Leadville Trail Marathon 2008 Race Report

Yeeehaaaw. That was fun and by far the most difficult marathon I have ever done. Here's how it went down.

BT (left) and me (right) at the start, both still happy.

The weather was clear and the temperatures were in the 50's for the start. I chatted with BT while we were waiting for the start, he was running the Heavy Half and I was running the full marathon.

The two courses followed each other for the first 1.5 miles, but I lost sight of BT within 150 yards, dang he's fast. I eased into my pace and after watching all the ultra-runners around me I employed a walk strategy, walk most of the hills. I found that on the steeper hills when the walk strategy came into play my "walk" was faster than most and I made up time on everyone then. I kept chugging away through the first aid station and felt good. The aid stations were definitely not your typical marathon aid station, these were ultra-running aid stations, a lot of m&ms, PB&J, chips, coke, sprite, etc.

BT rolling through Aid Station B at the base of Mosquito Pass in third place (but really close to second).

My legs were feeling decent considering my effort 8 days earlier, then came the first downhill. Ahhh, this is where I screwed up. My effort on Grays Peak hadn't hurt my uphill performance much, but downhill I was much slower than usual. I descended at a 9:30/mile pace when I usually would've been around 7:00/mile. the course quickly got above treeline and we were going through some interesting historic mining areas. At 10 miles I reached the third aid station and was able to see my friends there. BT also had to go through there and I asked them how he was doing; BT was in second place and had just gone through about 5 minutes earlier on his way back to the start! I was excited for BT, but bummed that I wouldn't see him on my way up Mosquito Pass.BT coming down Mosquito Pass, now in second place, still no sign of me.

Mosquito Pass was tough, a little over 3 miles and 2000' of elevation up to 13,118'. I ran as far as I was comfortable and then began the power hike. I kept looking for marathoners descending, but only saw the heavy-halfers. Finally the marathoners started trickling down and I began counting. I reached the summit in 54th place, filled my bottle up and grabbed a few potato chips and started down. My descending was now atrocious. The powerade that I had started drinking at mile ten coupled with the the greasy potato chips meant I was having issues. My stomach was cramping a little, a bit nauseous and my legs weren't feeling to up to anything while my stomach hurt. I descended at a blazing 12-13 min/mile pace, pathetic, I was being passed on the downhill.

Late to the party, five minutes later I roll through having taken the longer scenic route.

I reached the next aid station and got rid of all the powerade in my bottle and only went with water. On the next climb I ate the last of my Jelly Belly Sport Beans and downed some water. I was still in a funk when I arrived at the next aid station at mile 19. I kept moving though knowing I was on the home stretch. Then at mile 20.5, after copious amount of plain water and electrolytes the light came on. Literally over a span of about 60 seconds I went from feeling lousy to absolutely fantastic.

BT crossing the finish line, second place in the bag.

I cranked up the pace and I could run decently again. I started to catch some people and kept going. I caught one guy at mile 22 at the end of the last major climb.
"That was the last big climb right?" I said
"Yeah I think so" he said
"Great, I'm going to rip off some sweet 12 minute miles from here on out" I said sarcastically
"Yeah, lay down the hammer man" he continued the sarcasm.

I entered the last aid station renewed, filled my bottle and was gone. I had a mission, I needed 11 minute miles to stay under 6 hours and I wanted to get as many places back as I could. The downhill began and I just let it go. Time to let it rip and see what I had. Well I had a pretty good amount apparently, I easily rapped up to 7 minutes/mile at times. I was passing people and feeling good.

Soon enough I was on the home stretch, BT came up the road to cheer me on and give me the high-five we missed out on at Mosquito Pass. I crossed the line at 5:48:42, not bad for a marathon entirely above 10,000'.

I call this picture, "300 lbs of Speed and Fury". Actually, I'm positive we weigh more than 300 lbs put together.

BT finished in second place, running with the fear of third place nearby the entire time. That was a huge accomplishment considering that he had just come to town from Hawaii a week before.

I showered at the hostel and then went to the dinner where I collected my finishers mug and BT's second place gold-panning pan. I was 65th out of 244 finishers.