Life at 10,200

I’d been putting off looking into the details of tomorrow’s trail marathon until the last possible moment. I guess that was my way of avoiding the stress that knowing the course would bring. This morning, with the race less than 24 hours away, I figured I finally needed to quit putting it off.

The race goes up to the top of Mosquito Pass, which I heard someone telling my parents was too steep to drive up in anything but a Jeep. There’s a 2,000 foot climb from 11,200 feet to 13,200 in under three miles. On the way there and back, we do a loop around Ball Mountain which takes us over to over 12,000 feet. All together, there’s 6,333 feet of elevation gain. I know it’s going to be really tough, but I’m having trouble visualizing what that’s going to actually feel like.

In addition to the maps, I checked last year’s results. The winner ran a ridiculous 3:32:40, but the times quickly fall off from there with only 5 people finishing under four hours and 38 (out of 267 overall) under five hours. I think that will be my goal for tomorrow — to go sub-5. It seems strange that my target pace for this marathon will be significantly slower than my 50 miler.

We planned out all the spectating and I’m going to have support all along the course. Helen and her friend Kristy are going to run out to Aid Station A before the race. I’ll see them four times (twice on the way out and twice on the way back — the aid station sits on the loop of Ball Mountain). My mom, dad, and sister will see the start and then drive up to Aid Station B where they’ll get to see me on the way out and back, before driving back to the finish. I feel very lucky to have such a supportive group willing to spend their Saturday morning out on the side of a mountain waiting for me to run by.

I’m definitely nervous for the run, but I feel like I’m about as prepared as can be. I’ve been in Colorado for eight days now and up in the mountains since Tuesday. Helen flew in Monday night and we headed up to Green Mountain Reservoir for a bit of camping the following morning. Then on Wednesday, we drove a little further up the road to Leadville and met up with my parents. And we’ve been here ever since.

I’ve gotten some solid training runs at elevation in. We did 5 miles here in town (at 10,200 feet) on Wednesday. The elevation definitely slowed us down, but it didn’t seem unbearable. Yesterday, we met up with Kristy and did a 7.5 mile run on trails around a gorgeous lake also just over 10,000 feet. Then, this morning, we headed up to about 12,000 feet in the Jeep and were planning 3 or 4 miles, but a surprise lighting storm cut that short. That was probably for the best anyway, though — I’ll need as fresh of legs as possible for tomorrow’s adventure.

I’m ready for it. Scared, but ready.