Leadville Trail Marathon & Firecracker 5K

On Saturday, I barely went sub-5 in a marathon, yet I was more proud of that result than the times I’ve gone sub-3. I didn’t go out too fast, I finished strong and, all in all, I ran a really smart race. It was just that this happened to be a brutal race. The Leadville Trail Marathon was such a completely different experience than any of the other marathons I’ve run that it seems strange that they even share the same word. Only two guys were able to go sub-4 and my 4:58:57 was good enough for 31st place out of 327 finishers. I’ll take it.

There were a couple other runners staying at the same bed and breakfast as us. We all chatted a bit in the morning and ate our various breakfasts. For me, that was just saltines and Gatorade — I didn’t want to risk any digestive issues. After breakfast, I headed over to the start with Helen, my parents, and my sister. We saw Helen’s friend Kristy and they took off running for the first of the aid stations while I nervously waited around the start area with my family. It’s been a long time since I’ve had butterflies before a race this bad. I just had no idea what was in store for me and was more than a little nervous.

Finally, they announced the start with the firing of a real shotgun into the air and we were off. Uphill. I let a bunch of people pass me, but still got a little too caught up with the excitement of the start and ran an 8:32 first mile. The pavement gave way to trail and the slight uphill turned into a serious climb. Miles 2 through 6 averaged about twelve minutes each. I saw Helen and Kristy cheering on the side of one of the hills and was a little embarrassed that I was already hiking instead of running. But there was just no choice.

The next couple miles were my favorite of the entire race. The course flattened off as we did a loop around the backside of Ball Mountain. We were at almost 12,000 feet and the views were absolutely incredible. We were running through patches of snow and looking down over huge valleys and onto the tops of clouds. Watching the other runners wind up the single track trail in front of me was almost surreal. I was running near 7:30’s here and saw Helen again at the aid station before descending the mountain.

At the bottom, my parents and sister were waiting at the aid station to cheer me on. I was tired, but surviving. However, seeing Mosquito Pass in front of me was seriously stressing me out. Turns out, that stress was warranted. We climbed from just over 11,000 feet to almost 13,200 in less than three miles. Obviously, I wasn’t running, but still these were the toughest miles of the entire marathon. My splits were 15:18, 20:04, and 20:18 on the way up. I couldn’t help but thinking how ironic it was that I was clocking miles slower than my 5K splits in Boston. My body kept telling me to just stop, but I fought through it, looking down at how far I’d already climbed and realizing that if I had come that far, I could keep going.

Finally, as I got close to the top of Mosquito Pass and my saw my Garmin’s altitude reader click over to 13,100, I saw the first of the guys I had been running with beginning to descend. They all gave me as much encouragement as they could muster in their own exhausted states and it really helped. The camaraderie out on the course was amazing. After reaching the top, I had trouble filling my water bottle at the aid station because my hands were so numb. I wasn’t sure if that was because it was so cold and windy up there or if it was something more serious. I didn’t have much time to dwell on it, though, because it was soon time to begin the descent that would be even more painful than the climb up. It was so steep that you couldn’t really open up and you were constantly applying the brakes to keep from landing on a rock the wrong way and falling down the mountain. Later, at the finish, I saw several runners coming in cut up and bloody. I’m guessing a lot of that happened here. My splits were 10:50, 9:14, and 8:40, some of the slowest downhill I’ve ever done, I’m sure. Still, it chewed up my quads and I was destroyed by the time I got back down to the bottom and saw my family. I was concerned that they would worry that I was about to die, but later they told me that other runners were actually looking even worse than me so they didn’t worry too much.

Most of the climb back up Ball Mountain was power hiking again. I was passed a couple times and passed others too. It seemed so strange that the marathon had transformed into a non-running event at this point. Helen met me about an eighth of a mile from the top and ran back to the aid station with me. I told her that I was dying, that I had nothing left, but she said that others were worse, that they were staggering, that I could finish strong and catch them. She also told me that I was in 36th place at that point. I was worried that someone might see us running together and DQ me for having a pacer so asked her not to run with me anymore (although I now think this was just my exhausted brain being paranoid.)

I did the loop around Ball Mountain again but hardly even noticed the breathtaking scenery this time. It was all I could do just to keep putting one foot in front of the other. I passed a couple guys out there that were walking on the downhills and flats just because their legs were so badly beat up. I finally got back into Helen’s aid station with a group of other guys and loaded up on Powerade in preparation for my final descent into Leadville.

I looked at my watch and saw 4:20, then did the math and realized that I’d have to do under 10 minute miles to finish with my goal of sub-5. That sounds like it should be cake, especially since it was almost all downhill, but at the moment it seemed impossible. A runner next to me was talking about sub-5 but I told him that it was out of reach for us, that there was no way we could get it.

The trail was full of rocks and demanded caution but somewhere along the way, I decided that my quads were already so trashed that there was no point in holding back anymore — I was going to run down this mountain as fast as I possibly could. Then, when I got to mile 24, I realized I’d have to pick it up even more. Luckily, by then, the trail had gotten smoother and Helen was leapfrogging me, snapping photos and yelling out encouragement. I opened up as much as I could and somehow managed a 7:32 mile followed by a 6:47! I crossed the finish line, saw the four as a first digit on the clock, smiled, and then nearly collapsed in front of my family. I had spent everything I had out there.

The owner of the bed and breakfast handed me a beer and I very happily accepted it. I hung around for a while, chatting with other finishers and trying to catch my breath. I saw on the results that I had finished in 32nd place (the final online results show 31st…) We all headed back “home” for showers and then we were off for another full day of lunch, frisbee, beer drinking, and walking around the town. By the time night rolled around, I was completely exhausted. But that wasn’t the end of my racing weekend…

We had seen flyers around town for the Firecracker 5K on Sunday morning. I thought it would be fun to run it with Helen and my little sister. So, we woke up early and headed out to the town center to register. My warmup jog was very painful so I decided to take it really easy during the race. The first mile was all downhill, but I held myself to a 6:19. By the time my Garmin beeped, I was in fourth place, but then we started climbing and I slowed down a lot. I kept expecting somebody to pass me, but no one ever did. I passed a guy walking a llama which made me smile and momentarily think of something other than how bad I was hurting. The loop finally brought us back to the town’s main street and a little downhill where I was able to pick up the pace a bit again. In the end, nobody ever did catch me and I finished fourth overall, a little over three minutes behind the winner. Helen finished less than a minute behind me to finish sixth overall and first female. We didn’t have time to wait around for the awards, though, because it was time to head down to Denver for our flight home.

All in all, a great week. I feel like I learned a lot from the marathon and from doing so much running at elevation. It brought a new perspective on pain and ways to push through it. I’m pretty beat up now, but I have a feeling I’ll bounce back from this adventure stronger than ever in a few days. Let’s hope so.