a regimen of taking 2 to 3 big drinks from his bottles every 10 minutes.  He was definitely somebody who could stomach lots of liquids.  We climbed at a steady pace and made it the famous llama grazing Hope aid station in 2:15 minutes, just off the 2:06 time Kevin had predicted.  We then descended gingerly back to Twin Lakes.

I struggled with my own emotions.  I wanted to fully engage with Kevin’s race and really partner with him but I knew that I would probably have to leave him at Twin Lakes because Renee would need a father again.  I couldn’t ask my friends to put her down in the tent and that Daddy would be home at 6am.  She probably would be ok with this but it just seemed too much to ask.   I was already feeling guilty about dumping Kevin at Twin Lakes.  But I knew that this race was not about me and my feelings of guilt, I needed to be best pacer I could for Kevin until I left him and couldn’t dump any negative energy into an endeavor that required vast amounts of positive energy and support to complete.

As we entered Twin Lakes Kevin and I did a 2 minute on, 1 minute off, running walking regimen, something I head read was good todo for a pacer to keep their runner moving and Kevin liked it.  As we entered Twin Lakes I was amazed at the outpouring of good will from the cheering crowds.  I knew Kevin would be in good hands with everybody cheering him on so I raced ahead to alert Todd that Kevin was coming in and make sure everything was ready to go.  I was also happy to run, because pacing is excruciatingly slow for somebody as fit and primed to run as I am right now.  As soon as I entered Twin Lakes, there was Renee waiting for me.  ”Daddy!”, I was so happy to hear it and she grabbed my hand and we ran together for a bit.  I told her I would be right back and I spent the next 15 minutes getting Kevin out of Twin Lakes, trying to find another pacer, and telling Kevin the depressing news that I wouldn’t be able to pace him over the next section.   Todd and I watched Kevin climb the steep Twin Lakes hill back into the Leadville 40 mile trail home and I felt awful for not being able to go and help him.   I knew he had a great chance of finishing because he was so well prepared and had such a great attitude.

I didn’t find out until 9am the next morning when Renee and my friends and I went into Leadville for breakfast after sleeping all night while the pack of runners ran through the night, that Kevin made it all the way until 15 miles short of his goal and almost finished!  It was a very impressive 85 mile effort on his first Leadville attempt.  I haven’t found out exactly what happened yet through the night but I can’t wait to hear the story when I email Todd later.  I know Kevin has a great chance of completing this race on his next try, damn he almost did it on his first with no experience with the course, and training from Atlanta.

Renee, my friends and I watched the first place winner come in at 9:30 pm after dinner.  And in the morning we watched the final finishers come in just before the 10am shotgun announced finish.  Tears welled up in my eyes (no big deal, I cry easily) as I watched these tough warriors complete their 30 hour quest.   People of all different types, ages, and sizes, but with a common fitness level, that unique blend of physical and emotional fitness needed to complete such an event,  gave one final run across the line to the cheers of the crowds, and into the arms of family.   Renee watched in intently wanting to know every detail of people who we knew (I was tracking a few friends) and soaking up the energy of the course.   Renee is a special caring person and so she quickly empathized with the effort of the race participants as did all my friends.

As I reflect on the race, I know that in the new few years I want to try it and that I want to be racing like that a lot after Renee graduates from school and I am in my forties.  Whether it is adventure racing, adventure trekking/mountain biking, or ultrarunning, there are big multi-day, “bottom-of-the-well” experiences ahead of me.  I want to be “fit” enough to meet these challenges, patient enough to see them through, and as caring about my teammates and fellow participants as the ones I saw at this weekend’s LT100.