Run August 19-20, 2023
As I crested Hope Pass in the dark, two consolations soothed me. One was that I had seen the entire course and done both sides of Hope; in short, I knew what it was to run Leadville. The other was that the afternoon storm that delayed my outbound trip had passed and now I was actually looking down at stars on the cloudless horizon. I would not finish, but the experience was full.
I genuinely thought I could let Leadville go after that run in 2017, but I was wrong. I went back every summer after that. Not to run the race, but simply to be part of the town and running community I had grown to love. In 2020, I even ran the “fake” race, with a few dozen of us lining up at 6th and Harrison at 4AM to mourn the cancellation of the real race and run a good bit of it on our own. Last year, I decided it was time to stop pretending the race didn’t have me in its grip and run it again.
Unlike 2017, I didn’t have a qualifier and, at the very upper end of the 10-year age group, was pretty sure I wasn’t fit enough to secure one, so I spent a weekend volunteering at Silver Rush last summer. That, and a contribution of hours from the Lindroth sisters of Ten Junk Miles gave me enough to secure a spot from the lottery. I came out for a couple weeks in June to do some high-altitude training plus put in some more hours at the Marathon in case one of my crew wanted to run next year (the chances of getting in through the lottery without volunteer hours are exceedingly low).
Having solved the problem of getting in, the next puzzle was to figure out what really went wrong in 2017. A lot of it was simply inattention. I’ve never had to worry about time cuts in the Midwest and I just didn’t realize I was getting into trouble. That said, I really did go to pieces on the return trip over Hope, so going faster to stay ahead of the cuts might have been paid back with interest and still left me late at Twin Inbound. I note that there were two places where I had to walk that I would have thought I’d run. One was the (paved!) road into Outward Bound and the other was the traverse into Winfield. The common thread: both sections came immediately after brutally steep descents. I try a couple training runs where I run down both Powerline and the south side of Hope and assess how I feel. Then I try just hiking down them. Hiking is only a few minutes slower and, in both cases, I feel much better at the bottom. While it seems intuitively nutty, I decide I really should walk these descents; they just tear up my legs too badly at speed.
There’s no guarantee that such a small change will make the difference, but it’s the best I can come up with. So, I also adopt a strategy that many Leadville veterans recommend: make Twin Inbound the finish line. Yes, there are still 38 miles and two mountains to go, but everybody seems to agree that if you make the 18-hour cut at Twin you can probably walk it in if you have to. Since most of my Midwest 100 results are around 20 hours, that basically means taking it out at “normal” 100 effort and pretending I’ll be done in a “normal” time rather than the 27-30 hours I’m expecting for Leadville.
I head to Colorado with one of my crew, Bill Langton. He was my sole crew in 2017. This year, I’ve added Frank Evans as well so they can double as pacers. We leave the day after my 60th birthday (new age group!) and spend a couple days in Fort Collins hiking in the 7-8,000 foot range before moving up to Copper (Bill struggles a bit more than me with altitude acclimation and I don’t mind a few less days above 10K because I’m still feeling pretty good from the trip in June). After a week in Copper, I head into Leadville itself to stay at the hostel there for the final week before the race. Frank arrives a few days later. We had a planning meeting back in St. Louis which we augment over dinner Thursday refining things.
I set my alarm for 3AM Saturday but don’t need it. Most of the hostel is running or crewing, so everybody is up. I walk down to the start and am in the corral by 3:45. Frank is there to send me off (a mistake, as it turns out; he misses the first wave of shuttles and doesn’t get to May Queen until a few minutes before my arrival). At 4AM the Ken Chlouber fires the shotgun and we’re off.
The first four miles are somewhat downhill on dirt road, so it’s no surprise that they go by at sub-10-minute pace. After climbing the dam up to Turquois Lake, it’s another nine miles out to the first aid station. Paul Schoenlaub pulls up beside me and we chat a bit. Paul is last year’s M60+ winner and though he says he’s not on form this year, I’ve learned to not believe that; I can’t count how many times he’s passed me in the closing stages of a race. I take his presence as a good sign that my early pace is appropriate. I get to May Queen at 6:15, which is almost exactly my split from 2017. Frank grumbles about the shuttles as he hands me some food, drink, and my poles.
The next section is my first opportunity to make time against my previous effort. I don’t know why, but I was incredibly sleepy going up Sugarloaf pass in 2017. I generally don’t take any caffeine the morning of an ultra, preferring to save the hit for later in the race. Armed with a Mt. Dew from Frank, I make good time up the climb this go round and, despite walking down the steep part of Powerline, I jog into the Outward Bound station at 8:37, a full fifteen minutes ahead of 2017. Bill and Frank are ready for me as I texted them from the road. Frank takes my poles prior to entering the aid and Bill walks alongside me into the big field to get food and water replenished without me having to actually stop at all. Bill also attaches an air tag to my water belt in hopes it will help them keep track of me, but it turns out not to work very well due to poor reception.
