Leadville 100

Well, I gave it a good shot, but didn’t finish this year at Leadville.   As you can see from my splits below, I did very well for the first 50, slowed a little, but stayed ahead of my 2007 pace clear to Halfmoon.   I was still way ahead of cutoffs.

At Halfmoon, my right hip was huring so bad that I just couldn’t run anymore.  I could walk, but it was a slow 3 mph.   After arriving at Fish Hatchery, I was shivering bad and I had lost all my motivation.  I tried to warm up for 90 minutes and then decided to just quit.   No one really tried to talk my out of it.   Of course I now regret it, but no doubt I was injured.   The rain and wind was cold.  It was a pretty miserable night.

 This DNF breaks a string of 17 consecutive 100-mile finishes for me.   You learn a lot from DNFs.   I learned a lot and can do some things different next time.    I’m probably done with Leadville.   The dirt road running at times just got old.   I loved the single-track portions, but when I came to a dirt road, I just lost energy and enjoyment.   Leadville also takes a huge investment to adjust to the altitude.   My altitude training this year seemed to work great, but it took a ton of time.

Here’s how I did