The Arkansas River valley is quite wide and treeless. That, combined with the fact that you can clearly see Hope Pass 15 miles in the distance, makes it feel like you’re not moving very fast. However, I’m actually on sub-20 pace thanks in part to some very comfortable running weather. That said, the sun is out now and, while the temperature is cool, there just isn’t much atmosphere to mitigate the rays, so it feels hot. I try to measure my pace and take a few walk breaks, but the 1000’ of climb to get over the side of Elbert is spread out over ten miles, so I run almost all of it. I get to Twin at 11:33, now 45 minutes up on 2017’s effort and still on sub-20 pace. Of course, that’s about to change.
Bill and Frank haven’t set up a tent, but many crews have. As crewing an ultra is always a non-partisan affair, I’m invited to stand in the shade of one of them while we get everything set for the crucial effort ahead. As well as the usual food and drink, I also don my water vest (which has emergency clothes packed as well) and take back my poles. The crew area is spread over nearly a quarter mile and walking through it is a great emotional lift. Bill and Frank follow me all the way to the trailhead out of town and I am off. The success of the effort hangs almost entirely on the next 24 miles, and I will face them alone.
The field between Twin and Hope is drier than usual. Only the stream crossing is wet (normally, there’s a fair bit of goopy or submerged trail leading up to it). As a result, I get to the base of Hope at mile 40 at exactly noon. There isn’t much point continuing to compare splits to 2017. This is obviously a different effort. Either I’ve taken it out way too fast and will pay dearly, or I’m just having a really good day and this thing is going to get done.
The first few miles up Hope argue for the former. My legs do not have the push that I was expecting and I don’t want to overuse the poles since I’ll be needing them a lot more on the return trip. The climb abates somewhat approaching tree line and by the time I get to the Hopeless aid station, I’m moving well again. I only stop long enough to fill a bottle and then press on to the top, taking in the majestic view of the Collegiate Mountains (with Mt. Missouri center frame) at 1:52PM. Sticking with the plan, I jog the top part of the descent easily and then switch to hiking on the insanely steep section to the bottom. A few runners pass me from behind and some elites are coming back the other way, but I generally don’t get in anybody’s way. It’s definitely less crowded than last time which I guess is to be expected since I’m considerably further up the field. Also helping is the fact that pacers are no longer allowed at Winfield, so it’s individuals, not pairs coming the other way.
Despite my best laid plans, I find that the traverse into Winfield is just enough uphill that I can’t run it well. Fortunately, I’m far enough ahead of the cuts that I don’t panic over that and just hike it quickly. The last mile or so into the aid station is downhill and I jog in easily, getting there at 3:46. My hope (pun somewhat intended) was to be out of Winfield by 4, so I take a few minutes to sit in the shade and get some food down before tackling the section that was my prior undoing.
After hiking up to the traverse, I find that I can run it the other direction. Of course, that was true in 2017 as well. As I hear the cowbells from the spectators standing at the bottom of the climb, I wonder, will it stop me in my tracks again? And, if it does, is my cushion enough to survive it?
To fully appreciate my anxiety, one needs to revisit the 2017 ascent of South Hope. I’ve had lots of races go in the tank. But, only once have I been stopped cold in a running race. And, it wasn’t the time I broke a bone in my foot; I managed to limp in on that one. Or, the time I tore an adductor; I hopped to finish for that one. It was South Hope. I was less than ten steps into that climb in 2017 when I simply could not make forward progress. I tried again and collapsed. I sat on a rock for a few minutes trying to grapple with my situation. I don’t think I put more than three or four steps together all the way up to tree line. Take a few steps, rest on my poles. Repeat. Throw in some puking from time to time for good measure. As the sun moved behind the peak of Mt. Hope, leaving me with my tiny backup light and out of water, you could have easily convinced me (I nearly convinced myself) that I was going to literally die on the side of that mountain. Nothing has every hit me like that before or since.
So, as I pivot to start the ascent, planting my left pole and right foot up the hill, it is with considerable relief that the left foot and right pole follow without complaint. It’s still slow going – the first mile takes nearly 40 minutes – but I don’t stop even once out of fear that once stopped, I might not be able to start again. Only as I break through the trees and see the trail turn away from the fall line at the first of the 20 switchbacks do I dare take a breather and ingest some food and water for the remainder of the climb.
At 6:31, I reach the pass and can see Twin Lakes below. I’m going to finish the Leadville 100. It’s hard to remember a time I’ve felt such relief.
Of the many advantages of being well ahead of the cut, the most pertinent is that I descend Hope in the daylight. Not that I have a real problem running at night (my light is pretty good and I actually trip less often at night), but psychologically, it’s less demanding. By the time I cross the fields to Twin Lakes, it’s getting fairly dark, but I keep my light turned off just so I can tell Bill that he was wrong about me needing my light. I reach my “finish line” at 8:20, 100 minutes ahead of the cut. While I’m confident that’s enough cushion, I have to admit I’m pretty trashed and tell Bill to expect a lot of walking on the next section.
I spend 20 minutes in the aid station (which is ahead of the mats, so my official split is 8:40); much longer than I’d like, but necessary to tend to a blister and get some food in me. As usual after dark, I’m down to just broth. I feel like I might be low on salt so, rather than noodles in the broth, I go with potato chips. I refill the cup and follow Bill towards Mt. Elbert.
If they really wanted to make sure nobody finished this race, they’d send us over the top of Colorado’s highest peak, but even just hitting the shoulder is much more difficult in this direction. Bill does an excellent job of setting a pace that keeps us even with the cuts without blowing me to bits. It’s refreshing to leave those calculations to someone else and just focus on finishing my broth. After about an hour of climbing, we hit the unmanned Elbert mini-station (which actually exists now – it was mysteriously absent in the morning). I refill my bottle with electrolyte drink, which turns out to be a poor choice as I have a hard time getting it down. Not sure what changed since Friday when I sampled it at packet pickup, but now it tastes terrible. At any rate, it’s getting cool and I’m not low on fluids, so I get by with just little sips.
I had hoped to run the stretch from mini-Elbert to Half Pipe, but I’m feeling pretty delirious and decide that my motor control is such that I should just keep hiking rather than risk a fall on the singletrack. Bill is happy to oblige and lays down a stiff pace that gets us to the station with even more time in hand. Buoyed by that success, we keep the hiking going with just a little running on the road into Outward Bound. It’s 1AM and we’re now a full two hours ahead of the cuts.
The stop is reasonably quick for this late in the race. I take some more broth to go but have a hard time getting anything down. Frank takes over pacing duties and I discard what’s left of my broth just as we hit the final obstacle: the climb of powerline.
The infamous part of powerline is the opening grade, which goes straight up the fall line. That, however, is not really what makes the climb hard. It’s only half a mile long and we power through it well enough. What follows is another four miles of steady climb that seems even longer than it is because we’re moving so slow. Despite being a mathematician by training, I’m not that great at arithmetic and even worse when I’ve been up for 24 hours straight. I begin to panic that our 25-minute miles are giving away our entire cushion. Frank takes it in stride and suggests that we might be able to go a bit faster once we get over the top. At the summit, we are greeted by the unofficial aid station, affectionately known as “space station” both for its proximity to the stars and the oddball lighting and general UFO vibe. My brain is far too scrambled to appreciate any of this; I refill my bottle and we get on our way.
As Frank predicted, once gravity is on our side, we make better headway. We even pick up about 8 minutes by running the flat mile of Hagerman Pass Road in ten minutes before turning onto the Colorado Trail to finish the descent. This last section is very technical and we return our focus to me not getting injured in a stupid fall. We arrive at May Queen at 4:40AM, technically having lost 10 minutes against the cuts, but all the obstacles are behind now, so we’re in fine shape.
We hike most of the trail along Turquois Lake. When we get to the boat ramp with seven miles to go, a time check reveals that getting in under 28 hours is still feasible if we can get running again. The trail past the boat ramp is much smoother and the last four miles are on road (some of it rather rough dirt and uphill, but still road). It seems like a reasonable thing to shoot for.
Running again feels good. We’re not going particularly fast (10-11 minute miles) but the change is stride from hiking is enough that the legs welcome a new motion. Once on the roads, we start passing people. A lot of people. We get a lot of comments to the effect of, “these idiots are still running.” At 400 feet vertical, the climb up to Leadville is hardly a mountain pass, but it still reduces us to a walk on the steep section. We agree we’re probably not going to make it, but when the grade levels a bit, Frank notes that we’re still in the hunt.
He’s also received a text from Bill that I’m in third in M60+ and that the next runner back is Paul. Paul knows me well enough to recognize me from a distance. If he sees me, I’m sure he’ll mow me down once again. Having found a mission, I now really start to push. Frank drops back saying he’ll meet me at the finish. At a mile to go, I’m joined by Eric Strand who has eight Leadville buckles to his name but couldn’t run this year due to illness. He keeps up for a while and then also says he’ll catch me at the finish. Just a few seconds later, Bill is on the side of the road and joins me in a final push to the line. I cross at 27:55:35.
Ken and Marilee are there as always to greet the finishers. While I can’t claim any close friendship with them, they do recognize me from last year when I played the Leadville Song for them, which they seemed to enjoy quite a lot. Frank and Eric arrive a couple minutes later. In retrospect, I think jogging it in and having all four of us finish together would have been a better ending. Unfortunately, slowing down at the finish is just not the way I’m wired. It didn’t even occur to me until after that I might be spoiling a moment by putting results ahead of relationships. Nobody seems too upset about it; I guess that’s who real friends are: people who know you and like you anyway.
It takes a few minutes to confirm my finish place, but I have managed to nab the last trophy M60+. Paul finishes in fourth but has the consolation of being the oldest finisher of the race (he’s 64). In the larger field, I’m 161 of 826 starters. Given the stature of the race as one of the Grand Slam of North American 100’s, this amounts to one of my best results ever.
Was it perfect? No, 100’s never are. But it was a really good showing and I can now very happily leave this race alone. But I will surely return to Leadville in some capacity. Maybe to crew, maybe to pace, maybe to volunteer. Maybe to simply look down at the stars from the top of a mountain.
